Den 27-03-2012 11:44, Hannie Dumoleyn skrev:
Op 26-03-12 17:10, Ask Hjorth Larsen schreef:
Dear translators and documentation people
On Mon, 26 Mar 2012, Timo Jyrinki wrote:
2012/3/26 Jeremy Bicha <jbi...@ubuntu.com>:
I uploaded the potfile for ubuntu-docs tonight and opened up
translations on Launchpad for the precise branch.
What about the ubuntu-docs under /ubuntu/precise/+source/ubuntu-docs -
it'll be updated at the time of actual upload?
For future, do you think that ubuntu-docs under the Ubuntu
translations should simply be not visible until the final template is
uploaded? Or this current system still better? I think one of the
biggest invisible problems in Ubuntu translations making people go
away (if they notice it) is the fact that work is wasted. Most of the
people translating do not know that probably a lot of their
translations will not be used if they've been translating ubuntu-docs
in the last month or so, or even this coming week.
This would not be such a big problem it is today without being
combined with the lack of supporting fuzzy strings in LP. Then when
the docs team do a cleanup of commas, articles or word orders (I'd
assume there is always a bunch of those in addition to total
rewrites), quality translations that would still have a lot value
(either 100% match or something easily fixed to match the new form)
are being lost. This is especially big problem in ubuntu-docs, since
it has long strings, and a single small change anywhere will always
reset a big amount of translated text compared to application UI texts
that are usually much shorter.
With the new precise ubuntu-docs template, I see that while the total
number of strings have stayed roughly the same (+100 strings), the
number of untranslated strings have raised from 358 to 1086. What I
personally will do is:
- now very quickly save the current Ubuntu precise's ubuntu-docs PO file
- when the new ubuntu-docs gets to precise proper, fuzzy match the
downloaded PO file to the new template manually with gettext tools
- in case of simple word order / punctuation / etc changes simply
unfuzzy or make a little fix in the translation
- upload the new PO with "saved" translations back to Launchpad
But I'd estimate that not many of the languages have the luck of
someone doing this work. In the other language teams, there might be
frustrated people noticing that the hard work they've done
(translating ubuntu-docs is really hard work since there is so much of
it) has for a part disappeared.
Not that this would be a new problem of course, but what do you think
about the template hiding idea or do you have any other ideas to help
this problem (other than contributing to LP code)?
-Timo
I apologize in advance for the considerable amount of grumbling below.
But I think we have big problems.
I think Launchpad should be entirely disabled for docs translations.
The lack of fuzzy matching makes Launchpad almost useless for anything
but UI translations. The alternative is to use e.g. a bzr archive to
maintain the translations. This requires more technical knowledge, but
we (translations coordinators) can help individual translators with
it, and actually get the job done. We are qualified to use tools like
bzr, msgmerge and other things to make sure that work is not lost. But
right now I (as a coordinator) am quite powerless to stop the waste of
time. The only thing I can do is to not recommend that people work on
certain things. I cannot even put a big red sticker on the ubuntu docs
page on Launchpad saying "don't translate this". I have only indirect
means of communication (e-mails) around Launchpad. This makes
everything very complicated and not something I look forward to
dealing with.
There is only one thing which is worse than not getting a voluntary
contribution due to it being too difficult, and that is to get the
contribution and then throw it away. Because that contributor will not
come back.
I and others have previously requested fuzzy matching and some other
IMHO essential features on Launchpad, but there seems to be no plans
to implement any of it or even recognize the importance.
So please disable ubuntu docs in Launchpad.
Best regards
Ask
Hello Ask,
I fully understand your grumbling, but for the moment we have to make do
with what we have.
Unfortunately. As long as we just play along "make do with what we've
got" and continue to contribute despite the obvious loss of work and the
apparent disregard for volunteer contributor time, nothing will ever
change (at least if the past 3 years are any indication).
Regards Kenneth
Because I firmly believe in the translation of Ubuntu Desktop Guide, I
translated most of the Oneiric version on LP. And when I click F1 on my
desktop (Oneiric), I am so proud to see that almost everything is in
Dutch now.
Regards,
Hannie
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