[Foundation-l] (Important) Survey translators needed

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
The presentation of the requests for translations is wrong.
The localisation of the MediaWiki messages needs to be done only once and,
they are best done in Betawiki. Doing it this way you ensure that the work
is done only once. The *project *localisation is indeed to be repeated for
each project. A number of methods have been implemented in Betawiki to make
this as little work as possible. The time of out translators of our projects
is probably the most valuable thing that we have... Consider one message
needs to be localised for over 300 languages and is used in possible over
700 wikis. The point here is that Betawiki is a HUGE time saver. It is not
something that is done in addition to everything else.

At Betawiki we do have functionality to translate text as well.. Just check
out what effect changing the language has on the main page of Betawiki.. My
point is that there is a lot of functionality out there that could be used
more extensively.

Yes, there are loads of people asking for help with translation and or
localisation. Yes you are entitled to feel it is not for you. The notion
that people do not care about the amount of time spend by localisers /
translators is manifestly wrong. Their time and effort is with the time and
effort of developers, certainly for targeted operations, the most valuable
resource we have..

When you consider the time of localisers, Nikerabbit wrote a great
comparison between the gettext and the Betawiki approach.
http://nike.fixme.fi/blag/2008/05/29/two-paradigms-gettext-and-mediawiki/

When you consider new projects like Erik's request for cooperation, they
show the extend whereby translation is found to be a smooth process,
apparently we do not have this process running because I am certain Erik
would otherwise have used this process.

Both translation and localisation are non trivial jobs. They take a lot of
work to set up and maintain when a large group of languages and volunteers
are needed. I think there is ample scope for optimising this process and I
think it would be of a huge benefit when this is done, Erik's project can
provide an incentive for this.

PS I am particaluraly interested in localisation, not so much in translation
however there is a considerable amount of overlap between the two.

Thanks,
     GerardM

On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 2:46 AM, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:

> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> > This is a key project to study our contributors & our audience.
> > The more languages we can translate to, the better. :-)
> >
> > If you are willing to translate from English into another
> > language, please:
>
> I really wish I could feel enthusiasm for such a call.  But
> already within the Wikimedia Foundation there are translations of
> the Mediawiki software, additional translation of Messages on the
> local installation of each wiki, there are translations of
> fundraisers on meta.wikimedia.org, and then there is betawiki.
> In addition to all the Wikipedia articles and policies that are
> more or less translated between languages.
>
> And outside of the Wikimedia Foundation, there are tons of
> projects that each run their own volunteer translation effort,
> including OpenOffice, Mozilla, KDE, GNU/Linux, and LibraryThing.
>
> Now this survey needs to be translated, so therefore we need to
> invent yet another interface and yet another list of volunteer
> translators.  Really?
>
> Often enough one signs up as a volunteer translator on some
> project only to be met with requests from some complete idiot who
> asks for a translation of phrases without context, such as "car"
> (is that an automobile or a railway car?), or "character" (a
> person, a moral property, or a letter of the alphabet?).
>
> It's a big turn-off.  No intelligent person wants to work with
> idiots. So when you ask for more volunteer translators, *you* need
> to provide some indication:
>
>  * that you have already used existing lists of translated
>   messages, and you only need help with the extras,
>
>  * that you will never ask for translations of the names of months
>   or weekdays, since that is already part of free software for
>   localization,
>
>  * that you have already used existing interfaces and communities
>   for translation volunteers, and won't invent new ones,
>
>  * that you have an idea of what it means to provide useful
>   context to the phrases you want translated,
>
>  * that you will publish the list of translated phrases so the
>   next project that comes along can benefit from it.
>
> Or else you will only attract the utter beginners who never
> translated anything before, and never asked those questions.
>
> > I am maintaining an internal assignment spreadsheet. We will try
> > to pair up translators & translation reviewers for each
> > language. You'll receive the questions in OpenOffice and Excel
> > format - use whichever suits you best.
>
> *Sigh*.  This is not for me.
>
>
>
> --
>  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
>  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
>
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