[Foundation-l] please announce translations earlier

[Amir E. Aharoni]

... And continuing with the previous theme of translation: Please
announce the need for translating texts such as surveys, sitenotices,
fundraising and long announcements (such as the recent Sue's letter)
earlier. MUCH earlier.

For quite a lot of languages, even languages with millions of
monolingual speakers in developed countries, there are very, very few
people who bother to make the needed translations for Wikimedia
projects. Sometimes there's only one such person! We all have day jobs
and we do get tired every now and then.

How much earlier should it be? I did Sue's letter mostly by myself and
it took me two full days. That's right: two full days. It was
announced two days in advance, so i spent an  entire weekend doing it.
I'm a hopeless Internet geek, but i do like to take a walk in the park
every now and then. As for the Editors survey, there are several
people working on the Hebrew translation of that gargantuan page and
we still haven't finished.

If you want to expose the text to the wide audience as closely as
possible to the actual event (such as a fundraising or a survey), you
may consider doing the translation in a closed site that is only open
to translators, but it's not really desirable.

I'm sending this to foundation-l and not to translators-l, because
people who write the original texts do not necessarily read
translators-l.

Thanks again for understanding.

--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
"We're living in pieces,
 I want to live in peace." - T. Moore