[Foundation-l] please announce translations earlier

[Erik Moeller]

2011/3/23 Casey Brown <lists at caseybrown.org>:
> I definitely think that the letter was way too rushed, but that is not
> the norm.  I can also understand the desire to try to be transparent
> and post notifications as soon as possible, so that's a different
> case.

I'm not convinced that frontloading a waiting period and repeated
calls for translation for something like the March 2011 update is the
right way to go. It slows down processes, and without having an actual
message out there providing context, it's not necessarily clear to
translators why this or that translation project should be
prioritized. In spite of no notice whatsoever, the letter was
translated very quickly into quite a few languages, IMO in part
_because_ anyone could see that it was a significant communication.

On the other hand, I realize that it sucks to have an English message
pushed out to other languages, and it's frustrating for translators
especially who know they could have provided a translation if they had
been given advance notice. Perhaps we could make CentralNotice more
flexible so that users can choose whether they want to receive English
messages or not. Then, if you're on e.g. German Wikipedia, you could
have a choice between receiving the English update when it comes out,
or waiting for a translation. The English message would then also act
as a notice for translators, and for internal community newsletters
and noticeboards that want to pick up stuff as it happens.

Together with a more flexible subscribe/unsubscribe system for topics,
this could help us to communicate more regularly and more quickly with
our communities without annoying users who don't want to receive
updates in a language they don't speak, or who don't want to receive
any WMF messages at all.

Regardless of how we go about it, I do agree that we need documented
protocols for this that WMF, chapters and others can follow, so as to
not surprise or burden translators, whose work is amazing and much
appreciated. :-)
-- 
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

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