Re: [Libreoffice] LibreOffice WikiHelp discussion

Hi Michael,
On 13/12/2010 13:24, Michael Meeks wrote:
> Hi Sophie&  all,
>
> On Sat, 2010-12-11 at 14:35 +0300, Sophie Gautier wrote:
> > I've search for your explanation on our list but didn't find them.
> > Currently we (the localizer team) do not want the localized help to be
> > uploaded on the wiki until we know about the localization process that
> > will be in place.
>
>         Well :-) this is not really for us to define; it is for the l10n team
> to decide this, with us. We can give you some options of course - but it
> is your call.

Ok, thanks :-)
> > We are the one doing the work and it's a very big work, so please,
> > answer the questions we have asked.
>
>         Help us answer the questions. We are not going to impose something on
> you that you don't want; and we can't make the decisions in a vacuum,
> we're part of the same family - so lets try to collect requirements
> together in a friendly way :-) If you have some, please knock up a wiki
> page with them. Some are quite interesting, eg. the French localisation
> legislation is fascinating and a new concept to me at least.

Ok this is why it's important we work together on this, we also know 
what is needed for our language and our users too.
> > So please, please again, answer the questions Martin asked, the
> > questions I asked, see Rimas and Jean-Baptiste mails too. And do not
> > open the wiki until we all agreed on the workflow, it's really important
> > for our localization team.
>
>         So - there is no need to open the wiki for editing ever, if that is a
> huge problem for people, and certainly we don't have to do this for 3.3,
> and certainly we don't have to open the wiki so just anyone can turn up
> from the street and spam it :-) [ it is easy to have approved
> translators only eg. ]. We can provide solutions for off-line editing,
> and there is certainly no need to switch tooling to make the wiki the
> authoritative data source now / yesterday :-) we can do that in a
> month / never if there is some insuperable problem.

Thanks, I'm happy to read this :-)
>         Anyhow, I suspect there are perhaps three problems here, none of them
> truly technical:
>
>         A. People are paranoid about developers dictating new tools
>            to them that do not meet their needs / quality
>                 + but this isn't going to happen
>                 + and hassling people providing new options is not the
>                   best way to have your requirements considered :-)

Yes, even if we are not against new tools or developer ideas. 
Localization is a hard work, with a lot of pressure because it's at the 
end of the process and it's a very visible work. A bad localization can 
ruin the developer efforts in providing good functionality.
>         B. Communication is bad: lots has been written to mailing lists
>            but people are either not on those lists, or unable to filter
>            the signal they want from the general noise
>                 + This is partly because Kendy is working extremely hard
>                   and effectively on this, and...
>                 + mailing lists are the secondary developers' tool
>                   after IRC, and few hackers are on the l10n lists (I
>                   guess).

I think it's very important that developers and localizers are not so 
far. It's just like QA, we need to work all together. You can write the 
killer feature, if the localization is wrong, you're feature will never 
work or get the user attention it deserves. And here the Help files have 
a first role to play too.
>         C. We didn't package Windows help packs, and communicate them
>            clearly for the off-line Windows help situation [ yet ! ]
>            this is getting fixed however.

great, thanks.
>         Anyhow - summary - I think we don't have a big problem here - beyond
> the communication issue. The answers to -all- Jean Baptiste's (good)
> questions are either already answered (sometimes several times) on
> various mailing lists, and/or simply not answered yet - they are open
> questions. There is no need to fear the worst answer to each un-answered
> question :-) hopefully together we will work out the best answer.

Silence is never good, but I hope I shout enough to be known as the one 
who makes the more noise in this project ;-)
>         It would be -extremely- helpful if some of those most eager to know the
> answers to their questions, could create a suitable wiki page, with
> their questions in it - *and* preferably do a quick search of Kendy's
> mails to the dev list:
>
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2010-December/author.html
>
>         Search for Jan Holesovsky in there, and collate the state of what is
> there already into the page: it is not rocket science. Post the link,
> and then we can work on any pending / un-answered questions.

ok, will review all this this evening
>         How does that sound ?

Great, thanks a lot :)

Kind regards
Sophie