I'm uneasy about rules like Peter's (1) and (2) stipulating maximum numbers of words or sentences. If the numbers are intended as rules of thumb, they should be rewritten to reflect this. If they are meant to be hard limits, it's easy to imagine situations where following such a rule could make the result harder to understand.
Those numbers (word length and sentence length) correspond to roughly a
sixth grade reading level. This is the reading level of the average US
resident.
The _Readability Report_ extension, provided reading level scores using
various formulas. Unfortunately, this extension hasn't worked with LibO
since 2010, or with AOo since circa 2015.
Second, I struggle to see how rules (3-5) would make translation easier, or whether this is a good reason to implement them.
If you want to be picky, the relevant guideline is _first person
positive present tense active voice, with no contractions,
abbreviations, or foreign words_
It can be an extremely difficult mode to get used to writing in,
especially if one was taught that James Joyce is the perfect writer to
emulate.
Regarding (4), if a translator's command of English is so poor that they cannot understand common contractions, it seems doubtful that using one-to-one replacements would make all the difference.
This specific item has nothing to do with the translator's command of
English, and everything to do with the grammatical structure of the
target language, especially when the translation sequence is:
English -> Target Language 1 -> Target Language 2 - Target Language 3.
(AFAIK, no translation projects currently use this sequence. It is
extremely common for endangered and minority languages, that are
related to each other.)
I think I understand the background that Peter is coming from, but I think this issue requires more discussion.
Discussion about guidelines that target ease of translation, should
include all groups that produce original content in their specific
language. Offhand, I don't remember which documentation teams create
original content, and which translate existing content. On a
semi-related note, I don't which teams, if any, localise the
documentation for any specific language_country.
The items:
1. Paragraphs no more the six sentences long.
2. Sentences should only contain a maximum of 20 words, with the
occasional sentence allowed to be 25 words.
3. Never use the possessive apostrophe (for example Peter’s). Rewrite
the sentence to remove the need for a possessive apostrophe.
4. Never use contractions of words (for example: don’t becomes do not;
won’t becomes will not, and so on)
5. Never use Latin abbreviations (for example: etc becomes and so on;
e.g. becomes for example; i.e. becomes that is).
jonathon