Re: [libreoffice-l10n] Translations of the help.libreoffice.org main page

Hi Martin,

I am not sure what has upset you that much - are you going to FOSDEM by
chance?  Would be great to talk face to face.  Please read more inline:

Martin Srebotnjak píše v Út 15. 01. 2013 v 22:55 +0100:

> no, your writing does not console me, I am afraid of solo actions of
> documentation writers that might make changes that are not in favor of
> the product (although some writer is personally enthusiastic about
> them, just like you are about making English help editable in wiki).
>
> If you imagine - copy pasting or moving some page here and there in
> the wiki structure or changing wording here and there is an easy job
> in the wiki, but for translators this could mean many empty strings in
> Pootle of something that has been already almost fully translated. We
> will be working like mad because of such small changes. Translated
> help will never be 100% localized. LibreOffice will not be up to the
> norms for adoption of software in government and civic institutions.

In case we change the help to wiki as the source [NOTE: if at all; at
some stage; nobody is working on this if I'm not mistaken], there is of
course a trivial solution for this - work closely with the
documentation/help authors; forget about 'we' and 'they' and the 1st
time somebody does something bad just work with him/her to revert/fix
that.

Of course, some additional technical solutions, like detection of moves,
fuzzy translations, re-generating translations nightly to check for
changes that are too aggressive & revert in the wiki, etc. etc. might
help too - there is no need to fear of changes in advance.

And - even as a wiki, the help can have a release cycle as the current
help has, aligned with the product release, in order to be able to
achieve 100% translation.

> So I think it is great that it is currently hard to change help - a
> technical writer must really be precise in the change she wants - and
> this leads also to a very "localized" change also for localizers.
> Also, help system is not so bad that it would need a total revamp. And
> being translated in so many languages it would generate 100x the work
> of a single writer's change.

No, there is nothing great about being hard to change help.  Our help
sucks in the current form, and I am talking content - there is so many
useless pages there that we have to translate to our languages (yes, I
am translating too).

And of course, if anybody wanted, it is much easier to create nightmares
with the current help source than it would potentially be with wiki as
the source.

> So I will remain upset even though I do not want to.

I don't understand why.

> Changing the
> concept of help is not just a question of help writers/editors and
> Kendy, who developed the po<->wiki translation system, but it is a
> joint question to be discussed and decided with the l10n community.

Sure, completely agree with this.  I just have to add that blocking
changes without understanding is as unacceptable as changing something
without discussions.

> But it seems you do not want to talk about it with the l10n people.

I do not understand why do you have this feeling; of course I do want to
talk to you - but it is hard when you start shouting whenever I only
mention wikihelp ;-)

BTW, with 2423 translations, I hope could be considered a l10n guy
myself these days, couldn't I?

> Shouldn't such a change be discussed in the boards of TDF as it
> affects so many language teams?

Technical Steering Committee is more proper I guess; but before that I
think it will be best if we two understand each other as the first
thing.

Regards,
Kendy


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