Some advice, please, on dealing with inappropriate comments

[Clytie Siddall <clytie riverland net au>]

Hello everybody :)

This one has been bugging me for quite some time: everytime I open  
the PO file, I wince. :(

It's a developer comment, strangely enough, directed at other  
developers and not the translator working on that PO file:

#. DON\'T CHANGE THIS BY HAND! CHANGE THE SCRIPT THIS IS GENERATED
#. ALWAYS ADD A CHANGELOG OR I WILL PERSONALLY KICK YOUR ASS!
#: ../config/gettextfoo.h:3
msgid ""

What can I do about this? :S

I've just posted on debian-i18n about an inappropriate comment to the  
user in a PO file, and we had a thread on that sort of thing not long  
ago. Within Gnome, do we have a guideline or general recommendation  
yet on how to talk to the user? It would certainly help to be able to  
point people to something like that, help them realize that it's not  
"just one person" who is uncomfortable with it.

I also recall us talking here about the function of developer  
comments to translators in PO files. I've several times encountered  
developers using those comments fields to talk to each other. Is that  
usual?

What I'd really like to see is more developers using those comments  
fields to add context and help us create effective translations.  
Something like the comment above seems a long way off the goal. :(

from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhÃm  
Viát hÃa phán mám tá do)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN