Re: Sun contributed l10n documentation

[F Wolff <friedel translate org za>]

On Wo, 2006-11-08 at 23:51 +0100, Francisco Javier F. Serrador wrote:
> Well, I think we are reusing some libs of translate-toolkit (which is
> part of pootle). 
> 
> I know about Debian and Pootle experiment, but I have some concerns
> about lowering barriers and not lowering quality at the same time.
> Lowering technological barriers is good, you get more people involved,
> but the QA group can be overhelmed by hundreds of low quality
> translations easily.
> 

Your concerns are legitimate and (perhaps because of other similar
projects) many people have these concerns.  Let me outline some features
that I think will interest people that are concerned about quality:

 * A project admin (for a certain language and project) can setup access
permissions for users on the Pootle server.  The administrators can
allow only certain users to translate, while limiting others to only
providing suggestions, which have to be reviewed by someone with the
appropriate privileges. This can also make it much easier for people to
provide suggestions for small fixes, since one can simply search for a
wrong string and provide a suggestion. Even the right to suggest can be
limited to certain users.  We plan to extend this in future to make role
based privileges possible.


* Pootle can make use of terminology files (http://pootle.wordforge.org
currently makes use of files from the GNOME glossary project).  It scans
the original string for terms in the terminology project, and displays
the official translation to the translator (with the definition/notes
provided in the comments displayed in the tooltip).  As an example,
visit this URL:
http://pootle.wordforge.org/sv/pootle/translate.html?searchtext=GNU

It shows a message from the Swedish translation of Pootle, using the
terminology defined in the GNOME glossary (which can be maintained as a
separate translation project with separate access rights, etc.). 


* Pootle checks translations for many types of common errors, for
example accelerators, variables, punctuation, etc.  A full list of
checks can be viewed here:
http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/toolkit/pofilter_tests
Not all the checks currently work equally well for all languages
(punctuation tests, for example), but should provide a useful way for
people to catch many common errors.  We plan to implement language and
script customised checks in future.

To view these on Pootle, click on "Show editing functions" and then
"Show checks".  (Hopefully our Pootle server won't be a good
demonstration, because the translators already removed all of the valid
errors ;-)


* Another important feature that we are currently working on, and our
XLIFF work is very much part of that, is to make it easier for teams to
implement their desired workflow and to help them enforce it - however
simple or complex they might want it to be. So although Pootle can act
as an online translation tool, the translation management is very much a
central part of it.  We intend to work very well with all offline
editors (PO and XLIFF based).  Also see my separate mail about our
offline editor.


There are more issues and ideas that are discussed on our mailing lists
and the wiki.  We would really like people to get involved to ensure
that we do things right.  Our goals aren't just to make things easier,
but also better.  We do localisation ourselves (we don't just make
tools) so we understand the importance of quality.  If there are issues
that are needed, please get involved and help us to go in the right
direction.

So although Pootle lowers the barrier of entry, we hope it also makes it
easier for people to make high quality translations, and to aid
inexperienced and experienced translators alike.


Friedel
Pootle programmer