Re: Complaint of the Slovak coordinator

[Peter Tuhársky <tuharsky misbb sk>]

Hi, translation team.

(I re-post enhanced version of my former mail to this thread).


I am former translator from slovak team. I ceased translating after
considerable translation efforts that just partially landed in the project.

The main reason of my leaving was that I ran out of time that I was able
to devote to translations. After all, I lost the majority of year 2007
waiting for Marcel because he was nowhere to find even for translators
HQ (I nearly became the leader then beacuse of his unavaiability). He
was extremely busy that time and I was a novice so without his help my
efforts were ineffective. This might be viewed just as a matter of past.

The secondary reason, that also blocked part of my translations to hit
the ground, was something that I percieved as moderate inflexibility. I
appreciate Marcel's sense for perfection, however it seems he does not
recognize reasonable limits for it sometimes. For a few trivial glitches
he returned translations, again and again (he could have easily fixed
them himself and commited instead of returning the whole translation
back). With him being a reviewer, sometimes it may seem that translation
review is more of a school exam than a friendly debate. But please don't
give these words a weight of a stone, I just try to formulate a fine idea.

The biggest problem however, even then back in 2007-8, was Marcel's
demand on me to take fulltime responsibility for the packages or to deal
with former (long inactive) translators. I was just able to temporarily
devote my time to fully translate the packages, and happily hand them to
"future generations". However, Marcel did not want it this way. Please
note, that majority of core packages needed massive amounts of work in
2007, and I was willing (and barely able) to perform that just once, in
order to bring GNOME closer to my father and wife that don't speak
english. But I was certainly not able to make a long-term commitment and
take full-time responsibility for all of the packages for years to come,
and I knew that for sure. Therefore, some translations that I already
finished simply did not reach the project, and majority of the needed
work I finally decided not to do at all.

As I read Peter's letter, I see that things just worsen after my
departure. Recently I considered returning to the project in order to
help finishing translation of some packages I need, however as I see, I
will not return under today's circumstances, because such a bureaucracy
would waste my precious time, with good chance of no final accomplishments.

>From user's point of view, I felt the GNOME translation stagnating or
even slowly losing completeness. I just percieved that and was wondering
what happens, but after seeing Peter's statistics, I see my perception
was right and now I know the reason.

Saying all of that, I do think Marcel should be thanked to because of
his commitment to the role and for the great amount of translation work
that he contributed over years. He took the translation project as his
child, and it would be excellent indeed, if he wished to remain in the
team as a translator.

However, as far as I can say, he is probably much better translator than
leader. His approach of managing the team is counter-productive and is
percieved as an obstacle for others to make their contributions with
passion.

I think that since the team is willing to change the leader, it is
necessary to do that. The slovak team is frustrated, demotivated and
split. I see it bordering on collapse today. I remember the time when
the team was nonfunctional, and I don't want to see it happen again.

Change of roles should be viewed simply as a healthy democratic process,
not as some kind of tragedy or definite status. Should there be a new
leader, able to motivate translators to fresh performance, it's only
good for the project and the users. Moreover, I think that leadership
change could even be institutionalized somehow for situations like this.


SUMMARY:
As a leader, Marcel has failed in long-term. In 2007 he even failed to
fulfill his duties completely, the team was non-functional for year or
more. In succeeding years, he demotivated others by his rigid rules and
needless obstacles, so that the translation is steadily decreasing both
in terms of quantity and quality.

Sparing him the leader role, he may even get more time for the very
translation work, where he is respected and experienced translator. So I
think this step would be of double benefit for the team.


Your sincerely
Peter Tuharsky



Dňa 17.05.2010 08:24, jhs jsschmid de wrote / napísal(a):
> Hi!
>
>   
>> So, to elaborate on your suggestion, the team would be split in such a
>> way that translators (along with their currently assigned modules) who
>> voted for Peter would be in his team and the rest in Marcel's team.
>> The new team would also state its own policy regarding membership,
>> module assignment, review process. Peter would become the commiter for
>> modules of his team (I would not agree to Marcel staying the only
>> commiter, in any case).
>>     
> Sorry, splitting teams is a no-go in gnome-i18n policies. Be sure that the
> coordination team is taking the whole thing very serious and will try the
> best to resolve it but one of the first things we want is avoid splitting
> teams.
>
> Regards,
> Johannes
>
> _______________________________________________
> gnome-i18n mailing list
> gnome-i18n gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
>