Re: Complaint of the Slovak coordinator

[Marcel Telka <marcel telka sk>]

Hi,

On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 01:19:11AM +0200, Johannes Schmid wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> > That's true. But if you have users, it does not automatically mean
> > you'll have bug reports. Yes, you'll get some of them but it is not
> > clear if it would be enough. From the past I know most of translation
> > bugs we found were found during the translation update by translators or
> > during the review. Our user base is far smaller than German or even
> > Czech.
> 
> Note that this is not about the major things (because they will be
> resolved during review) but about some remaining issues where
> translators might have had a wrong thought. And people file more bug
> reports than you think.

It really depends.

In most cases users are not able to find minor bugs easily. If the
translated string looks reasonable but it is incorrect, the user will be
hardly able to find the problem. In most cases to find the minor bug you
need to compare the English original with the translated sentence.  This
is not a task most users do.

If it was not easy for translator/reviewer to find the minor bug I do
not believe the bug will be found/reported by an average user.

The minor bugs can be find only by hard work in the translation team.

> 
> > > there won't be any users and thus no bug reports. So, I would encourage
> > > you to drop the final review stage (now).
> > 
> > To have this done I would have to set up more strict rules to become a
> > reviewer. I opted for different approach: to allow all members to try to
> > do the reviewer's job to see how it will go.
> > 
> > This allows us to catch at least some bugs by current reviewers. And
> > this brings up a chance for potential good reviewer to show and improve
> > his work. In case I would allow to review only members to whom I can
> > trust the proces would slow down even more.
> 
> Sorry, I see a big problem here. You seem to trust very few people and
> this will cause problems in an open-source projects. You simply need to
> trust that people are willing to do good work and they will improve over
> time.

I review their work. My trust is based on observation.

> 
> > This is not like launchpad. I agree. But the difference is not very big.
> > To have started a translation you just need to register to the Damned
> > Lies, join the team, reserve for translation and submit a po file. You
> > can do it in few minutes. I do not know how launchpad works, but I think
> > it would be similar easy.
> 
> Yeah, but you have a po file then. That's great as it brings you a
> translation for free if the person joins the team or not. There is no
> point in rejecting those translations just because people didn't want to
> join the team fully. (Of course, they should fix their stuff when it
> gets reviewed).

That's true.
Without joining the team the review would be really hard.

> 
> Also you didn't answer my inital question if you could drop the formal
> introduction mail.

Sure. I can. But let me elaborate a bit:

In February 2010 few members of our team created a page where they
summarized several things where the team organization should improve
(acocrding their opinion). The page is here:

http://live.gnome.org/SlovakTranslation/Others/N%C3%A1vrhy%20na%20zlep%C5%A1enie%20fungovania%20t%C3%ADmu

Entry #1 is about joining the team. Rough (shortened) translation follows:

Simplification of team joining
------------------------------

Supported by: Peter, Roman, Laco, Ivan.

Pavol offered improvements for his web form so it can be used as needed.



In April Pavol finished his work on the web form and I stated that on
the page (rough translation):

Status as of 2010-04-20: The web form works as expected. I consider this
issue resolved.



Nobody complained. It looked that we solved the issue with the
registration email.


About a month after that Peter picked up this as a reason for the
coordinator change.



> 
> > Unfortunatelly, this is not true. Sometimes the workflow knowledge of
> > new members is poor.
> 
> They managed to translate and upload the file? What else do they need to
> know about the workflow as long as they aren't reviewers/committers?

At least two things:
1. To use proper action for upload (if not the translation might be
overlooked by rest of the team).
2. To reserve/upload again once the translation is returned back by a
reviewer.

> Please note that translating the file means that you already had to
> setup lots of things.

Yes. You need to download a file, start a random text editor, edit the
file, and finally upload it.

> > I agree. Now, we are in process to have such rules set up.
> 
> I really wonder that you don't already have translation rules? How did
> you manage to do things in the past? I think every half-way solid
> GTP-Team has at least some list of most-used terms.

We are going to be a half-way solid GTP-Team hopefuly soon.

> > > Reviewers will notice when there is an inconsistency within the strings
> > > and are able to point that out. I think most teams have no problem in
> > > sharing modules between different translators.
> > 
> > True. This is why I am doing now final review for all modules. I hope
> > this will change soon.
> 
> The reviewers != you - trust in them, they know the language!

This is dangerous definition ("they know the language"). With some
generalization you said that everybody knows his language in a way
you'll trust them regararding the language matter. That is simply not
true.

> 
> > I disagree. It depends. Other translators can select other modules, so
> > the rules are same for everybody.
> > 
> > Some people does like to feel that this module is their work and they
> > are responsible and proud for them.
> 
> That's ok, but they should then be able to provide a 100% translation by
> release date and if they cannot do that they will have to give up the
> module or at least open it for others.

This would be true is everything else is at (or near) 100 %, but not
true if you are in the middle and there are plenty of untranslated (and
free) modules.


Thanks.

-- 
+-------------------------------------------+
| Marcel Telka   e-mail:   marcel telka sk  |
|                homepage: http://telka.sk/ |
|                jabber:   marcel jabber sk |
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