Re: Translating schema files (was: Re: Survey results (yay!))

[Gil Forcada <gforcada gnome org>]

Hi!

Thanks for sharing your experience!

El dl 01 de 11 de 2010 a les 10:25 +1300, en/na jbowtie amathaine com va
escriure:
> Speaking as a small team coordinator struggling to recruit people and
> get them active, I have to agree this is a big issue - I don't know
> how we'll ever make it to 20%, much less 80%. The problem is that most
> people take one look at a file filled with error messages and schema
> strings and I never hear from them again. I *only* get contributions
> when I can tell them *exactly* which strings in the file correspond to
> buttons/menus/labels.  Guess what?  I can't do that on my own for most
> modules, which is why over the last few years our stats have actually
> dropped from nearly 5% to <1%. In fact, I don't think I've landed a
> single contribution since the switch to Git (though there have a been
> a few drive-by translations via Ubuntu).

GNOME sysadmins are working on providing the stuff needed on their side
so that Damned-Lies can send translations from the web interface, so you
will only need to download the files, translate them, upload to
Damned-Lies and then just press a button to submit it, which hopefully
will allow you to focus more on translating and forget for your own
health from git ;)

> I don't know how many of the other languages languishing at the bottom
> of the list are facing the same issue, but I'll bet it's a fair
> number. I can swear to you that if I could get a fair number of the UI
> elements translated (say, 20% by D-L stats), we would see a big surge
> in contributions and maybe even sponsorship from the Language
> Commission.
> 
> I mean, gtk+ is my favorite example here; the first string is "Error
> parsing option --gdk-debug", while the stock labels (which is frankly
> all I care about given our general lack of coverage) are down
> somewhere around 450 strings in. 99% of my users are never going to
> see any of the command-line stuff in the gtk+ module, but 100% of them
> are going to encounter the stock labels. Why should I *have* to
> explain all this stuff to every potential recruit? It's hard enough
> just finding people who are willing to contribute in the first place;
> then the first thing they see is the sea of technical messages and
> their motivation just evaporates.
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-- 
gil forcada

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