Adding information column to DL with proposed release dates and documentation state

[Kenneth Nielsen <k nielsen81 gmail com>]

Hallo everyone

Now that GNOME 3 is safely out the door, I thought it would be time to
finally propose this feature, which I have been pondering for a long
time. There are user cases at the end of the e-mail.

I would like an extra column of information on the damned lies pages
which lists:
 1) Tentative release dates for each module if available, so that the
developers can communicate this to the translators in a more direct
way than through the mailing list[1].  It might e.g. be retrieved from
a file within the module.
 2) For the documentation translations, either the last version of the
software that the documentation was updated for, or the date of the
last update where the documentation was brought up to par with the
software. (There could also be a special NOGO value, for documentation
that should not be translated because it currently is being updated)

At this point this it is just an idea and I am very much looking for feedback.
Would this be helpful?
Will developers play along?
Will this be acceptable within the design goals of Damned Lies (Claude)?
Should the information in this columns be what I wrote, or is there
something else that would be more helpful?

Regards Kenneth

User cases:
1) A translation team has reached the point where they are able to get
the desktop UI at 100% everytime. The obvious place to proceed from
there is to dive into (a) extra application UI or (b) desktop
documentation
1a) There are a lot of application in the extra applications group,
and they would like to put their effort where it will benefit the
most. Therefore they would like something more than just their
gut-feeling about usage to guide them in choosing which application to
translate.
1b) There is a lot of documentation and (I think) also quite a bit of
outdated documentation[2]. As before, they would like to put their
effort where it will benefit the most, and especially they would
dislike it if a large contribution on their part was for nothing,
because the documentation they translated was outdated and therefore
(partly) scrapped. Once again they would like more than just their
gut-feeling about relevant and updated documentation to help them
choose.

2) A translation team has reached a point where they have a lot of the
extra application translated and they are now struggling with how
often and when to make the small updates (~10 strings) to keep them
translated. It needs to be fully translated before branching or
release, but on the other hand it is not feasible to keep them at 100%
all the time, because the committer will not like having to push 5
string patches every other week.


[1] A slightly hidden agenda here is off course that it will allow us
to give the projects, that consider informing translators of progress
and release dates, the love that they deserve ;)
[2] I apologize in advance if this is not true. I know Shaun throws in
a stellar effort, but also that he could use more help.