Re: String additions to 'gnome-shell.master'

[Petr Kovar <pmkovar gnome org>]

Hi Friedel!

F Wolff <friedel translate org za>, Tue, 22 Mar 2011 23:53:54 +0200:

> 
> Op Di, 2011-03-22 om 18:23 +0000 skryf GNOME Status Pages:
> > This is an automatic notification from status generation scripts on:
> > http://l10n.gnome.org.
> > 
> > There have been following string additions to module
> > 'gnome-shell.master':
> > 
> > + "Click Power Off to quit these applications and power off the system."
> >     + "Power Off"
> >     + "Powering off the system."
> >     + "The system will power off automatically in %d seconds."
> 
> 
> I'm a bit disappointed happy with how this one was handled.  Lucian
> posed questions still unanswered. We're in hard code freeze and we are
> breaking string freeze for some advantage posed by alternative wording,
> for the burden of all translation teams (or the disadvantage of the
> users where the teams can't update in time).
> 
> While we are breaking the string freeze, we also missed the opportunity
> to add plurals to the third string above, as it seems to need. So we'll
> have to fuzzy this string again at some stage for translators to spend
> their time again on a very visible string. All the similar strings miss
> plural support as well:
> https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=644090
> 
> Could this terminology change from "Shut down" to "Power off" seriously
> not wait? Considering that some users might now experience an incomplete
> translation even though their language teams worked after the freeze, is
> this kind of thing really worth it?

Surely, you raise valid concerns here. Nonetheless, maybe some of these
issues were of very practical nature: Lucian's message didn't include any
concerned developer in the recipient list as far as I can see. It's usually
advisable to double check that you're sending your message to the relevant
people (and include our i18n group in CC).

When we intend to talk to developers, we should probably also use
desktop-devel-list etc., since it's not very likely that those who request
string freeze breaks are following current threads on gnome-i18n. Not
in these rush hours anyway.

Thanks for filing that bug against gnome-shell, no doubt it's very
unfortunate that we missed a chance to support ngettext in that case. Those
of us who translate into Slavic languages know very well that it's a PITA
afterwards (though there might be a solution for some languages if you try
to change word order).

Best,
Petr Kovar