Re: Rethinking "Supported language"

[F Wolff <friedel translate org za>]

Op Dinsdag 2008-02-19 skryf Ihar Hrachyshka:
> On Feb 19, 2008 5:14 PM, F Wolff <friedel translate org za> wrote:
> > Op Dinsdag 2008-02-19 skryf Wouter Bolsterlee:

...

> > My "team" is now at less than 15% for 2.22. Obviously I won't even
> > consider translating these ever (or let's be positive: in the
> > foreseeable future :-)
> >
> > There are of course other modules that I consider to be in the same
> > category, and other people might not agree with me. Things like
> > libbonobo and Glib for example.
> >
> > While GNOME grows, catching up from less than 15% might be impossible
> > for a single person with limited time, and ideally we should find ways
> > of making this limited time have the biggest possible impact. In
> > reality, exactly which 20% of the whole is untranslated, can have a big
> > effect on the end-user experience. --help text for example, is not
> > really that important for many users.
> >
> > Anyway, just some extra thoughts. In other words, I agree, Wouter!
> Good stats and a string with your name in release notes is not the
> reason to translate I think. The reason is the lack of good
> translations, isn't it? Of course, we should provide our translators
> with general directions on priorities of GNOME modules (and as long as
> I know we do it on Wiki, isn't it?) but... Why i18r's work on l10ning
> development tool is not worth mentioning in release notes but for
> "orca" (accessibility tool) it's worth saying? For you guys who want
> to see your names in release notes quickly I propose such sentence:
> "GNOME is XX% translated in YYY language, with ZZ% completed for
> desktop components". And we also should provide a new "Module set" -
> "Accessibility tools" I think.

I agree that we are not translating for the sake of numbers or release
notes. But the numbers provide a way of measuring progress and coverage.
Since we have this information for all languages, it also enables us to
compare things. This and the "status", can merely serve as motivation. I
don't think lots of people necessarily read the release notes, and I'm
in no danger of reaching it anyway, so that is definitely not my
motivation :-)

Some information on prioritisation is in the wiki, yes. I think I wrote
parts of it. I think the 80% rule is useful as long as we compute that
as 80% of something generally agreed to be useful. Translation
statistics close to 80% probably means that the average user will get
the feel of a localised environment almost all of the time (but note of
course my note above about impact and end-user experience).

The 80% is just a label out of my sight anyway. I'm enjoying my few
programs at 14% translated (or whatever it is at the moment), and I hope
it is useful to other Afrikaans speakers as well.

Keep well
Friedel