Re: Complaint of the Slovak coordinator

[Marcel Telka <marcel telka sk>]

Hi Johannes,

Thank you for your answer. Unfortunately I had no chance to went through
all emails in this thread yet. I'll scan all of them and if I'll find
something where I cannot resist I'll put my view there. I think I'll be
finished no later than tomorrow evening.

BTW, you do not need to apologize. Your opinions are valid, even I
disagree with some of your statements.

Thanks.

On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 07:59:20AM -0000, jhs jsschmid de wrote:
> Hi Marcel!
> 
> Thanks for your answer. I disagree with some points but that's perfectly
> ok. After rereading my mail it sounded a bit personal and I want to
> apologies for that as that wasn't my intention. Also thanks for
> summarizing the content of the slovak page.
> 
> To all: The GTP coordination team is carefully discussing this matter and
> will decide soon whether we take any action and what that might be. In the
> meantime, unless you have something really new I don't think it's worth to
> extent this discussion further.
> 
> So, everbody calm down a bit, do your work (that's actually what will
> improve the translation status most) and you will hear from us.
> 
> Thanks and regards,
> Johannes
> 
> > 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.

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