Re: Web interface for translation for GNOME

[Dimitris Glezos <dimitris glezos com>]

On 28 August 2013 22:49, Marek Černocký <marek manet cz> wrote:

Fran Dieguez píše v Čt 29. 08. 2013 v 00:10 +0200:

> In small teams as our Galician team, we have a lot of problems to
> maintain translators just because people that could help us with
> translations doesn't have a lot of technical background. Even if our
> workflow is as simple as download a file, edit it and upload it.

This is a certain barrier for the selection translators. Who has problem
with such primitive operations, he will be difficult to produce high
quality translations. Good knowledge of language is base but some
technical knowledge is necessary too. Ubuntu has web interface for
translation and translation quality is poor in comparison with Gnome.

Based on my experience, usually the problem in community translations is that people have a limited time and energy to contribute. A fluid translation process is key. Translator will enter "translation mode" and just go on to work on as many entities as possible. Interrupting to do manual work (like downloading/uploading/open-in-poedit) just makes it "harder". 

The assumption behind this is, if a person has 1 hour to invest, we want him to be translating the 58 minutes of that hour. Additionally, interaction with other users through @messages for questions, suggestions, votes adds the social element. These will make him more productive, happier and the quality will go way higher.

This is why in Transifex, we want to reach a point where people open the editor and just go on, not even switching between projects and files. Discussions & reviews on translations happen in the editor itself etc. Smoother, more focused translation work = A Good Thing™.

-d

--
Dimitris Glezos
https://www.transifex.com/