launchpad-translators team mailing list archive

[Ask Hjorth Larsen <asklarsen@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 10:16 AM, Yaron Shahrabani <sh.yaron@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I want to raise a slightly disturbing issue
> there are many translators who are really confident about their work but
> practically doing an awful work, the problem is that when I fix their
> mistakes they usually don't see it and keep on translating the same way
> When new unexperienced translators are joining the team they don't see the
> mistakes their friends done and repeat them the exact same way
> I know launchpad shouldn't be educational but I want to be aware about
> changes made to my translations and the reasons for that and (even if its
> typos) and I want to be able to mark other's mistakes so the next
> generations will benefit from them (and also the translators who made the
> mistake)
> Does anyone have any practical way of doing it in Launchpad besides sending
> private messages about each and every mistake done?
> Kind regards,
> Yaron Shahrabani

Hi Yaron

I completely agree, it is very important to be able to communicate
efficiently with translators about individual strings.  The only way
right now is actually to carefully paste both the English and the
translated message into an email and write exactly why the correction
was made - lots of inefficient, error-prone mouse work.  The reviewer
("you") will have to correct-and-approve string suggestions as
necessary, and then send an email to the translator with all the
changes you made.

A better way would be for the reviewer to write the corrected strings
as *suggestions*, and then have the translator review that - but that
doesn't work very well unless the translator is also a reviewer.
However the advantage here is that the translator actually looks
through the corrections and reacts on them (thus probably remembering
the corrections much better).  Also, you will still have to write an
email to accompany the changes - otherwise it won't be clear why they
were made.  In any case, this is our preferred way to work in Rosetta
when it is possible.  Very inefficient.

Our preferred way when working with po-files:
The translator translates and sends the file (or a special po-diff)
for review by email.
Reviewer reads everything and writes a reply detailing which
corrections should be made.
The translator implements the corrections and sends the po-file to be committed.
The committer commits the translation.

So in the review part, the comments are written in free text and no
meticulous mouse work is necessary.  Much, much easier except in the
limit of very small po-file sizes (where Launchpad would be faster due
to the lack of diffing, downloading and so on).

I would love to hear if someone has a better idea about how to do
things efficiently in Rosetta.

Best regards
Ask Hjorth Larsen