ubuntu-manual team mailing list archive

[Kevin Godby <godbyk@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 2:46 AM, Paddy Landau <paddy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Slightly OT: In English, John Doe is used as a place-name for someone whose
> name you do not know, typically a body in a morgue awaiting identification.
> It's not appropriate for screen-shots.

In the US, John (or Jane) Doe used in legal proceedings to refer
anonymous or unknown defendants, too. (John or Jane Roe is used for
plaintiffs.)  I don't think there are any bad connotations to using
those names.

That being said, if we go the route of creating a more complete
profile, I'd rather go with a non-placeholder name – it makes the
screenshots a bit more realistic.

It looks like this conversation has nearly reached the point of
bike-shedding. Here's what I think we should do next:

We should take a look at the existing screenshots and make a list of
items that we'd need to generate to flesh out the profile. Possible
examples include names, email addresses, contact info, etc. of the
primary Ubuntu user; names and contact info for that user's friends;
sample emails and messages from the user's social network; currently
playing music and music in the user's library; and photographs taken
by the user.

Once we have this list, we can work on creating the profile and the
example documents. These will be passed along to the screenshot team.
Authors could refer to it in their text if the example helps clarify
something for the reader.

Translation teams can translate these documents and names for use in
their screenshots.

In my opinion, the translated manuals should stand on their own and be
of at least the same quality as the original US English translation.
This means that the screenshots and complete text of the manual should
be translated. The translated manual is not merely a direct
translation of the English manual, but is the best Ubuntu manual that
can be created for readers and Ubuntu users of that language. For
example, though we point to an English website in the English manual,
if there is a more language-appropriate website, the translated manual
should direct its readers to that website instead.  Instead of
pointing to google.com, point to google.de in the German translation.
Wider changes are welcome as well (and are directed by the translation
editors).

Would anyone like to volunteer to look at our current screenshots and
compile a list of what type of information, data, documents, etc. we
need to flesh out the screenshots? (You don't need to make up names or
anything at this point – just create a list of the *type* of info/docs
we need to generate.)

Thanks!

--Kevin