>I do not agree with this conclusion. As I already commented on another >bug ([Bug 3085] TRACKER_ID rule not very useful) some languages simply >use longer words/sentences (on average) than English. >Having no short and accurate translations of many/most computer related >English terms complicates the matter.
Some standard rules for internationalizing software: Creating Application Messages When you create messages in your application, English text strings are usually shorter than equivalent text strings in other languages. The following table shows the additional average growth for strings, based on their initial length. English length (in characters) Additional growth for localized strings 1 to 4 100% 5 to 10 80% 11 to 20 60% 21 to 30 40% 31 to 50 20% over 50 10% At a glance, a 50 byte English string should be allowed to grow to at least 60 bytes in other languages. In this case I'd personally allow it to grow to 70 characters at least. I'm aware of the original goal of keeping the description and score on a single 80-character line. However, there are cases right now where that doesn't work, and SA contains code to wrap long descriptions. I think trying to enforce an 80 byte line limit (especially on translations) is beating a horse that was never alive in the first place, and is certainly dead now. In fact the 50 byte limit is a pain even for English descriptions in many cases.
