2012/6/19 Rob Weir <[email protected]>: > > If we want to have a reputation for high quality I think we need to > find a way to get beyond "solo translations", by which I mean > translations done by own person, with no independent review. > > We would never accept a code contribution in a language we could not > read or test, right? We wouldn't ship an OS port if we didn't have > more than one user able to test it, would we? > > And look at existing translations. Even though we are not really > changing the UI in 3.4.1 we're getting a stream of corrections to the > AOO 3.4.0 translations. This is not surprising. Errare humanum est. > Even repetitive data transcription tasks can have a 5% error rate. > That's why where accuracy is important we have consistency checks, for > example checksum digits in credit card and ISBN numbers. That's why > we do QA with code. That is why we have spell checkers. > > It is almost guaranteed that a "solo translation" will have a higher > error rate. > > What can we do about this? > > Maybe we can promote the availability of a new translation, with help > from the translator, among our user base. So notices on Twitter, > blogs, and native-language tech sites. Invite users to download > snapshot builds with the goal of verifying the localization. If a > translation is worth doing we should be able to find a community (even > a small one) of users to help with this work. > > Any other ideas? > > Regards, > > -Rob >
While lots of correction for the Spanish translation came just by checking the error tags on pootle (there is a way to go still...), a really impressive number are from direct interaction with forums users and volunteers, so I fully agree with all you said: by providing easy ways to share the user's concerns, helping them to participate, the results will always be good. But a common problem on open projects is the difficulty to find volunteers willing to spend some time not only checking the software (after all, "checking" is not different from "using"), but also *reporting* their findings: bugzilla in not for "normal users" and asking someone to register on a mailing list just to report a typo is a bit too much. So the challenge is to find paths to report translation problems on which "normal users" can feel comfortable. In my experience forums are a very good way, but we do not have (and probably will never have) forums for all localizations. Providing localized builds early on the development process (weeks or even a month before everything "freeze") would be a big help on this process. But we also need to provide accessible channels, both to advertise those builds and to report the findings. One consideration about the "early NL builds": we cannot ask our "casual testers" to make a full install of a beta software on a production machine. I think we should provide these early builds as "all in a folder" packages, just like the "arc" tarballs provided by the Linux build bot. Regards Ricardo
