Let me start with the issues of organisation, co-ordination and
documentation. We can sort this out within the community so we do not have to
bother quidam with this aspect. My thoughts on this are that we need a
primary wiki page where all the translation information is contained or
linked to. This page needs to be easily accessible so that people who want to
help with translations can start doing so immediately.
We already started a prototype of this wiki page
(https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/how-translate-website) but it needs more work.
I think the goal should be to build the following pages/sections:
* Translation Main Page
- How to become a translator
- How to add a new language
- (?) List of current translators/people involved
- Link to a page with all the content that need to be translated
* Translation Procedure (like what is on the page now)
* Pages per language where translators can discuss their own co-ordination.
As SirGrant mentioned elsewhere, we need a Translations Manager. This person
must be able to manage the first two tasks: adding translators and adding
languages. This way we can delegate the translation management to somebody
else. With the addition of the the Role Delegation module
(http://drupal.org/project/role_delegation) quidam can create this
Translation Manager role with limited permissions to add Translators. This
user should also be given the permissions to manage site languages.
The procedure page should be expanded if it is not clear enough for new or
non-technical users. It should also be expanded with tips for specific
content types, for example, to make sure that front page announcements have
proper dates to sort correctly.
Then we need a way to display a list of all pages that need to be translated.
I have investigated this in the past but there was no simple way to display
content that need to be translated per language. For reference, a partial
solution or starting point can be achieved by building a View as configured
as per http://drupal.org/node/319730#comment-3996790. Alternatively, we can
look at the Translation Management module
(http://drupal.org/project/translation_management) which is much more
powerful than our current setup, however, I am not sure if it might be
overkill.
Translator members for each language need to co-ordinate their efforts
amongst each other. This can be done in whatever way they want to: by private
email, IRC, translation mailing list or pages on the wiki. I think that at
least the current status, if not everything, of their co-ordination need to
be saved on the wiki, ideally with one page per language so each team can do
there what they want. That way new users who might be interested in assisting
can get an overview quickly without having to dig through the mailing list or
ask repetitive questions. However, I am not sure how other big projects
manage their translation teams. If somebody here translates some other sites
with really great organisation and co-ordination, please explain here what
works well. Perhaps we can find a way to integrate some of those aspects
here.
The individual language teams can have a "language leader" if they want. I do
not think we currently have enough translators to need such a level of
co-ordination. With the current setup the way translators determine who
translates what is up to them. We should probably define a standard method,
but if translators want to assign pages to themselves in their own way, I
think it would be OK for now.
With the above things implemented, we are much closer to community
self-sufficiency. However, there is one more issue that will not be so easy
to solve: some content on the website cannot be translated by users
currently. Some of this is due to the way some modules have been written that
do not follow localisation standards. Hacking those to work properly could be
a lot of work and then we lose upstream upgradability. This is worsened by
the fact that much of the work on this content management system has shifted
to a newer (incompatible) version.
There are also some text strings that can only be translated by the
administrators because those strings are considered "system strings". There
is no easy way to allow normal users to edit those strings because they will
require permission to change system settings that could break the website.
However, these strings should not really be changed once they have been
translated. An example of this kind of string is the website title as
displayed at the top of the browser. A way to solve this would be to allow
the Translation Manager to have the permission to edit these system
components.
I do not believe we will be able to achieve 100% horizontal organisation with
regard to community translation. This content management system never
achieved that goal nor do I think it ever had that goal in mind, at least not
with this version. We need some degree of administrative privileges and,
unfortunately, the permission system doesn't always have the best
granularity. Therefore some permissions will allow additional capabilities
that might be unintended for a Translator Manager. But without that we will
always be dependent on quidam or another high level administrator.
I proposed to quidam earlier this year that I can help with website related
tasks. He was too busy with developing 5.5 at that time so I did not push it
any further. But now that he's got some time (hopefully), we need to attend
to this matter. My offer to help still stands. I will gladly take on the role
of such a Translations Manager. I have worked with this CMS and its
translation tools before and I've tried to assist translators here when
possible, so I think I've got a good grasp of what's going on. However, we
really need quidam's input on this. In the meantime I'll think about ways to
improve the translation documentation and other things not related to the
technical implementation of translation features. Trisquel 6.0 is going to be
big and we need to have an awesome website to match it!
