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Question Translation directives in the wiki?

  • mlocati
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13 years 10 months ago #1 by mlocati
Translation directives in the wiki? was created by mlocati
Hi to everyone

While translating webtrees into Italian I'm maintaining a document on Google Docs to keep track of particular problems and to take notes to help maintaining a uniform translation.

I did this for myself and also for any other future Italian translator. The problem about this solution is that the Google Docs can be modified only by me (on by anyone who I personally invite to), and this is not a good thing.

It would be better to have a place where anyone can give its contributes without my personal confirmation. And if it could offer a sort of discussion board it would that would be wonderful.

...but this place exists! It's the webtrees wiki! So: can I use it instead of my Google Docs document?

Ciao!
Michele

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13 years 10 months ago #2 by kiwi
Replied by kiwi on topic Re:Translation directives in the wiki?
Michele, yes, absolutely.

There is already a GB-English page, so you can use that as a model. I'll add navigation to it once you have started it.

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13 years 10 months ago #3 by mlocati
Replied by mlocati on topic Re:Translation directives in the wiki?
Ok, I'll start it!

I think it's better to write it in English and not in Italian, so that native English people are able to understand it and, in case, give their contribute.

Ciao!
Michele

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13 years 10 months ago #4 by kiwi
Replied by kiwi on topic Re:Translation directives in the wiki?
Essential that it is in English I'm afraid. For now we have no alternative languages available for the WIKI, as doing so is quite complex.

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13 years 10 months ago #5 by mlocati
Replied by mlocati on topic Re:Translation directives in the wiki?
You shouldn't be afraid! I agree that the page should be in English. It's not intended to be a sort of users manual: it should be a technical page dedicated to people able to translate from English to Italian, it's required that the readers are familiar with English. Furthermore, writing it in English lets English people understand and possibly give help...

I've just started the page. For now it's almost empty, but I'm preparing the material for it. You can find it here .

Ciao!
Michele

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13 years 10 months ago #6 by fisharebest
Replied by fisharebest on topic Re:Translation directives in the wiki?
I know it is not exactly a translation, but we should also set guidelines for english.

Historically, PGV used "US english"; all other languages are translations.

To be correct, we should use "international english", and allow the option to create a en_US translation. Things like

Postal Code (international english)
Zip Code (US english)
Post Code (UK english)

But I think we need some guidelines for the original english messages used in the code.

Things like:

US spellings (with international date formats?)
Capitalisation: "Sentence case" versus "Initial Capitals"
Quotes/emphasis: we have a mix of "foo" / &laquo;foo&raquo; / <b>foo</b>
2nd/3rd person: "You must ..." / "The user must ..."
Formality: "Please enter a number" / "Enter a number"
Puncutation: IIRC there are differences between british and american english punctuation rules.
etc.
etc.

Greg Roach - greg@subaqua.co.uk - @fisharebest@phpc.social - fisharebest.webtrees.net

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13 years 10 months ago #7 by fisharebest
Replied by fisharebest on topic Re:Translation directives in the wiki?
kiwi wrote:

Essential that it is in English I'm afraid. For now we have no alternative languages available for the WIKI, as doing so is quite complex.


If you create an article with the name "fr/Traduction", it will have the URL

wiki.webtrees.net/fr/Traduction

You can also add a redirect from Traduction => fr/Traduction

Greg Roach - greg@subaqua.co.uk - @fisharebest@phpc.social - fisharebest.webtrees.net

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13 years 10 months ago #8 by WGroleau
Replied by WGroleau on topic Re:Translation directives in the wiki?
What exactly is the difference between a Wiki translation discussion and this forum?

International English: I agree that neither USA nor UK should be treated as somehow "better" than the other. However, I don't think there really is any standard of "international English." Heck, there is no standard of US English either, though there are certainly some widely accepted conventions.

I can think of three ways to answer the above questions:

1. Vote among webtrees developers

2. Vote among webtrees users. If there are too few, PGV users.

3. Pick a common word or expression and use Google to determine which variant is more common. Although, I'd predict that en_US would always win this method, simply because there are so many more of us.

I do suggest that dates in English text be in GEDCOM format, except when good reason exists for a specific exception.

--
Wes Groleau
UniGen.us/

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13 years 10 months ago #9 by fisharebest
Replied by fisharebest on topic Re:Translation directives in the wiki?
WGroleau wrote:

What exactly is the difference between a Wiki translation discussion and this forum?


The wiki page is really just a summary of the rules/guidelines/etc. that have been discussed on the forum and elsewhere.

The ultimate decision is the translation group for each language.

I think the main difference between "international english" and US/UK english is that it excludes all idioms. Words have their literal meanings.

As with the translations, we need guidelines for consistency. We should always call the same things by the same name: edit field, edit box, entry form, etc.

Greg Roach - greg@subaqua.co.uk - @fisharebest@phpc.social - fisharebest.webtrees.net

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13 years 10 months ago - 13 years 10 months ago #10 by WGroleau
Replied by WGroleau on topic Re:Translation directives in the wiki?
Hmmm, although this forum overall is much better than that of SourceForge, I see that it does not show threading, i.e., what post is being answered. Guess I should have quoted.

To expand my question:
There are four different places I can put a question or comment on translation: Bugs, "Answers" on launchpad, here, and Wiki. How would I decide which to use?

So, Greg has already partially answerd:

Wiki: decision made
Here: discussion leading to decision

--
Wes Groleau
UniGen.us/
Last edit: 13 years 10 months ago by WGroleau.

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13 years 10 months ago #11 by kiwi
Replied by kiwi on topic Re:Translation directives in the wiki?
As you say Wes, Greg has covered most things. Bugs are for bugs, not questions; WIKI as we (and PGV) use it is a resource tool, not a discussion location.
Bugs definitely go on LaunchPad.

You mention the word "voting" - its a concept I've often thought about, but its hard to make work. So the principle we're using (quite successfully so far) is that an idea gets discussed, and then its acted on based on a loose "consensus" particularly among the developers (who also have an opportunity for discussion away from the public view). In some cases this means that decisions are as much about NOT objecting as the opposite!

The one question that does remain, in my mind, is the use of "Answers" on LaunchPad vs this forum. In my view its very confusing to have both. So I have recommended that we remove the Answers option on LaunchPad. However, there is also a view that it has some benefits: "Easily searchable, multi-language. Integrates nicely with bug tracker and FAQ".

In my view searchability may be limited once volume grows, and multi-language I'm unsure of - it certainly doesn't translate a poster's actual question as far as I know. I do agree that it "can" if any one takes the trouble to use it, integrate with the bug tracker and FAQs.

But the FAQs potentially also risk getting confused with things here and on the WIKI. I'd be tempted to turn that off as well and keep things simple

Other views anyone???

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13 years 10 months ago #12 by kiwi
Replied by kiwi on topic Re:Translation directives in the wiki?
WGroleau wrote:

Hmmm, although this forum overall is much better than that of SourceForge, I see that it does not show threading, i.e., what post is being answered. Guess I should have quoted.

Thats true, at least for now. The developers of this forum software have been having a lot of debate on that subject for the last year or so, having removed it due to some substanbtial problems it was causing. There is still hope that it will be re-introduced at some point. The next release is due soon, but it won't be in there unfortunately. That release will however include the ability to subscribe to an entire "Category", such as "Help" though, which will be useful. At present you can only subscribe (receive email notifications for) single topics.

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