[Slackdocs] i18n

[Eric Hameleers]

On Mon, 20 Aug 2012, asteroid wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm very interesting about how to translate the slackdocs.
>
> My opinion :
> 	- the english page have to be validated, up-to-date, and
> 	  completed before been translated.
> 	- at this time, translation can be done in others languages.
>
> That can be like this for the beginning. Later, page can (and must)
> move around, and translation must follow. We have to make a procedure to
> 'release' original page _in english_ and ask for translation. Localized
> communities can relay the need of translation in their forum, irc
> channel, druid circle, ...

Yes, I agree that the english page should be the primary page. In fact, 
the Wiki which I setup at http://taper.alienbase.nl/dokuwiki/ has been 
configured that way: english is primary and all translations are 
secondary. The wiki will show a comment when the translated page is 
outdated (when for instance the timestamp of the english original is 
newer). You can reach the french translation of any page by appending 
"fr:". For instance, the french version of 
http://taper.alienbase.nl/dokuwiki/slackware:slackware will be 
http://taper.alienbase.nl/dokuwiki/fr:slackware:slackware . You will 
notice that the Wiki interface language will change to frech as well!

What I also propose is that we could create a separate mailing list for 
the translations. I.e. have a list "slackdocs-fr" for the french 
translators. That way, your discussions can be in french without upsetting 
the english people in "slackdocs" ;-)

A remark about translating only the approved versions of an english page: 
I have not yet activated the "publish" plugin of the wiki. When I do that, 
then any page edit will put that page in "Draft" mode and this will be 
very clearly marked. Visitors of the Wiki will not see the draft pages, 
they will see the older, but approved, version. A site editor will have 
the power to approve a draft if he agrees to the changes.

That needs a site admin team where some people take care of the 
infrastructure (the wiki, its plugins, backups etc) and others in the team 
who are experienced proofreaders will take up the role of editor. We will 
have to find these people first of course :-)

> Another point I would like to talk about : it is important that
> translation follow the main stream. If there is thousan pages to
> translate, this is a very big work, but make translation following the
> main stream is, imho, easiest.

I agree completely.

> Last point, english documentation may be written in basic english, like
> someone say on LQ thread.
>
> My 0,02$

The idea is that even non-english speakers should be able to understand 
the english texts. As long as we do not have translations, that english 
text will be all that they have.

Cheers, Eric