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List:       kde-doc-english
Subject:    Re: [kde-doc-english]Attn all: Markup Changes
From:       Thomas Diehl <thd () kde ! org>
Date:       2002-01-27 18:04:58
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Am Sonntag, 27. Januar 2002 16:48 schrieb Mike McBride:

> Now if I have misunderstood, and what you meant by "rewriting" was that
> you simply changed the writing style, but have not signifigantly altered
> the content, then I am less concerned.

You can be less concerned. :-) I'm talking about style exclusively here. As 
every translation team, we simply take the liberty to make GUI and 
documentation as consistent as possible. As some other teams we try to 
avoid everything what seems personal and exclamatory in this process. 
That's about all. (But if the files are subjective and exclamatory 
throughout this may really look like a re-write.)

As to changes of contents: In most (serious) cases we try to contact the 
author but relatively often get no reply. (At least that's what my team 
members are telling me, I'm not in doc translation myself anymore.) In this 
cases we may take the liberty to insert something like "no up-to-date 
documentation available" in a section (but AFAIK we have not even done so 
yet).

Incidentally: Most of this is happening in GUI files anyway so far. We have 
not come around to proof read doc translation in the same way.

> I agree. Guidelines that are publicly viewable are much better then each
> of us having guidelines of our own.

This is not mutually exclusive, I guess. The guidelines of translation teams 
(and the expectations of their audiences) may vary. And who is going to 
control 60+ translation teams? Not me, even if I could.

Guidelines for the authors and recommendations for the translators would be 
a very good starting point, nevertheless.

> I think it is just as important to remember that different documentation
> is aimed at different audiences.  In my opinion, the documentation
> included with kwuftpd should be very different then the documentation
> that should be included with ktron (as an example).

No doubt about that. The rules in our team are not the same for games and 
kdeadmin, of course. And they are not the same for koffice and kdeedu, 
either.

> Many American audiences prefer examples which are not as dry as "This is
> a warning message".

This is exactly what I meant with the above "The guidelines of translation 
teams (and the expectations of their audiences) may vary". I guess, most 
Germans are not exactly known for their good sense of humor. Hereabouts, 
most business users do expect exactly something as dry as "This is
a warning message". I do not expect the US authors to change there texts 
because of that. But I reserve the liberty to adjust the translation to our 
needs. And this is probably what other teams are also doing.

> These are obviously problems, and I would hope that anyone (proofreader,
> translator, reader, translation team leader, etc) who found these errors
> would point them out to me so I could rewrite/remove them.

We should but unfortunately we very rarely do that (myself included). There 
is still a lot of this stuff, most of it concentrated in some infamous 
files. That's why I have such high hopes for the proof reading team and 
would so much welcome something like those guidelines.

> What is most concerning to me about this discussion so far, is that as a
> documentation writer, I receive less than 1 message every 3-4 months

Your documentation is just too good. ;-)

> and now I find out that possibly some translation teams have been
> bothered by examples, writing styles, etc.  Why has no one spoken up on
> the list recently? 

See above. -- To recap:

*  The criticism does not aim at all (or even most) GUI files or 
documentations. Most problems are with relatively few ones.

*  Most translators probably do not feel competent to discuss style issues 
with native speakers, they rather concentrate on their primary target 
groups and their own native language.

*  Most translators are always so short on time with their work that there 
is simply never enough time for this extra work (my case).

*  Some translators wrote to authors but did not get a reply or they got 
a reply which did not help things at all.

Also (as you can see nicely from that ":-( [snap]" reply on my posting) 
this is quite a delicate subject which often leads to hurt feelings or 
endless threads which in the end do not really lead anywhere. And most 
people prefer to stay clear from delicate subjects most of the time.

Regards,

Thomas

-- 
KDE translation: http://i18n.kde.org/
Deutsche KDE-Uebersetzung: http://i18n.kde.org/teams/de/
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