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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: String freeze
From:       Nicolas Goutte <nicolasg () snafu ! de>
Date:       2003-10-29 0:57:15
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It would perhaps be good if a short version of the style guide concerning only 
the text. This would be easier for developers to look for what they need. The 
style guide itself has too many information that are rather irrelevant, as 
either it is done by Qt or KDE or because it is only releveant at design 
time.

If such a short reference would exist, we would perhaps avoid to have style 
guide fix at the last moment or even worse at string freeze time. (I suppose 
that the Italian translator of KDevelop will be even more upset tomorrow 
(well, more later today), when he will find out that there are even more 
fuzzies.)

As the above is not really the subject of your email, let's discuss about it 
too. To avoid any misunderstanding, what follows is not personal against you, 
Malcolm. I have tried to show examples where the text correcting people are 
not cooperating with others.

First example: notifying kde-i18n-doc

I was told that when you changed user-visible strings despite a message freeze 
or when you change a documentation despite a documentation freeze, you had to 
inform this mailing list: kde-i18n-doc.

Personally I have done it for the "tons" of untranslated strings that KOffice 
had and when removing the worst part of KWord's filter documentation.

So now, take the example of KDevelop, as this problem was raised tonight. Was 
this notification done for the "style fix" of Monday? No! If you consider 
Monday to be a border case, was it done one day after (yesterday)? Not 
either.

Second example: changes by sed scripts

I have noticed too many times that changes were made by sed scripts (or by the 
replace function of an editor) without any control thereafter. (It has again 
appeared in the "folder" versus "directory" change.) Even worse are changes 
where the code itself was touched by these automatic changes.

Third example: "I am a native English speaker"

That is the one that I hate the most. I do not see why being a native speaker 
is a wildcard to know better than the developer what the developer wants to 
tell, not counting the consdescending way. (To avoid any misunderstanding: 
this is not about Malcolm, not at all.) And no, I do not mind that someone 
tells, "Sorry, but you cannot write that in English, as it would be 
misunderstood."

I could probably give more examples but it would get (more?) silly, so I stop 
here.

So those are a few example points that I think would help people in general if 
they would not stay as they are. I know that text-correcting people have 
probably as much a lack of time as developers. I also know that telling is 
easy and doing is hard (including for me.)

Perhaps some of the points can be solved by having a document like I have 
explained at the start of this email. If such a document needs a dictionary, 
then it should be added too (or the dictionary could be a separate document.) 
Why not describing in it what a "folder" is and what a "directory" is? It 
would probably also avoid that this question is raised each year, that each 
year there is a mass change and that each year there is a "back-correction" 
for "directory" in a command line context.

It is only when every developer would have the posibility to look at a 
reference (which must be useful for him or unfortunately he will not use it) 
that the number of simple text correcting tasks would decrease. Then 
text-correcting people would have more time to really fix spelling, grammar 
and unclear phrasing. And translators would have less fuzzies, especially 
less fuzzies after message freeze.

I do not think that developers make it on purpose to annoy text-correcting 
people. Personaly, I have noticed that everytime that I apply what I have 
learnt at school or university about English, I am corrected afterwards. That 
is frustrating too! (I suppose that I am not the only one in this situation.)

I hope that I have offended nobody and that I was constructive enough. If not, 
I am sorry.

Have a nice day!

--- Original Message ---
List:     kde-i18n-doc
Subject:  String freeze
From:     Malcolm Hunter <malcolm.hunter () gmx ! co ! uk>
Date:     2003-10-28 12:56:36


I'm a little frustrated that people are reverting my corrections without even 
discussing it with me. Please can you not do this! It wastes time for me and 
adds work for the translation teams. 

Regards,
Malcolm
-- 
KDE Proof Reading Team
KDE GB English Translation Team


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