Belarusian/Belorussian translation

l10n
#1

Hello all

Being busy, I wasn't following the list thoroughly. What's that about new Belarusian translation?? Previously, I approved the initial inclusion of the OOO be-BY material (maintained by me - account 'Yury Tarasievich' on the wiki). Mikalai Udodau translated several pages on the wiki. The Belarusian translation itself wasn't included in Pootle because it's maintained without Pootle.

Now, I see the request from sasha.libreoffice@gmail.com on February 25, and the answer from Andras Timar stating the Belarusian team supposedly doesn't exist, and the whole lot of activity concerning the renaming of the locale, the "new head" of the team etc.

What gives?

-Yury

#2

Hi Yury,

Hello all

Being busy, I wasn't following the list thoroughly. What's that about
new Belarusian translation?? Previously, I approved the initial
inclusion of the OOO be-BY material (maintained by me - account 'Yury
Tarasievich' on the wiki). Mikalai Udodau translated several pages on
the wiki. The Belarusian translation itself wasn't included in Pootle
because it's maintained without Pootle.

I'm sorry if we made a mistake, but where is it indicated?

Now, I see the request from sasha.libreoffice@gmail.com on February 25,
and the answer from Andras Timar stating the Belarusian team supposedly
doesn't exist, and the whole lot of activity concerning the renaming of
the locale, the "new head" of the team etc.

What gives?

It seems you didn't update these informations on the wiki here:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Language_Teams
and here:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Translation_for_3_3

Please, understand that it's very difficult for us to follow each language team if this information is not up to date.
Sasha request an access to translate the help files, could you see with him if he can help your team here?
Thanks in advance
Kind regards
Sophie

#3

Could you clarify, where is indicated *what*? That the translation is maintained without Pootle? I didn't see (or hear from you, for that matter) about the Pootle use being mandatory. Or that the translation is included officially? I'd guess that was obvious, from the fact the builds are generated.

...

I'm sorry if we made a mistake, but where is it indicated?

...

It seems you didn't update these informations on the wiki here:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Language_Teams
and here:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Translation_for_3_3

Also, where did that file go: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/index.php?title=BE/Main_Page

I distinctly remember Mikalai translating it and me revising it.

You also say:

Please, understand that it's very difficult for us to follow each
language team if this information is not up to date.
Sasha request an access to translate the help files, could you see with
him if he can help your team here?

Everybody is free to contribute, even if not in Pootle. Several people contributed to the translation over the years.
The problems I see now w/r to the Belarusian translation included in the LibreOffice are:

1) How Sasha (or anybody, for that matter) was given *admin* access w/r to *anything at all* in the Belarusian translation without me not even getting a ping, not from Sasha, nor from anybody from LO team? Did everybody look at the existing be-BY builds and somehow not notice that the builds material had to come from somewhere?

2) What've actually changed in the list of teams, besides Sasha's email put in the contact for the "Belarusian team"?

3) You personally requested my approval for the inclusion of the be-BY translation. So, my name is already linked with the material in question. How come Andras wasn't consulting the registry or something? That's, like, expected elementary book-keeping, *even* if there are lots of languages.

Also, on list I've seen Sasha expressing the wish to translate "something", help wasn't mentioned.

I'd expect the LO Team to correct this situation.

-Yury

#4

Also, I still can't readily find on LO sites the authoritative description of the .PO based L10N process. Pootle isn't acceptable for the languages with the comparatively weak terminological base . In such cases it's common for everybody to translate "just as one sees fit". Sasha's contribution on Pootle is already deviating from the terminology used in the existing Belarusian translation.

-Yury

#5

Hi Yury,

Could you clarify, where is indicated *what*? That the translation is
maintained without Pootle? I didn't see (or hear from you, for that
matter) about the Pootle use being mandatory. Or that the translation is
included officially? I'd guess that was obvious, from the fact the
builds are generated.

Did I say it is mandatory, in the page I indicated, there is a table where a yes or no is needed, indicating that the translation will be taken on Pootle or not. We are not supposed to get every thing in our mind, please a little help is understandable too. I'm sorry I made the mistake to believe the missing information.

...

I'm sorry if we made a mistake, but where is it indicated?

...

It seems you didn't update these informations on the wiki here:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Language_Teams
and here:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Translation_for_3_3

Also, where did that file go:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/index.php?title=BE/Main_Page

I distinctly remember Mikalai translating it and me revising it.

I don't know, I'm not maintaining those wiki page.

You also say:

Please, understand that it's very difficult for us to follow each
language team if this information is not up to date.
Sasha request an access to translate the help files, could you see with
him if he can help your team here?

Everybody is free to contribute, even if not in Pootle. Several people
contributed to the translation over the years.

Did I said the contrary?

The problems I see now w/r to the Belarusian translation included in the
LibreOffice are:

1) How Sasha (or anybody, for that matter) was given *admin* access w/r
to *anything at all* in the Belarusian translation without me not even
getting a ping, not from Sasha, nor from anybody from LO team? Did
everybody look at the existing be-BY builds and somehow not notice that
the builds material had to come from somewhere?

Again I apologize if we made a mistake, but none of the information was available to help us prevent this mistake. Thanks to understand that our time is also limited and a little help is needed.

2) What've actually changed in the list of teams, besides Sasha's email
put in the contact for the "Belarusian team"?

I don't understand your question, there was no team listed, this is why we propose to Sasha to add himself

3) You personally requested my approval for the inclusion of the be-BY
translation. So, my name is already linked with the material in
question. How come Andras wasn't consulting the registry or something?

It's me who is faulty here, I'm really sorry that I don't remember that you were already working on the translation for LibreOffice. I don't see you in the table saying where the translation should be taken. So don't blame Sasha or Andras, only me about this. I'll try to remember everything next time (or take my personal notes more up to date).

That's, like, expected elementary book-keeping, *even* if there are lots
of languages.

Also, on list I've seen Sasha expressing the wish to translate
"something", help wasn't mentioned.

I'd expect the LO Team to correct this situation.

You are part or the LO Team I think as well as all of us here, and again I apologize for the mistake I've made. Andras and Rimas are both volunteering to help us have your files integrated in the build, so could you please update the information on the wiki and give Sasha some rights so he can make some proposal unless you do'nt want him to participaet. He told me that he wanted to work on the help file on a mail he sent on moderation but he didn't request admin rights so don't take him as responsible of the situation, it's entirely my fault.

Kind regards
Sophie

#6

Let's not talk about who's to blame, but about how to correct the situation, instead.

Incidentally, by "LO Team" I was meaning the core team or however this is called. Obviously, those folks bear more responsibility than "just the translators".

So, I'm seeing the following issues right now:

1) Is there a gracious way to "demote" Sasha and put me as the "BE team leader" (or however this "position" is called)? Also, to revive Mikalai Udodau wiki contribution?

2) I'm not familiar with the Pootle process. Is there a possibility to veto the Pootle contribution, preferrably in part? Sasha's terminology differs from what's in the translation already (see my previous post).

2.1) Is there a possibility to convert the Pootle contribution to the .PO format, preferrably selectively? I.e., to convert Sasha's contribution to .PO for me to revise?

3) The .PO technological cycle isn't documented comprehensively on LO sites.

-Yury

#7

Hello Yury,

2011.03.04 08:56, Yury Tarasievich rašė:

Could you clarify, where is indicated *what*? That the translation is maintained without Pootle? I didn't see (or hear from you, for that matter) about the Pootle use being mandatory. Or that the translation is included officially? I'd guess that was obvious, from the fact the builds are generated.

* LibreOffice currently compiles all languages available in OOo, even without a LibO localization lead. So, existance of be-BY builds does NOT prove that the team for Belarusian exists.
* Pootle is not mandatory, but it reflects the statistics pretty well. And statistics for Belarusian are that lo-build-be-BY.po was at 0%. Maybe you had translated something, but we certainly were not aware of it. Well, unless Timar was, which I don't think is the case either.
* We keep asking every new team to indicate their existance on http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Language_Teams and whether or not they want to use Pootle on http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Translation_for_3_3. For be-BY, none of these pages were filled. The reason could be that your team has been around from the very beginning of LibO, but OTOH, there's been no indication that your team exists or way to evaluate your contribution because so far there seems to be none (except for that wiki page).

...

I'm sorry if we made a mistake, but where is it indicated?

...

It seems you didn't update these informations on the wiki here:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Language_Teams
and here:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Translation_for_3_3

Also, where did that file go: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/index.php?title=BE/Main_Page

I distinctly remember Mikalai translating it and me revising it.

It's been moved to http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Main_Page/be. However, the structure of Main_Page has changed a lot since it was first created. You should probably update it (or ask for its deletion, if you don't plan to maintain wiki translation).

You also say:

Please, understand that it's very difficult for us to follow each
language team if this information is not up to date.
Sasha request an access to translate the help files, could you see with
him if he can help your team here?

Everybody is free to contribute, even if not in Pootle. Several people contributed to the translation over the years.
The problems I see now w/r to the Belarusian translation included in the LibreOffice are:

1) How Sasha (or anybody, for that matter) was given *admin* access w/r to *anything at all* in the Belarusian translation without me not even getting a ping, not from Sasha, nor from anybody from LO team? Did everybody look at the existing be-BY builds and somehow not notice that the builds material had to come from somewhere?

See above. Your team was nonexistant from our point of view. We can't know that a team exists if that is not indicated anywhere and it is a sleeper team. We're only human, after all.

2) What've actually changed in the list of teams, besides Sasha's email put in the contact for the "Belarusian team"?

You can look at the history of that page. There was no Belarusian row in that table previously, so Sasha's added it.

3) You personally requested my approval for the inclusion of the be-BY translation. So, my name is already linked with the material in question. How come Andras wasn't consulting the registry or something? That's, like, expected elementary book-keeping, *even* if there are lots of languages.

I'm not Sophie for that regard, so it's only my opinion, but I don't think that asking for inclusion of your translation automatically makes you a team manager. You have to show some interest in maintaining it, and I guess you didn't (or it wasn't obvious).

Also, on list I've seen Sasha expressing the wish to translate "something", help wasn't mentioned.

I'd expect the LO Team to correct this situation.

I'd expect you to contact Sasha and try to resolve this situation inside your team(s) first. Have you at least tried contacting him before scolding us?

Best regards, and don't take my harsh tone too personally. It's only as harsh as your own message.
Rimas

#8

We have many African languages who also have weak terminology that benefit from using Pootle.

The difference is that they include their terminology in the terminology project on Pootle. You can do that also, in which case people giving suggestions and translations are guided by the teams terminology lists.

I'd say Pootle in that case is a better way to localise since the terminology is central and available to everyone. I'm not trying to convince you to change anything, I just think that that specific criticism on Pootle is not well informed.

#9

Let's not talk about who's to blame, but about how to correct the situation, instead.

Incidentally, by "LO Team" I was meaning the core team or however this is called. Obviously, those folks bear more responsibility than "just the translators".

So, I'm seeing the following issues right now:

1) Is there a gracious way to "demote" Sasha and put me as the "BE team leader" (or however this "position" is called)? Also, to revive Mikalai Udodau wiki contribution?

2) I'm not familiar with the Pootle process. Is there a possibility to veto the Pootle contribution, preferrably in part? Sasha's terminology differs from what's in the translation already (see my previous post).

If Sasha had suggest rights and you have review rights then you would be able to review all of Sasha's contributions.

2.1) Is there a possibility to convert the Pootle contribution to the .PO format, preferrably selectively? I.e., to convert Sasha's contribution to .PO for me to revise?

Not in PO, a limitation of the PO format. But if you download an XLIFF version for offline translation then Sasha's suggestions would be listed as alternative translations. You can use Virtaal to edit these offline XLIFF files.

#10

2011.03.04 09:14, Yury Tarasievich rašė:

Also, I still can't readily find on LO sites the authoritative description of the .PO based L10N process.

It's more-or-less outlined here: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Translation_for_3_3, except the "Translators should use Pootle" part, which should have been worded "Translators are suggested to use Pootle" or similarly.

Pootle isn't acceptable for the languages with the comparatively weak terminological base . In such cases it's common for everybody to translate "just as one sees fit". Sasha's contribution on Pootle is already deviating from the terminology used in the existing Belarusian translation.

Dwayne has already mentioned why this particular criticism for Pootle is incorrect. I'll add one more thing: the process of translating in Pootle is quite flexible: the language admin can grant anyone permissions to submit translations, or to suggest them. Say you don't have a terminology file on hand, but you want to keep it consistent – in that case you'd just give the team members the right to suggest, and one or two reviewers to submit the suggested translations. That's what a few teams already do, and it works pretty well.

By the way, Pootle can even autogenerate a terminology file for you. It would need a review, of course, but it would still be a huge step forward.

Regards,
Rimas

#11

Yury,

Let's not talk about who's to blame, but about how to correct the
situation, instead.

Incidentally, by "LO Team" I was meaning the core team or however this
is called. Obviously, those folks bear more responsibility than "just
the translators".

So, I'm seeing the following issues right now:

1) Is there a gracious way to "demote" Sasha and put me as the "BE
team leader" (or however this "position" is called)? Also, to revive
Mikalai Udodau wiki contribution?

Sasha didn't request this role specifically, so I imagine that talking with him could solve the whole issue. I'll have a look at what happen to the page in the wiki later today and let you know.

2) I'm not familiar with the Pootle process. Is there a possibility to
veto the Pootle contribution, preferrably in part? Sasha's terminology
differs from what's in the translation already (see my previous post).

If Sasha had suggest rights and you have review rights then you would be
able to review all of Sasha's contributions.

2.1) Is there a possibility to convert the Pootle contribution to the
.PO format, preferrably selectively? I.e., to convert Sasha's
contribution to .PO for me to revise?

Not in PO, a limitation of the PO format. But if you download an XLIFF
version for offline translation then Sasha's suggestions would be listed
as alternative translations. You can use Virtaal to edit these offline
XLIFF files.

3) The .PO technological cycle isn't documented comprehensively on LO
sites.

What do you mean by "technological cycle"? I've begin to write some pages on the wiki but didn't get the time to finish yet, so I could include your needs too. The localization process was not well determined for 3.3 release because we (all of us here, because we don't work all the same way) are setting it and I'll try to document it on the wiki for 3.4. It's a wiki so every body is free to add the information he doesn't find, so if there is something wrong or missing, don't hesitate to add or correct what is needed.

Kind regards
Sophie

#12

...

I'd expect the LO Team to correct this situation.

I'd expect you to contact Sasha and try to resolve this situation inside
your team(s) first. Have you at least tried contacting him before
scolding us?

Best regards, and don't take my harsh tone too personally. It's only as
harsh as your own message.

Hail, hail, the justice is served. Back to the issues.

By now, I already see what are the options, but I still want to say that *usually* the overall coordination of the subordinated activities is the responsibility of the subordinating organisation. In our case, it's obvious that the team producing the material doesn't have to "chase around" looking to advertise itself in the infrastructure which is, frankly, far from being well documented. The LO team (or Core team, if you please) requested and received the material, so it's quite natural for the producer to expect being registered "automatically". At least, it was so in OpenOffice.org process.

By the way, yes, we are all human etc. (e.g., I wouldn't consider my "tone" as "harsh", just as "baffled").

-Yury

#13

...

description of the .PO based L10N process. Pootle isn't acceptable for
the languages with the comparatively weak terminological base . In
such cases it's common for everybody to translate "just as one sees

...

We have many African languages who also have weak terminology that
benefit from using Pootle.

The difference is that they include their terminology in the terminology
project on Pootle. You can do that also, in which case people giving
suggestions and translations are guided by the teams terminology lists.

The big problem is this procedure isn't well visible or integrated. E.g., one may easily bypass it or ignore it. Also, the terminology matching isn't as quite clear-cut process as many tools make it to look (Pootle, too, as far as I can understand -- I know Pootle only superficially). E.g., is there a support for the context variants (translate as A1 in context C1, as A2 in C2 etc.)?

-Yury

#14

2011.03.04 10:09, Yury Tarasievich rašė:

...

description of the .PO based L10N process. Pootle isn't acceptable for
the languages with the comparatively weak terminological base . In
such cases it's common for everybody to translate "just as one sees

...

We have many African languages who also have weak terminology that
benefit from using Pootle.

The difference is that they include their terminology in the terminology
project on Pootle. You can do that also, in which case people giving
suggestions and translations are guided by the teams terminology lists.

The big problem is this procedure isn't well visible or integrated. E.g., one may easily bypass it or ignore it. Also, the terminology matching isn't as quite clear-cut process as many tools make it to look (Pootle, too, as far as I can understand -- I know Pootle only superficially). E.g., is there a support for the context variants (translate as A1 in context C1, as A2 in C2 etc.)?

Yury,

Pootle does not check your translation against terminology. It's the other way around: it suggests terms from the terminology when you do the translation.

Rimas

#15

...

In this context, I'd expect something on the lines of:

(Provided your work is based on the .PO files set, )in order to have your updates integrated in the subsequent builds of the LO, you need to do the following:

1) Form the submitted material. (In this case, )The structure of the archived content (repeats the structure of the POT distribution) consists of the /po/ subdirectory, containing, in its turn, the further subdirectories, containing, in their turn, the .po files.

2) validate the .PO . Do the following: run 1, run 2. OK is when there's no output.

3) Archive the material. The material needs to be archived in the .tar.gz or . tar.bz2 or .zip format.

4) Submit the material. The following forms of submission are accepted:
4.1) Publishing the material on the internet (http or ftp), with the notification made to (one of )the following address(es)
4.2) Creating the issue ticket on the Bugzilla system and attaching the material
4.3) Emailing the material to (one of )the following address(es)

-Yury

#16

2011.03.04 10:06, Yury Tarasievich rašė:

...

I'd expect the LO Team to correct this situation.

I'd expect you to contact Sasha and try to resolve this situation inside
your team(s) first. Have you at least tried contacting him before
scolding us?

Best regards, and don't take my harsh tone too personally. It's only as
harsh as your own message.

Hail, hail, the justice is served. Back to the issues.

By now, I already see what are the options, but I still want to say that *usually* the overall coordination of the subordinated activities is the responsibility of the subordinating organisation. In our case, it's obvious that the team producing the material doesn't have to "chase around" looking to advertise itself in the infrastructure which is, frankly, far from being well documented.

Well, good morning and welcome to l10n@libreoffice.org where we've been discussing all this infrastructure stuff for months! The Language_Teams page has been around since October, and you had not noticed it. Maybe if TDF would not be going through the establishment phase in those months, you could blame them that you team was forgotten. But right now, I simply don't think its fair.

The LO team (or Core team, if you please) requested and received the material, so it's quite natural for the producer to expect being registered "automatically". At least, it was so in OpenOffice.org process.

Well, I guess your expectation was wrong. Us asking for material and you providing it only means that you don't mind us distributing it. It is not an obligation for you to keep maintaining that material in future, which is still voluntarily.

Rimas

#17

Rimas I wonder if it would be worth actually creating a terminology file for LO? Teams could still upload their own terms but this could act as an authoritative terminology list especially useful for teams starting out. A team could be responsible for maintaining that as a resource.

#18

...

description of the .PO based L10N process. Pootle isn't acceptable for
the languages with the comparatively weak terminological base . In
such cases it's common for everybody to translate "just as one sees

...

We have many African languages who also have weak terminology that
benefit from using Pootle.

The difference is that they include their terminology in the terminology
project on Pootle. You can do that also, in which case people giving
suggestions and translations are guided by the teams terminology lists.

The big problem is this procedure isn't well visible or integrated. E.g., one may easily bypass it or ignore it.

It's quite visible the terms show up on the left of the translation. But you are correct you can easily ignore it. Enforcing terminology is difficult though, especially in language where words transform depending on their context. A social agreement is in most cases a better approach I think.

Also, the terminology matching isn't as quite clear-cut process as many tools make it to look (Pootle, too, as far as I can understand -- I know Pootle only superficially). E.g., is there a support for the context variants (translate as A1 in context C1, as A2 in C2 etc.)?

Terminology matching is ultimately a human decision, a machine can only do so much. Context itself is difficult for a machine to determine.

The skills needed to understand the issues of translation and terminology use and development are the reasons why I prefer to have all translators go through a vetting stage (suggestions only) before being given full translate rights.

#19

2011.03.04 10:30, Dwayne Bailey rašė:

2011.03.04 09:14, Yury Tarasievich rašė:

Also, I still can't readily find on LO sites the authoritative description of the .PO based L10N process.

It's more-or-less outlined here: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Translation_for_3_3, except the "Translators should use Pootle" part, which should have been worded "Translators are suggested to use Pootle" or similarly.

Pootle isn't acceptable for the languages with the comparatively weak terminological base . In such cases it's common for everybody to translate "just as one sees fit". Sasha's contribution on Pootle is already deviating from the terminology used in the existing Belarusian translation.

Dwayne has already mentioned why this particular criticism for Pootle is incorrect. I'll add one more thing: the process of translating in Pootle is quite flexible: the language admin can grant anyone permissions to submit translations, or to suggest them. Say you don't have a terminology file on hand, but you want to keep it consistent – in that case you'd just give the team members the right to suggest, and one or two reviewers to submit the suggested translations. That's what a few teams already do, and it works pretty well.

By the way, Pootle can even autogenerate a terminology file for you. It would need a review, of course, but it would still be a huge step forward.

Rimas I wonder if it would be worth actually creating a terminology file for LO? Teams could still upload their own terms but this could act as an authoritative terminology list especially useful for teams starting out. A team could be responsible for maintaining that as a resource.

I think it would be worth, but how exactly do you suggest we do that? IMO, the easiest way is for teams that use the Merged modules to autogenerate terminology in Pootle. Or would it result in considerably worse quality than using other means?

Rimas

#20

...

Also, the terminology matching isn't as quite clear-cut process as
many tools make it to look (Pootle, too, as far as I can understand --
I know Pootle only superficially). E.g., is there a support for the
context variants (translate as A1 in context C1, as A2 in C2 etc.)?

Terminology matching is ultimately a human decision, a machine can only
do so much. Context itself is difficult for a machine to determine.

I mean is there even a technical support in Pootle for the context variants, as described?

Also, could you please elaborate on the XLIFF process you mentioned You said: "But if you download an XLIFF version for offline translation then Sasha's suggestions would be listed as alternative translations. You can use Virtaal to edit these offline XLIFF files." Does this mean to even use these "alternative translations", one has to switch to the XLIFF format?

The skills needed to understand the issues of translation and
terminology use and development are the reasons why I prefer to have all
translators go through a vetting stage (suggestions only) before being
given full translate rights.

Ohh, you are so right.

-Yury