Real name: Andrej Žnidaršič (https://launchpad.net/~andrej.znidarsic)

• Member of Ubuntu Slovenian Translators group in launchpad since 2007-05-06, became a coordinator of Slovenian launchpad translation group in May 2010.

• Translator and Reviewer of GNOME packages since June 2009 - http://l10n.gnome.org/languages/sl/

• Member of ubuntu.si, Slovenian forum for Ubuntu users (nickname andrejz) where I offer support and try to help slovenian linux users. I also participate on #ubuntu-si on freenode.
• Author of news about Ubuntu, Linux and Open Source on web-page ubuntu.si
• Email: andrej (dot) znidarsic (at) gmail (dot) com
• IRC: andrejz on freenode
• Ubuntu member since July 2010.
• Member of Ubuntu translations coordinators since May 2011.

Activities

• Translations in launchpad ( see https://launchpad.net/~andrej-znidarsic/+karma ) - currently with karma above 20 000 (constantly among top 20 launchpad translations worldwide since June 2010 https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+topcontributors) .

• Translations in Gnome translation project (I have translated about 110 open source packages with about 36000 strings in total - all together more 995 commits as of 2011-06-24 - for detailed statistics, please see http://cia.vc/stats/author/andrej.znidarsic)

• Participated in a first big revision of all gnome translation packages to be compliant with newly accepted vocabulary. Vocabulary has been changing since the begging of the translation effort around 2000, but now it has more or less stabilized (look at the vocabulary in the future plans section). The goal is to finish the revision and correction before the release of gnome 3.0 and thus ubutnu 10.10. As of 2010-08-29 all 285 packages were reviewed and committed.

• I have written over 150 pieces of news about Ubuntu, Linux and open-source on Slovenian Ubuntu website ubuntu.si (http://www.ubuntu.si/punbb/user/547/) to promote interest in opensource and drive traffic to the webpage.

• Became coordinator of Slovenian Launchpad and Ubuntu translation groups in May 2010). Managed to energize the team to become one of the most active translations teams around. As a team coordinator I:
• Established a system of quality control of Slovenian translators group.
  • It turned out that most translators weren't aware of the guidelines. So we have put some emphasis on the guidelines and people have started taking note of them.

  • Made major changes to the translators wiki page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Ubuntu-l10n-sl with more emphasis on the upstream as many translators weren't aware that it existed. There is also an explanation about the lifespan of translations and contact information about all three major translation groups. Promote work and cooperation with upstream to increase the manpower of upstream teams.

  • Splited the translation group into translation team (less experienced translators) and quality assurance. All strings translated by the translation team are reviewed by quality assurance, which takes note of common mistakes and informs the translators, so they can improve faster.
  • Created a Jabber chat room to easily coordinate work, discuss translations and improve contact with team members. Ocassionally also members from upstream team are presents, which vastly improves communication.
  • Organized the following events in the chat room to promote translation work:
    • 2010-07-08 - Translation review before release of 10.4.1
    • 2010-08-17 - Welcome and QA session for new translators
    • 2010-08-24 - Translation evening - focus on 10.10
    • 2010-09-07 - Translation/review evening 10.10 (1/4)
    • 2010-09-15 - Translation/review evening 10.10 (2/4)
    • 2010-09-22 - Translation/review evening 10.10 (3/4)
    • 2010-09-29 - Translation/review evening 10.10 (4/4)

    • For events from November 2010 and beyond please look at https://www.google.com/calendar/b/0/embed?src=0rjhg55ikiino0gkt58b6u8oa8@group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Europe/Warsaw

• Improve coordination with upstream.
  • Organized a (in person) meeting with translation coordinators of Gnome, KDE, Ubuntu and other translators on 2010-05-12. There we decided how to handle conflicts when translating packages. As this was a great success we decided to meet about once per month.
  • Second meeting 2010-06-10 - less people due to exam period, but still discussed some interesting topics.
  • Third meeting was on 2010-07-07 where we took part in meeting of LUGOS (Linux User Group of Slovenia). We plan to do some translation advocacy and discuss various other linux and opensource related projects.
  • Later we changed the format to "translation beers", where we meet every 2nd Tuesday in the monthy to drink beer together and among other things discuss various translation related issues. Members of other translation groups commonly participate as they like cold beer ;).
• Accept a common vocabulary when translation certain items, both within and outside the launchpad group and synchronize translations.

  • We have a vocabulary accepted here https://wiki.lugos.si/slovenjenje:pojmovnik together with gnome translation group. Vocabulary is getting constantly updated (currently about 30-50 strings are added per month) and has recently started to include contributions/discussions from KDE as well.

  • Created tips with strings from vocabulary. More info can be found here - http://slovenski-prevajalci.blogspot.com/2010/12/improving-translation-consistency-with.html.

• Promoting use of Ubuntu in the local community and with friends (made about 10 installations of Ubuntu on other people's computers, for some of them I still offer occasional support).
• Often on #ubuntu-si on freenode.net offering my advice to users.

• Created a webpage: https://wiki.lugos.si/projekti:podprtost-linuxa on which users can rank how good Linux is supported by various Slovenian services (like online banking, country's administration, photo printing). This should enable users to choose a provider, which supports their operating system and stimulate providers to improve their linux support.

• Established a blog http://slovenski-prevajalci.blogspot.com/ to share ideas and promote work of our translation group.

• Was a leader of Ubuntu Open Week's session "Get started translating Ubuntu" on 12th October 2010 as David Planella hasn't been available.

• Had a one hour talk about Ubuntu at "Open code day" in Novo Mesto, Slovenia on 2011-03-16.

• Coorganized a big open source code picnic on 2011-05-15 near Ljubljana, where about 50 people showed up. A lot of ideas how to get slovenian open source community alive and kicking again
• Organized Slovenian Ubuntu Global Jam on 2011-04-02.
• Organized Slovenian Ubuntu Global Jam on 2011-09-02.
• Coordinating Slovenian Ubuntu hours project.

Future plans

• Keep on rocking with translations and translate even more and better. Some areas to work on:
  • ddtp
  • gnome documentation
  • kde
• Continue with monthly meetings + beers
• Organize a series of lectures and practical workshops on Ubuntu for new users in autumn 2011 around Slovenia
• Devise a way to connect many small and mostly dormant open source groups in Slovenia

Testimonials

Andrej is one of those guys you just want to have on your team. Thanks to his contribution to the Slovenian translation project, Slovene quickly became one of among the most widely translated languages in the world. A self-starter, he is always eager to learn, co-operate and work for the benefit of the team, which are the qualities every coordinator looks for. He quickly fit in and showed a thorough understanding of the team’s policies as well as other, less obvious, but equally important aspects of team work.

He recently took over the co-ordination of the Slovenian Launchpad Team, a much more challenging and responsible task, which I am positive he will be up to. His enthusiasm makes us all work even harder.

-- Matej Urbančič (gnome translation coordinator for Slovenian language)