CommunityParticipationInCoordinatingTranslations

Summary

The global translations coordination process in Ubuntu will be clearly documented and more structure will be provided to the Ubuntu Translations Coordinators team (UTC). This will allow a more transparent process for the community to participate in and will also allow to formalize all steps required for ensuring that an excellent native language support is delivered upon each release. At the same time, Ubuntu developers will have a clear point of contact for anything related to translations and will be aware of the actions the UTC team can perform to assist them.

Release Note

The translations coordination process is transparent and fully documented, it is also structured and it allows for community participation. Ubuntu developers and users are aware of the role of the team and the services it can provide.

Rationale

On the Karmic cycle we saw the UbuntuTranslationCoordinators team building up as a community-based leadership team to coordinate and look after translations in Ubuntu. It has worked very well so far, and we'd like to build upon this initial success to formalize the team structure and document the actions the team can perform and the processes within the team.

User stories

  • Martin is an Ubuntu developer. He notices that a package upload modified a translation template it shouldn't have, but at this point it is not convenient to do a new upload. After consulting the actions the UTC can do, he contacts them through one of their communication channels and asks them to manually update the template in Launchpad. They then perform the manual upload transparently to developers and users.
  • Anna is also an Ubuntu developer, and notices that some of the translation templates of her package have been stuck in the imports queue. She finds the contact for the UTC team, what to do in this cases, and sends an e-mail to the UTC list. Upon reading the e-mail, the UTC team members look after the problem and approve the template.
  • Marta has been involved in translations for quite a while. She is quite active and knowledgeable about them. She'd like to commit further to the translations process. She reads the procedure of becoming a member of the team, contacts the UTC team, starts the application procedure and successfully joins the team.
  • Hajo is the Klingon translation team coordinator. He's been doing good work and participating in the global Ubunt translations community discussions. The UTC team have been aware of this, and following their agreed team member admission policy contact him and propose him to join them.

Design

We'll focus our work in the following areas:

  • Identifying actions and processes which need documentation
  • Agreeing upon them
  • Documenting them on the UbuntuTranslationsCoordinators namespace in the wiki

  • Raising awareness on the team and announcing its areas of focus and the services it can provide

Implementation

Following the UDS discussion, the following actions have been identified to be necessary to implement this spec:

  • [dpm] Provide a list of actions and processes to document
  • [dpm] Send an e-mail to the UTC list to gather feedback on those
  • [dpm] Document them at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuTranslationsCoordinators#Actions

  • [adiroiban] Document manual upload of translation templates with lp-translator-tools
  • [adiroiban] Make a list of languages on the UTC wiki page with contact persons knowledgeable on the language, script, fonts
  • [dpm] Announce the list of language contacts, this should be useful in assessing which languages can be supported from the community
  • [dpm] Document Language pack generation
  • [arnegoetje] Document Language pack generation
  • [dpm] Document actions to perform during NonLanguagepackDeadline and LanguagepackDeadline

  • [dpm] Provide coordination with the release team on when translations are exported before release
  • [dpm] Document procedure for addition of new team members

BoF agenda and discussion

Notes from the UDS session:

* Issues with the import queue - couldn't delegate translations before, but now about 5 people can do that, so that has helped.

* Launchpad . . . subscribing to bugs for translations is hard in that you can get too many reports that aren't related to translations.

* In terms of meetings... they were previously 2x per month, but 1x per month would be fine.  Additional meetings could be held on an ad-hoc basis.

* Jim mentions that it would be useful to post the meeting minutes from the translation meetings to the docs team mailing list

* Post the meeting minutes to the Fridge or planet

* Need to raise awareness of the team and the services that translators can provide.

* Would like to document the things that the Ubuntu translators and the Ubuntu Translation Coordinators team do . . . their areas of focus and the services they provide.  Some of the U.T.C. responsibilities ... what do the U.T.C's do?  Better explain how they sit between the Launchpad dev team and the translators & what that special role entails.

** How are the language packs generated?  Have a general idea, but need to document the technical aspects of it
** How to do manual imports of translations of language packs and translations
** Look at the launchpad translator tools package
** What can be done by U.T.C.'s and what can only be done by Canonical employees/server admin-types?

Having the U.T.C team has really helped things.  It has made handling translations (import queue) quite a bit better.  But the team needs more people.  More U.T.C.'s.

 * We'd like to reach out to more members - Arne won't be able to help much on this cycle
 
 * How can we get more members? Especially Arabic, CJK languages, etc.
   * Shall we have a list of contacts

 * There is an existing CJK testers we can ask for help on IM, fonts and technical issues

   
 * How will the group accept new members?  Will they be appointed?  Will they need to ask, or will the group just accept them?  This process should be documented.
   * Users should be knowledgable about Rosetta
   * How much should "karma" come into play?
   
== Actions ==

 * (Adi) Make a list of languages on the UTC wiki page with contact persons knowledgeable on the language, script, fonts.
 * (David) Announce this, this should be useful in assessing which languages can be supported from the community
 * (Adi) Document manual upload of templates (lp-translator-tools)

 * (David) List of actions and processes to document
   * (Adi) Manual upload of translation templates
   * (David/Arne) Language pack generation
   * (David) Actions during nonlanguagepackdeadline and languagepackdeadline
   * Coordination with the release team on when translations are exported
   * Addition of new team member


CategorySpec

Specs/CommunityParticipationInCoordinatingTranslations (last edited 2009-12-02 11:50:43 by 212)