Introduction
This document intends to summarise and follow up the discussion started in this thread in the ubuntu-translators mailing list. The aim is to provide a set of guidelines or policies to ensure the quality of Ubuntu translations, although we can also use it as a central place for discussion on more general translation policies.
Once established, these guidelines should be linked in the ubuntu-translators group in Launchpad and will appear as links along each per-team guidelines on every translations page in Launchpad.
Translation quality
General practices
The quality assurance page presents the quality assurance practices for each particular team, with the purpose of sharing them with all members of the Ubuntu translation community. Translation team members coordinators are encouraged to expand that page with their own practices.
Migration from Open to Moderated teams
We have so far agreed that moderated teams and an established review workflow are the most effective methods to ensure translation quality.
There are a few Ubuntu translation teams with open policy:
loco-philippine-team - Ubuntu Team Philippines
ubuntu-l10n-ht - Haitian Creole (kreyòl Ayisyen)
ubuntu-l10n-zza - Koma Ubuntu ya Kirmancî/Dimilî
ubuntu-l10n-pms - Piemontèis
ubuntu-l10n-en-shaw - Shavian transliteration team
ubuntu-l10n-st - Southern Sotho Translators
ubuntu-l10n-br - Ubuntu Breton Translators
ubuntu-l10n-cv - Ubuntu Chuvash Translators
ubuntu-l10n-dv - Ubuntu Dhivehi Translators
ubuntu-l10n-en-au - Ubuntu English (Australia) Translators
ubuntu-l10n-en-ca - Ubuntu English (Canada) Translation Team
ubuntu-l10n-ja - Ubuntu Japanese Translators
ubuntu-l10n-kn - Ubuntu Kannada Translators
ubuntu-l10n-jbo - Ubuntu Lojban Translators
ubuntu-l10n-oj - Ubuntu Ojibwe Translators
ubuntu-l10n-que - Ubuntu Quechua Translators
ubuntu-l10n-sco - Ubuntu Scots Translators
ubuntu-l10n-th - Ubuntu Thai Translators
ubuntu-l10n-zh-tw - Ubuntu Traditional Chinese Translators
ubuntu-l10n-ur - Ubuntu Urdu Translators
ubuntu-l10n-tr - Ubuntu'yu Türkçe'ye Çevirenler Takımı
Not in ubuntu-translators:
ubuntu-l10n-xx - Ubuntu Arpitan (Conflicts with the official Arpitan team)
ubuntu-l10n-la - Decuria latinitatis
ubuntu-l10n-en-shaw - Shavian transliteration team
ubuntu-l10n-an - Ubuntu en Aragonés
ubuntu-l10n-en-us-fargo - Ubuntu English (US Fargo) Translators
ubuntu-l10n-kab - Ubuntu Kabyle Translators
ubuntu-l10n-ml - Ubuntu Malayalam Translation and Localization
ubuntu-l10n-or - Ubuntu Oriya localization
ubuntu-l10n-ti - Ubuntu Tigrinya Translation
- How do we encourage (not force) their migration to a moderated membership?
- Articulate the pros and cons of each membership policy, with an emphasis on quality
Give examples of past "incidents"(just an idea)-- AdiRoiban
- How do we make this process easy?
- Use the expiration date of membership to differentiate regular contributors who can provide translations from ocasional translators who can provide suggestions?
Ask for team members/community members to step up and take over the task of moderating/approving membership. Annoucement on planet. -- AdiRoiban
- Revert translations to packaged?
I would not do that, unless someone is making an explicit request -- AdiRoiban
- Should we use a similar approach to locoteams and have a list of approved and non-approved teams in Launchpad?
Maybe just start with an informal(internalt UTC) wiki page listing all team, status, contact and other critical info about assesing team degree of trust -- AdiRoiban
I would use it only in case other approach failed. If we chose this path, one of the main goal should be to have all teams approved in a short ammont of time. -- AdiRoiban
Keep and eye on the LoCo Directory webapps and see if we can use it for this purpose -- AdiRoiban
Policy on starting a new team
We'd like to define a policy for prospective new teams who want to start translating Ubuntu. The aim is to have a set of rules to ensure that new teams provide the quality of translations associated with Ubuntu, but without forgetting that Ubuntu and Launchpad still provide the best platform for kick-starting your own language translation, and we should not lose that in the process.
The suggestions so far are:
- The prospective translation team coordinator must be subscribed to the ubuntu-translators mailing list
Should it be made a requirement that he/she announces the new team on the mailing list? (I believe yes) -- dpm 2009-07-14 09:25:56
Or we can have the Ubuntu Translations Coordinator that appoint the new team make that announcement -- AdiRoiban.
I think this should be made a requirement, translation team coordinator is basic contact people may find when they need hands from the respective language, if they aren't subscribe to the ubuntu-translators mailing list that would be a horrible thing for a team's contact don't know about latest news. - happyaron
- The team membership should be moderated
- The team should have a communication channel
- Shall we make it a requirement to be a mailing list on lists.ubuntu.com, or an external one?
Just recommend a communication channel. Some like mailing lists, other forums or wikipages. -- AdiRoiban
I prefer no, because teams from different languages may have different preference on way of communication. But ensure the team have a way of communication is important, at least U-T-C and other users/developers can contact them quickly and effectively. -- happyaron
- The translation team should use formal language sanctioned by their linguistic authorities
Although I agree, I'm not sure this can be made a requirement, since for those approving the language team it is very difficult to verify this -- dpm 2009-07-14 09:25:56
- Even without this requirement, it is hard for UTCs to check the quality. This should not stop us to make it a requirement.
I think we can encourage teams to do so, but impossible for us to achieve it as a requirement at current stage due to we don't have the way to verify. - happyaron
- Explain the prospective teams the relationship between Ubuntu and upstream translations
We should prepare a document with that information -- dpm 2009-07-14 09:25:56
Yes. This is very important, especialy since Ubuntu Translators tend to ignore the upstream efforts https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TranslatingUbuntu/UpstreamProjects -- AdiRoiban
- An important point for a translation team coordinator is to be responsive, and to make sure unreviewed suggestions are kept at a minimum.
Due to some known bugs and situations of launchpad, this cannot cover all suggestions to review in my experience, especially when there is a big volume of strings to deal with. - happyaron
The GNOME policy on starting a new team at http://live.gnome.org/TranslationProject/StartingATeam could be used as a basis. Also tut the result as a FAQ here: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu-translations/+faq/611