PoliciesBrainstorming
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:
- 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
- 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?
- Revert translations to packaged?
- Should we use a similar approach to locoteams and have a list of approved and non-approved teams in Launchpad?
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
- The team membership should be moderated
Shall we put a requirement on the minimum number of people to start a team? -- dpm 2009-07-14 09:25:56
- The team should have a communication channel
- Shall we make it a requirement to be a mailing list on lists.ubuntu.com, lists.launchpad.net or an external one?
- 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
- 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
The GNOME policy on starting a new team at http://live.gnome.org/TranslationProject/StartingATeam could be used as a basis.