2010-02-25

Agenda

  • Review of the Ubuntu Translations policies and best practices (DavidPlanella)

  • [POSTPONED] Pending actions in defining Ubuntu Translations bugs handling (DavidPlanella)

  • [POSTPONED] Triaging Lucid bugs (DavidPlanella)

    • Should we organise another Ubuntu Translations Hug Day?

  • [POSTPONED] Q&A on Lucid translations (DavidPlanella)

Attendees

Summary

Review of the Ubuntu Translations policies and best practices

The meeting focused on discussing the new set of policies, as the Guidelines section still requires some work.

The idea behind these policies is to provide more structure to Ubuntu Translations as a project as outlined in the spec, and the aim is to keep the policies short and concise to cover the basic requirements, but at the same time to keep the entry barrier low and not to make the translations process more difficult.

Feedback:

  • Adi expressed the concern about having too much documentation, which might put new teams off. We agreed on using the existing StartingTeam page as the resource to point out to new teams. This document should be visible in the main Translations page, and the policies used as a reference in the KnowledgeBase, which should be a source of reference for existing teams

  • David agreed to rework the front page at Translations to address these concerns

  • On the point of team communication, we all agreed on the requirement for all teams to have a communication channel, regardless of type.

  • We also agreed to add a section on each team's page in Launchpad listing their resources for communication, and eventually deleting Translations/Contact/Teams when all teams have added that information.

The general consensus was that the documented policies are useful in their current form, with the additional feedback given at the meeting.

The rest of the agenda items were postponed for the next meeting or for discussion at the mailing list.

Log

[16:00] <dpm> Hi everyone!
[16:01] <trijntje> hi
[16:01] <vdquynh> Hi from Vietnam :)
[16:01] <sianis> hello
[16:01] <dpm> hi trijntje, vdquynh, sianis :-)
[16:02] <dpm> let's see who else is here for the translations meeting
[16:03] <sianis> kelemengabor: ping
[16:03] <adiroiban> o/
[16:03] <dpm> hey adiroiban
[16:03] <kelemengabor> sianis: pong
[16:04] <dpm> so it seems we've got quite a good attendance from different teams today
[16:04] <Malin_> Im from Norway
[16:04] <dpm> hey Malin_, welcome! how is the Norwegian team doing?
[16:05] <Malin_> dpm, I don't know, I was just curious about translating, so I'm not in part of the team ;)
[16:05] <dpm> no worries, hopefully you'll learn something new and exciting about translations today :)
[16:05] <sergimateo_> o/
[16:05] <dpm> so let's get started, shall we?
[16:06] <dpm> hey sergimateo_, how's life in l'Hospitalet?
[16:06] <dpm> [TOPIC] Review of the Ubuntu Translations policies and best practices
[16:06] <dpm> So as I commented on the mailing list
[16:07] <dpm> It's basically about
[16:07] <dpm> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/KnowledgeBase#Policies
[16:07] <dpm> and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/KnowledgeBase#Guidelines
[16:07] <dpm> Unfortunately I haven't had the chance to finish the guidelines yet, so I'll focus on the policies on this meeting
[16:07] <dpm> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/KnowledgeBase#Policies
[16:07] <dpm> Essentially, I want to see what you guys think, and if you believe they constitute something we can use as the basis to give some more structure to the project
[16:08] <Malin_> yeah I just would take a look :)
[16:08] <dpm> for some teams it will not be any change
[16:08] <dpm> but for others, especially the part of the guidelines, will affect them
[16:08] <dpm> for the best, though :)
[16:09] <dpm> I'd like to discuss some of the particular points separately, but first some general feedback, so what do you think?
[16:09] <adiroiban> dpm: I am worried of one thing... not to have to many documentation pages for translations
[16:10] <adiroiban> there are already a lot of pages and a lot of information
[16:10] <adiroiban> the pages are great
[16:10] <adiroiban> but I am not sure if new teams
[16:10] <adiroiban> will not be turned down by so many requirements
[16:10] <adiroiban> I am worried especialy on new teams
[16:11] <adiroiban> since they start without knowing anything about translations
[16:11] <adiroiban> they have few resoursec (people/time)
[16:12] <dpm> adiroiban, yeah, that's a good point. That was also one of the reasons I tried to keep the policies short and simple as well, and make the guidelines not a requirement for starting the team
[16:12] <adiroiban> small teams < 5 contributors
[16:12] <adiroiban> in the Policies section
[16:12] <adiroiban> we have 8 links
[16:13] <adiroiban> i think we should choose one page that is important for all teams
[16:13] <adiroiban> and add it in the header
[16:13] <adiroiban> or make it bold
[16:13] <dpm> Recently we've started pointing teams out to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/KnowledgeBase/StartingTeam, and I think we could use this. I think as the policies as a reference document
[16:13] <adiroiban> or make it blink
[16:13] <adiroiban> :)
[16:13] <dpm> :-)
[16:14] <dpm> I mean, I'd point teams to the policies when they've got questions, e.g. "why does our team needs to be moderated"?
[16:15] <adiroiban> StartingTeam is a good page...
[16:15] <adiroiban> but it can get lost among the other 7 links from the policies
[16:15] <dpm> adiroiban, what do you think of the above, then? I.e. using the StartingTeam page only and make it prominent in the front Translations page
[16:15] <dpm> (which is screaming for a rework, btw :) )
[16:16] <adiroiban> I am not sure what is the best sollution
[16:17] <adiroiban> I will think about it :)
[16:17] <adiroiban> the idea is to highlight the information that each team coordinator MUST read
[16:17] <adiroiban> and make it accesible (easy to find and easy to read)
[16:17] <adiroiban> StartingTeam is easy to read
[16:17] <adiroiban> not so easy to find
[16:18] <dpm> I think I could spend some time simplifying the front page and try to make it more useful and make it easy to find that page, this might be a start
[16:18] <adiroiban> putting a link from the start page would be a start
[16:18] <adiroiban> KnowledgeBase sound like an place to store info for existing teams
[16:18] <dpm> ok, so I think that's a good plan to start with, thanks adiroiban
[16:19] <adiroiban> another thing, would me mailinglists
[16:19] <adiroiban> not sure if we should ask each team to have its own mailinglist
[16:19] <adiroiban> the Romanian l10n team is using the Romanian LoCo team
[16:20] <vdquynh> The problem with mailing-lists is when you get subscribed to so many :-/
[16:20] <adiroiban> and we have low traffic
[16:20] <dpm> We're not asking them to have a mailing list, just a communication channel, be it forum, another ML, etc
[16:20] <adiroiban> we mainly use the forum
[16:20] <sianis> we use ubuntu-l10n-hu
[16:20] <dpm> yeah, I know the problem vdquynh :-)
[16:22] <adiroiban> dpm: ok. but then how do we/translators know what comunication channel is used in a team
[16:22] <adiroiban> and for that
[16:22] <adiroiban> I was thinking
[16:22] <adiroiban> to add a requirement
[16:22] <adiroiban> to list a set of info on the Launchpad teams page
[16:22] <vdquynh> I agree with adiroiban!
[16:23] <trijntje> the dutch team uses a mailinglist
[16:23] <trijntje> +1 to contact information on teampage
[16:23] <adiroiban> dpm: and make this wikipage https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/Contact/Teams ... distributed on each team LP page
[16:23] <dpm> adiroiban, like https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/KnowledgeBase/LaunchpadTeam#TeamPage ?
[16:24] <adiroiban> dpm: yes
[16:25] <dpm> ok, but just to move forward on that one, we do all agree that we should ask for a communication channel (any) as best practice, don't we?
=== fader_ is now known as fader|away
[16:26] <adiroiban> yes. a communication channe is a must
[16:27] <kelemengabor> yeah, every team needs one, be it ml or forum
[16:27] <dpm> ok, great
[16:27] <dpm> adiroiban, what exactly do you mean with making the Contact/Teams page distributed on each team's LP page?
[16:28] <dpm> you mean basically having the info that's there on the team's home page in LP?
[16:28] <adiroiban> dpm: the information for each row of that table
[16:28] <adiroiban> to be find on each teams page
[16:28] <dpm> I get you
[16:28] <adiroiban> and then delete that wikipage
[16:28] <dpm> yeah, I agree
[16:29] <adiroiban> as it is redundant
[16:29] <adiroiban> and hard to maintain...
[16:29] <dpm> ok, I agree as well, but I'd like to maintain it until at least the teams there have migrated the info to each team's page
[16:30] <adiroiban> dpm: sure
[16:30] <adiroiban> we already have some hints about editing the teams LP page on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/KnowledgeBase/StartingTeam
[16:31] <dpm> yeah, some of the content there I should just reuse and use Includes
[16:31] <dpm> there is a bit of redundant info on the StartingTeam page
[16:31] <adiroiban> yep
[16:32] <dpm> but I wanted to make it easy for new teams to have all important info there
[16:32] <dpm> without having to click too much around
[16:32] <adiroiban> but it's ok
[16:32] <adiroiban> Team information
[16:32] <adiroiban> on Team information
[16:33] <adiroiban> it would be nice to have a link to an already existent team
[16:33] <adiroiban> as an example
[16:33] <adiroiban> en_UK should do the trick... as it will only contain text in english
[16:33] <dpm> good point, I was thinking of the Romanian one, though ;)
[16:35] <dpm> that's a good idea, I should contact the British team to make sure we can use them as an example
[16:35] <adiroiban> i'm done with the comments for policies... and I invite others to comment :)
[16:36] <dpm> yeah, I'd simply like to hear if people are happy with them, if you find them useful and make sure they do not become too much of a burden
[16:36] <dpm> while at the same time
[16:36] <dpm> being an improvement
[16:37] <dpm> in how the project and teams are run
=== jono_ is now known as jono
[16:39] <vdquynh> I have no particular comments on the policies. They're fine. Anyway, I can see that the Vietnamese translation team abides by the rules :-)
[16:39] <dpm> that's great, thanks for the feedback vdquynh :)
[16:40] <trijntje> I think they are fine too, nothing too burocratic
[16:40] <vdquynh> We are rather, IMHO, working loosely as a team, with evryone rather working in its corner, but the final result so far is better than expected and in progress.
[16:41] <vdquynh> I was talking of the VN Tanslation team !
[16:42] <dpm> that's great vdquynh. Sometimes a wiki for tracking assignments, and setting goals helps with working more as a team, perhaps you could try that, in case you're not already doing it
[16:42] <dpm> anyway, I'm glad to hear that and there seems to be general consensus on the policies
[16:43] <dpm> I can think of two other things which might represent a change for some teams: requirement of guidelines and requirement for the team coordinator to be subscribed to the ML
[16:44] <trijntje> I thought that the guidelines you get directed to from launchpad where language specific, but it seems they are language + ubuntu specific?
[16:45] <dpm> trijntje, they are language + translation group specific
[16:45] <adiroiban> trijntje: i guess they should be the guidelines for the Ubuntu translation team
[16:45] <dpm> so for ubuntu you get directed to the Ubuntu ones for your language
[16:45] <adiroiban> but for example, for Romanian we only have some notes about upstream connection and then link to a general language guidelines
[16:47] <dpm> any comments on subscription to the ML? Do you think the traffic on the list is too high to ask coordinators to subscribe? Someone commented me some time ago it might be an idea to have a separate list only for announcements, and ask people to subscribe to that one, but I'm not very keen on the idea
[16:47] <adiroiban> the ubuntu-translators traffic is low (after my standards)
[16:47] <kelemengabor> dpm: not too high
[16:48] <sianis> dpm: it isn't high
[16:48] <adiroiban> for annoucement only we can use a RSS feed
[16:48] <adiroiban> or a blog
[16:48] <adiroiban> or something
[16:48] <kelemengabor> and asking everybody to subscribe is not the same as asking them to read everything ;)
[16:48] <adiroiban> but the ML should encourage discussion and the exchange of ideas/probles/best practices
[16:49] <dpm> :)
[16:49] <sianis> adiroiban: I think planet is good enough
[16:49] <sianis> for annoucement
[16:50] <adiroiban> yep... but i think annoucements where a different issues
[16:50] <adiroiban> and we touched this topic in a previos meeting
=== fader|away is now known as fader_
[16:51] <dpm> ok, I already knew we wouldn't have time to cover all topics, so we can postpone the rest for the next meeting or the ML. Any other input on policies, any particular points you'd like to highlight/discuss?
=== bladernr_ is now known as bladernr-afk
[16:52] <dpm> otherwise we can dedicate the last few mins to Lucid translations Q&A, if there are any questions
[16:52] <adiroiban> dpm: at least this meeting was more animated than the previous ones
[16:52] <adiroiban> so I guess this is a good thing
[16:52] <dpm> \o/
[16:52] <adiroiban> + we are always on the #ubuntu-translators
[16:52] <trijntje> I have a general question about upstream: Should translators submit translations from launchpad upstream?
[16:52] <vdquynh> I think it is good to request Ubuntu translation team leaders to subscribe to the ubuntu-translators ML !
[16:53] <adiroiban> so if someone want to raise an issue we can talk ... at almost any time
[16:54] <adiroiban> trijntje: the should...
[16:54] <adiroiban> but is not that easy
[16:54] <dpm> trijntje, in general, yes. You'll find more basic info there: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/Upstream
[16:54] <adiroiban> as it requires extra resources
[16:55] <dpm> trijntje, it is currently not done automatically, so you have to manually export the PO fiels and send them upstream, or translate upstream
[16:55] <trijntje> but cant upstream just fetch the translations form launchpad?
[16:56] <kelemengabor> adiroiban: perhaps we could help on this... esp. on this part of the wiki: "Find out where upstream is"
[16:56] <kelemengabor> trijntje: they could, as anyone can
[16:56] <kelemengabor> but everybody waits for somebody to do it
[16:56] <adiroiban> kelemengabor: we can hint them where to send
[16:56] <vdquynh> Anyway you would need coordination betwenn the launchpad team and the upstream team (eg GNOME and Firefox and OOo)
[16:56] <kelemengabor> so nobody will do it :)
[16:56] <adiroiban> but not all teams for all languages are active
[16:56] <adiroiban> and not all have the same process
[16:57] <adiroiban> kelemengabor: for a „normal” translator it almost imposible to send translation to more than one upstream project
[16:58] <adiroiban> as it needs to read a lot of pages
[16:58] <adiroiban> subscribe to all kind of different tracking system
[16:58] <kelemengabor> adiroiban: I know, this is why even I don't do it
[16:58] <adiroiban> comunicate with all kind of persons
[16:59] <trijntje> but the other way around, upstream would also have to fetch it from 10 different places
[16:59] <adiroiban> trijntje: yes...
[16:59] <trijntje> well, maybe ill look into it after lucid is done
[16:59] <adiroiban> but right now
[16:59] <adiroiban> there is only Ubuntu doing translations downstream
[16:59] <adiroiban> :)
[16:59] <adiroiban> so
[16:59] <adiroiban> right now
[17:00] <adiroiban> upstream will only have to get the translations from their upstream repository + ubuntu repository
[17:00] <dpm> trijntje, yeah, the idea is to automate this at some point in LP, and adapt to each upstream to send them translations, but for now it still needs to be done manually
[17:00] <adiroiban> trijntje: and also inside upstream teams there are problems how to send translations
[17:01] <dpm> anyway, the meeting is over, but we can continue the discussion at any time on #ubuntu-translators
[17:01] <trijntje> adiroiban, don't suse and arch and fedora etc translate?
[17:01] <dpm> Thank you everyone for participating
[17:01] <sianis> dpm: it this mean, that the export process of LP will b fixed?
[17:01] <adiroiban> trijntje: I don't think so
[17:02] <adiroiban> they are only translating their OWN applications
[17:02] <vdquynh> OK. Bye everyone. I have work to do for to-morrow and its midnight here in VN !
[17:02] <adiroiban> but they are not translating GNOME or Firefox
[17:03] <dpm> sianis, it's on the roadmap: https://dev.launchpad.net/VersionFourDotO/Stories#Translations, but it will take some time to be implemented, for now there's just the idea
[17:03] <dpm> So again, thanks for the great feedback and see you on #ubuntu-translators!
[17:04] <dpm> bye everyone!
[17:04] <trijntje> bye all
[17:04] <erdalronahi> bye

CategoryTranslations

Translations/Meetings/2010-02-25 (last edited 2010-02-26 11:22:29 by 28)