[Debian-l10n-devel] Thoughts about DDTP (Was: Number of requests for DDTP)

[Aron Xu]

On Mon, Aug 01, 2011 at 07:53:40PM +0200, Martijn van O wrote:
> > [...]
> 
> While I can understand the definition, I don't understand why they
> need to be treated differently. A good translation is good, a bad
> translation is bad. Where it comes from is not relevant. If the
> translation needs improvement it will be improved in the review
> process.
> 

In the whole process, their difference could be "just a wording issue"
if you want a quick answer. But the wording, along with some other
things along with it in the whole work flow, makes larger difference to
translators. That's why we have different words expressing similar
meanings, but few of them are fully interchangeable without affecting
the speaker's meaning, emotion, mood, etc.

> IMHO all "suggestions" should be put in the pending review list like
> everything else and should not be treated any differently from
> ordinary submissions.
> 

Of course yes, they are almost the same at a reviewer's position. But
before continue our discussion, let's do some imagination, ;-)

Our current DDTP/DDTSS:

--------------------------------------
Imagine there is a novice, Bob, who does not know anything about how to
contribute, but only a user of software A, and would like to translate
its package description. Bob has the average ability of using search
engine, so he find this page after Googling for the first time
(keywords: debian description translate):
[1]http://www.debian.org/international/l10n/ddtp

Bob go through several paragraphs, he knows: there is a guy called Michael
who wrote (almost) everything; there was an incident broke many things;
the project supports a list of features (he does not care/notice most
details of those features); there are huge number of packages, growing,
changing. So far, he finds "Interfaces to the DDTP". While glancing
through it, he knows there are an email interface and a web frontend
(notices another guy named Martijn). Bob thinks "I am a newbie, I'd go the
web interface, which might be easier", so he clicked on the link to DDTSS,
and gets brought to:
[2]http://ddtp.debian.net/ddtss/index.cgi/xx

The first thing Bob noticed, is "Select a language". Then he selects his
language, zh_CN for example:
[3]http://ddtp.debian.net/ddtss/index.cgi/zh_CN

Bob looks at the page in his browser, there are "Project-Messages", but
he does not know actually what those messages mean. ...and more
importantly he ignores "Please login..." because the messages above are
also bold. Next in his eyes, "zh_CN-Team-Messages" has 0, so there is
finally "Pending translation". Glancing through the list there is no
what he wants, but it doesn't matter, click one to have a look! Well, we
suppose he finds banshee's name is familiar, so he clicks it and go to:
[4]http://ddtp.debian.net/ddtss/index.cgi/zh_CN/translate/banshee

"Wow, cool! What's this? What's that?" Short description, Long
description, done! "OK I admit I almost forget that I need to press
'Abandon' if I don't want to continue."

Then he goes back to page [3]. "Oh, gosh, what I've worked are just
suggestions? to whom? I don't know!" He feels a bit tired, and makes a
cup of tea/coffee then goes back to read the texts he ignored just now.

Thirty minutes pasts, "OK, I give up, it's too complex, though the
experience is exciting."
--------------------------------------

...And I'm tired today, need to go to bed. Will try continue write about
the effect of "suggesting" and "submitting" tomorrow.

-- 
Regards,
Aron Xu
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