[Localization] Fwd: [sldev] Handling open source translations

[Edward Cherlin]

FYI

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tony <anthonyrbundy at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 5:17 PM
Subject: Re: [sldev] Handling open source translations
To: sldev <sldev at lists.secondlife.com>

One interesting thing that I have heard of (though not in open source)
is Google's method of incorporating a way for users to suggest a
better translation within the program if they are using a language
setting other then English.

 Maybe there is a way for users to submit suggestions through the
viewer? Then you might be able to get a larger group that will likely
improve the translation.

 I'm thinking a language button they can click, and then a place on
the viewer (for UI items) to indicate the translation for the viewer
item. If text is selected, then they just submit a direct translation
of that text.

 If you get several exact matches from different sources (qualified by
time or registration somehow) then you would likely have a high degree
of confidence in the translation.

 It might even be useful for people to just confirm that certain
translations are acceptable using this kind of message.

 Tony



 Soft wrote:

> I'm curious - how do other projects handle volunteer-submitted
> translations? As I understand it, these come with a few liabilities
> that need to be resolved:
>
> * They could be loaded down with obscenities or rudeness. If none of
> us speak, say, Latvian, we'd never know the harm of telling someone to
> "go pick mushrooms" (a death threat) even if we use machine
> translation to verify translations back to English. How do we prevent
> that?
>
> * They could contain misleading translations. A fraudster could have a
> field day by reversing LSL debit permission payment accept/reject
> buttons and singling out users in that language community. How do we
> protect users? We can't simply say the translation is "unsupported."
> Not only would we leave people open to harm this way, but we'd create
> inventive for submitting these types of translations.
>
> * Open source developers don't deliver on a schedule. We can pay for
> 1-day turn around from contractors where a language has many users.
> But when we get to languages with only a few hundred users, it's tough
> to make a case for commercial translation services to do the updates.
> We can't hold back shipping while we wait for every last language to
> be brought to parity by volunteers. How do we make contributions
> timely, or how do we eliminate the need for timely translations?
>
> It would be great if we were taking in the new translations that are
> often offered. But the initial translation work is only a small
> fraction of the overall resources that language support consumes. How
> do we make user-submitted translations work? How do other projects
> handle these problems?
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-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay