Hi there!
Yes I know, "Bits from" mails are quite increasing these days. But
this mail was pending long enough to not delay it any longer. I hope
you don't mind too much. Ah yes, and if you wonder what WTC means, it
stands for Website Translation Coordinator :)
I like to introduce myself rather quickly: I'm translation coordinator
for the german debian website (alongside Joey). And I do also care for
the state of the translations of other languages although I can't read
them.
A while ago I've mailed to debian-www and asked why some of the
translations are quite outdated and have received different kind of
responses. They reached from "hey, it's holidays" to "I am alone" or
"we are too few". The later two made me think of that there might be a
problem to get people interested or even just aware about the website
translation.
Well, to keep a translation up to date (that is, in sync with the
english original) really isn't a great deal. We use CVS for the website
and getting in sync with the english original is merely taking a look at
the diff between the translated version and the current version and
apply that to the translation. You can get the information about which
pages should be get in sync again through a central website which is
mirrored to every website mirror, too:
<http://www.debian.org/devel/website/stats/>
There you have an overview about all the translations that are
available and the amount of the outdated (and also not yet translated)
pages. If you click onto your language you get the specific stats for
your language where you can request the CVS diff.
If you took a look at the stats you should know which translations
would need help. I've mailed about my intent to write this mail to
debian-www a while ago, and the following languages would be pleased to
get help (according to their translation coordinator(s) who have
responded):
-) esperanto
-) greek
-) finnish
-) russian
I don't know about chinese, korean and turkish though. Their
translations are also quite outdated and could need help, but I haven't
received any response from their translation coordinators yet. Maybe
they passed away or really are on holidays (still? I also want such
long breaks :).
Furthermore this doesn't mean that other translations wouldn't
appreciate another helping hand.[1] That might include just reading the
website in your language and notify them about typos and/or grammar
mistakes, or even html/rendering problems. The later is though better
suited for the mailing list.
So, if you are interested and like to help to make the website more
useful for the people in your country who aren't that good in english
feel free to contact one of your translation coordinators, which are
listed at <http://www.debian.org/devel/website/translation_coordinators>
to let them know and coordinate with them. Some languages have set up a
mailinglist to coordinate the efforts, your translation coordinator
should know about it.
If you like general information about the website (and translation)
this is your entry point: <http://www.debian.org/devel/website/>
If this mail can recrute at least the one or the other to help the
translations not getting out of sync that far anymore I would call it a
success. Unfortunately I only speak german and english so I can't do it
myself.
Have fun,
Alfie
[1] And, if they really don't need another helping hand they might be
able to tell you about the package translation and debconf templates
file translation projects :)
--
SGH in Hannover sucht eine "Hostmaster/in" bzw. "Systems Administrator/in"
mit u.a. folgenden Eigenschaften: "In der Administration von Unix-Systemen
und deren Dienste SMTP, HTTP, BOFH, DNS und SMB besitzen Sie umfassende
praktische Erfahrung." -- dasr
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