Re: 2nd version of the project announcement
The description of the project name has made me realise why I don't
like Oxford as the name for this, even though I come from near there.
The OED is a strange mix of the very conservative (it still hardlines
against the softening of -ize to -ise which happened long ago) and the
very modish (like Jello shot, buzzkill and tweener).
OED is also a subscription service, unlike other online English
dictionaries from Collins and the University of Cambridge. If OED
want us to advertise them, let them pay us.
I suggest "the Smith Project" as an alternative: Smith is a popular
English surname, but is also a suffix for some trades that make
things, like blacksmiths and wordsmiths.
Other than that, here are my suggested changes as a diff -u output:
--- announce.txt.orig 2007-03-28 10:58:44.000000000 +0100
+++ announce.txt 2007-03-28 11:06:23.000000000 +0100
@@ -1,16 +1,16 @@
-Subject: Announcing the Oxford review project: proofreading English in Debian packages texts
+Subject: Announcing the Oxford review project: proofreading English in Debian package texts
-Please welcome the Oxford project to the galaxy of various Debian projects.
+Please welcome the Oxford project to the galaxy of Debian projects.
Project presentation
--------------------
-This work is intended to last all through the etch->lenny release
+This work is intended to continue all through the etch->lenny release
cycle and beyond. Its purpose is to review all English texts
associated with Debian packages, namely debconf templates, manual
-pages and packages descriptions.
+pages and package descriptions.
The project is named after the Oxford English Dictionary, which is
-recognised as one of the references when it comes at English language.
+recognised as one of the references for the English language.
Projects tasks and schedule
---------------------------
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@
get new translations
The debian-l10n-english contributors are currently polishing the whole
-process and tools while work already began with a few packages,
+process and tools, while work already began on a few packages -
either packages with the highest popcon score (kdebase, xorg,
cupsys...) or packages that recently introduced or modified their
debconf templates (lwat, aiccu, dtc...).
@@ -33,9 +33,9 @@
How to contribute to Oxford?
----------------------------
Contributors with good skills in the English language and good writing
-capabilities are welcome to join the project by subscribing to the
-debian-l10n-english mailing list which will be the main communication
-media for the project.
+ability are welcome to join the project by subscribing to the
+debian-l10n-english mailing list. This will be the main communication
+channel for the project.
The project will also use the #debian-i18n IRC channel on
irc.debian.org and a wiki page has been setup at
@@ -43,22 +43,22 @@
Details of the process and maintainer interaction
-------------------------------------------------
-The reviews are intended to check firstly the spelling and grammar of
-the packages, but also to move towards a consistency in the style of the
-texts. Having a group of people who are unfamiliar with a package
-reading the texts can also help in flagging up areas that are not
-particularly well explained, or that could generate confusion. It is
-hoped that in addition to the language issues this project is tackling
-we can also help to solve some usability issues.
+The reviews are intended primarily to check the spelling and grammar of
+the packages, but also to move towards a consistency in the style of
+writing. Having a group of people who are unfamiliar with a package
+reading the texts can also help to flag up areas that are not
+particularly well-explained, or that could generate confusion. It is
+hoped that, in addition to the language issues this project is tackling,
+we can also help to address some usability issues.
The maintainers will be made aware of the process at all stages, and at
no point will any changes be made to their package without their
-consent. It is hoped that maintainers will incorporate the changes in to
-their packages as with the normal l10n process. This does mean however
-that as the lenny release approaches their may be an NMU campaign for
-to fix long outstanding bugs from this project. This will not be done
-for cases where the maintainer actually vetoes the change though.
-However, the project team would like to ask for maintainers to raise their
+consent. It is hoped that maintainers will incorporate the changes into
+their packages as with the normal l10n process. However, this does mean
+that as the lenny release approaches, there may be an NMU campaign
+to fix long-outstanding bugs from this project. This will not be done
+for cases where the maintainer actually vetoes the change, though.
+Nevertheless, the project team would like to ask maintainers to raise their
concerns with us so that we can work towards a compromise rather than
vetoing the changes.
--
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Webmaster/web developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop maker,
developer of koha, debian, gobo, gnustep, various mail and web s/w.
Workers co-op @ Weston-super-Mare, Somerset http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
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