Clean Sheet?

[Mikko Virkkilä]

Jonathon Blake wrote:

>Miko wrote:
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>>standardized on using the word folders while all command line 
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>a) That is a _style guide_ issue, not a translation issue.  
>b) That relates to creating documentation, not translating a User Interface.
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a) While I recognize that a style guide is useful, I don't see why you 
seem to think a dictionary is evil

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>>Often one of the trouble when doing translations is remembering what
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>the translation of a word is, not how it's used.
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>This gets into how fluent are the bilingual speakers.  If they don't
>know the vocabulary, they aren't fluent.  Just because somebody claims
>to be bilingual, does not mean that they are.
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You are sidestepping the subject. I agree that if someone doesn't know 
the vocabulary, the person isn't fluent (at least in that particular 
area). However I claimed that it is difficult to remember the 
translation of a word. If you are trying to tell me that not remembering 
the translation of a word, means the person isn't fluent in one of the 
languages, I say bull. I have two mothertongues, Finnish and Swedish and 
I have taken something that could be loosley translated as the 
mothertongue-exam in both languages and received good grades. I don't 
just say I'm bilingual, I actually have that on very official paper. 
Now, I still can't always remember what the synonym of a word in Finnish 
is in Swedish, and that doesn't mean I wouldn't be capable of making the 
translation.


>You have to be willing to test, and reject people who volunteer to
>work on an L10N Project.  [A case can be made for rejecting 80% of the
>volunteers for an L10N Project.]
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That sounds pretty harsh. I'd say reading through a translation and 
asking the writer to re-translate, explain something better or just 
fixing it your self is a lot faster than doing the entire thing your 
self in the first place. Additionally, believe it or not but people are 
capable of learning from their mistakes, so that even though someone's 
first translation isn't all that great, that person can become a very 
good translator very quickly.

>> most first time translators make a lot more mistakes in their translation than ppl who have translated a lot.
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>True, experience helps.
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>>That is why I think it would be important that we could mark
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>translations ...  at least three stages,
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>+1
>[Though I don't really agree with MAT part.]
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>>Wikipedia has long articles, I understand why you think a long 
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>po file might be the same.
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>The theory behind Wikipedia, is that with time, articles become more
>accurate.  That has not turned out to be the case.  I could have cited
>wiktionary, or a number of other, similar projects  with equal ease. 
>Wiktipedia simply has the best documented "lack of quality control
>despite multiple eyeballs".
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>More eyeballs do not mean greater accuracy.  
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I would appreciate if you wouldn't cut my answers when replying to them.

More people working on translations means more translations. An improved 
review process mean more accurate translations. Better tools facilitate 
consistency.

As I indicated in my previous reply, you are comparing apples to 
oranges. In wikipedia the content grows, things need to be added. 
Wikipedia's articles are of remarkably good quality when considered the 
amount of freedom (meaning spam, spam, spam and trolling) there is. 
There is no reason why people should be able to freely modify reviewed 
strings. There is no reason why we shouldn't lock completed, reviewed 
translations (ppl should file bugs if they find errors).

>>It would also help if we had comment fields, so that people could explain why they made the change.
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>That part does make sense.
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>xan
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>jonathon
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- Mikko