[open-data-manual] Weekly update - move to Github, infrastructure for translations

Wed Aug 3 17:43:23 UTC 2011

On 4 August 2011 04:01, Friedrich Lindenberg
<friedrich.lindenberg at okfn.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 7:54 AM, Tim McNamara <tim.mcnamara at okfn.org> wrote:
>> Translations
>> =========
>>
>> https://www.transifex.net/projects/p/open-data-manual/
>>
>> I have create a Transifex project. This is a site that shares the load
>> of translation between all projects that are part of it. That means,
>> if we translate the term "Open knowledge is good", every project on
>> the site gets to benefit. There are just over 1,500 projects in the
>> system.
>
> Rufus and I just had a discussion on this. While I'm sure that
> Transifex (or gettext in general) is the best way to do a straight
> translation of the manual into another language, I'm not entirely
> convinced this is what we want to aim for with the translated
> versions: I think it makes little sense to just convert the somewhat
> generic English version into a German or French version, in those
> cases you do want to add chapters (e.g. on copyright exceptions,
> federal structure etc.) that would have no place in the "Global"
> edition. Otherwise you need two documents: the translated thing and a
> "what this means for X" version. The distinction makes sense for
> English, but not languages that are somewhat coupled to a legal
> environment.
>
> What do other people think?
>
> - Fr.

I agree that a pure translation approach would be detrimental to the
project. However, languages cross locales. If there are elements which
are specific to jurisdictions, then perhaps we should have new
sections created in that language and then bring them back into
English?