One Language - more than one Translation Teams. What is your experience?

[eliasan]

Hi,

I am Ilias from Greece (Hellas),

If in your country (language) there were appointed more than one Translation Teams, based on Translation Charter, I would like to share with the rest of us your experience.

Was that good for the local community?
What troubles did you faced?
What are your suggestions for the future, based on past experience?

[zelula]

Hi Ilias,

I think the more people we have to translate the same thing, the more the translation will be mixed up at the end (there is a german expression that sais: "zu viele Köche verderben den Brei", literally translated would be mean: "too many cookers will ruin the porridge" :-)). Just a small example: I am living in Spain. Some spanish (Spain) translations differ from the translations made by users coming from Southamerica and Mexico. They (or we) use different expressions. Also there is the formal issue: "you" as a friend, and the "you" showing respect to people you don't know. This issue can be observed even between different spanish regions.

In order to get rid of some translation confusions, I believe that:

1) Give the users the option to choose between 2 sets of the same language: one formal (the translations should be made in the most "real" academic expressions as possible), one unformal (made in his own slang. This would reduce the problem with the different expressions)
2) 1 user as the main responsible for the final review of each language set. Once reviewed it should be then published to the community.

Let's see what the other translators have to say...

[eliasan]

Hi,
Thanks for replying. That is the way we work most of the times. We never translate word by word as that will lead to funny staff. We also saw to users how they can further adapt transaltions to their custom needs. Some, especial companies, want to add their logo on same phrases, most oftenly on register messages.

The main reason I started this thread was to share the experience gathered so far, for languages where there are more than one teams appointed.

This is the situation for Greek language. As I am the leader of one of the teams (Hellenic [Greek] Translation Team - http://www.mamboportal.gr), the most active one, me and the members are not pleased by how easy the official logo was given to every team that applied for it and the situations and troubles that lead us.

The community was confused. As anyone understands, there can be only one official of anything:

One official representative
One official company
One official name
One official book, etc...

If that can't be accomplished, then it would be better not to reuse the official idea.

[dima30]

Hi from Greece,

I do not think anybody gets confused, unless it wants to be so! In our country, as far as i know, there are 2 active teams. I have used files from the two and I have chosen what I consider better.

I disagree with Ilias: we do not need one official representative, one official company, one official name, one official book: we need many users, all the community, the most support, more books or tutorials.

Why somebody wants to be the only one official? At my point of view, he wants to be the only one representative for his own commercial reasons! Nobody can accept this.

I think that no one is not in excess from the users community, in any country!

Dimitra

[eliasan]

Hi Dimitra,

If you think that nobody is confused, then you should read more carefully posts on http://www.mamboclub.net. You should hear what community says more closely.

A lot of time has passed since both teams accepted the official logo. There was a lot of time to prove if they deserve it or not. We did, the others didn't.

Unless if, you count as contribution some small components translations. If that "official" is all about, then I must say that we must expand and give the official logo to how many? 4, 5, maybe 10 individuals that have contributed translations. They have done as much work as the other team did. It is unfair to leave them whithout a recognision for their contributions.

Times when words loose their meanings are bad times.

A proposal would be to remove the official logo idea from all teams in all countries, untill there are rules that can protect the meaning of the word and team's works and efforts.

[mks]

Actually, I'm going to have to agree with eliasan.

The translations made by the current official estonian site (mosest.com) are full of typos and kind of robust. Before handing out the "official logo" one should at least consult with other translators from the country. i was the one who submitted the Estonian language pack for 4.5.0 final version to Mamboportal.com (as I had no idea, where else to send it). I haven't been an active member of the Mambo communty thanks to time limitation, but as I have more time now, I will start becoming more active.

[infograf768]

This discussion leads to nothing positive:

How could anyone judge a Team/site when nothing has been released yet for 4.5.3?

All translators have been contacted or volunteered when the call was made.

The core team can't control the quality of a Translation in a Language that is not practiced in the Team.

The Translation Charter provides for multiple teams to be officialised for a said language. Anyone not agreeing with the Charter may resign.

The users may choose and, as of 4.5.3, may change by her/himself what they dislike in translation through the Translation Manager.

Simply said, volunteers who organised themselves in a Team for a Language and provide the necessary translations for core and help files were and are welcome.

When the translations will be released, the Quality control will come from the users through a communication channel which has to be implemented by the Official Translation Sites (also provided for in the Charter/Policy).

We may, at that time, be able to check truely what is going on and interfere when too much problems —and if alternative solutions are provided.

Until then, to put into question any Team which has not yet released anything (as 4.5.3 is not released yet) is an a priori which is unacceptable, at the same time practically and ethically.

I suggest you all concentrate on your translations for your languages and consult me for any true problem for which you propose a solution.

We are here to progress as a community to make a better CMS ALL together.