Author Topic: Localized "How To" and official documentation translation  (Read 8693 times)

DWAM

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Re: "How to" version francaise
« Reply #15 on: August 16, 2011, 09:32:47 pm »
Why not simply using the localized forums to "store" the translated howtos, one by one, maybe with a mention like "Official Howto" or as sticky posts without ability to reply or comment ?

christian

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Re: "How to" version francaise
« Reply #16 on: August 16, 2011, 09:41:09 pm »
Rob,

I can only express my own feedback here, obviously not the official Zentyal answer.
Translating documentation (I mean the official one) is a huge task and I'm not sure it's worth the effort.
It's quite easy to use translation tools like translate.google.com or babelfish to do this job in a quite accurate manner or at least accurate enough to be understood.
Even Howto could be translated this way.

This said, when it comes to use a lot of technical words or acronyms, automatic translation may fail. Does it fail so much that it can't be understood? I don't know as I never tried. I will, I promise.
Then it would be good to hear from people really not comfortable with English so that they tell us whenever translated doc is mandatory or not (compared to use of automatic translator).
I've the feeling that more than translation, what is missing is explanation about technical concepts and basis first.

In any case, is someone updates translated version, English version will not be updated at least at same time because official documentation definitely belongs to Zentyal. However I've no doubt they will align in case this is required  ;)

I'm very surprised such debate exists with Dutch people too: you are almost all speaking fluent English (compared to what we have here in France  :-[)

christian

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Re: "How to" version francaise
« Reply #17 on: August 16, 2011, 09:43:07 pm »
Why not simply using the localized forums to "store" the translated howtos, one by one, maybe with a mention like "Official Howto" or as sticky posts without ability to reply or comment ?

Because there is a repository for HowTo. The idea is more to have branches in this repository for translated documents or even document in local language if there is no equivalent in English.
Goal is to keep using forum as a forum and howto section as... howto section  :)

christian

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Re: "How to" version francaise
« Reply #18 on: August 16, 2011, 09:44:04 pm »
May I suggest we discuss this stuff in the English section of Zentyal forum?
I may have some interest for other users and will not bother French ones  :-*
« Last Edit: August 16, 2011, 09:58:37 pm by christian »

DWAM

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Re: "How to" version francaise
« Reply #19 on: August 16, 2011, 09:49:19 pm »
;o)

robb

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Re: "How to" version francaise
« Reply #20 on: August 16, 2011, 10:23:58 pm »
Thank you all for the feedback. I try to take it a bit further than the current (active) part of the dutch community. At the moment Zentyal is very poorly known in the Netherlands/Belgium. There is only 1 Bronze partner in the Netherlands and maybe a handful ZeCA professionals (I am one of those).

Although  the majority of the ICT professionals in the Netherlands do understand, speak and write English, I think it is important to have decent documentation in your own language to reach more people to start using Zentyal.

And then there is Community documentation. On the Dutch forum we are discussing to create dutch community documentation and in order to give that back to the community, we want to translate those in English. But as mentioned in this thread, we don't want to invent the wheel, and already existing documentation should be checked if it is still up to date and complete.

In my opinion documentation should be complete and consistent. If there are multiple languages involved, this STILL should be the case! And yes, that will make things VERY hard to maintain. And there some translationtools come in. Would Pootle be able to be used for documentation translation too?

I hope you can follow my reasoning and have some ideas to get all these things done. I hope Ebox Technolgy will jump in here soon to give some support.

@Christian: yes this should be discussed in English section... :)

nachico

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Re: "How to" version francaise
« Reply #21 on: August 17, 2011, 09:49:04 pm »
Wow! I stopped checking the forum for a few days and I find the French board turned into and English-speaking forum!  ;D Just joking ;)

I believe this is a very interesting discussion that should be moved to the main board (christian, as a forum moderator be my guest to start the topic :) ). I will just briefly comment my opinion on a few points you all mentioned.

In my opinion, providing good and complete documentation in several languages is essential for a project's promotion in non-English speaking countries. However, translating it takes a huge effort and it should not be started lightly. I find few things more pathetic than an oversized project, with plenty of open tasks and no one to complete them ;D

In my experience, Google translator and other similar tools help somehow in the first version, but the result is usually far from perfect (or at least it was a few years ago) and it still needs an important effort to make it understandable. Besides, deploying a Pootle to translate the documentation, although a good idea with huge potential, needs some work to adapt the English content and it is, thus, not an immediate decision.

On the other hand, maintenance should not be too problematic, I think. With every release we spend some time reviewing and updating the doc (we are actually doing so at this very moment, preparing the doc for 2.2), so it should not be too difficult to share the changes in the English doc and update then the rest of the languages. Moreover, if at some point there is some important contribution in other language, let's say a really good howto in French, there should not be any problem that anyone with the right permissions (Zentyal staff or forum moderators) could translate it to English and integrate it in the official doc, so that the English version keeps always updated.

So, my feelings in this matter are that I would love to see Zentyal documentation being translated and maintained in several languages. But being realistic, I think it would be more reasonable to start small: translating a few howtos, allowing people to contribute with new howtos in their own language, translating them to English if found valuable, and, in short, testing how other community members feel about it and whether it would make sense to set more ambitious goals.

Does it sound reasonable?
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christian

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Localized "How To" and official documentation translation
« Reply #22 on: August 18, 2011, 07:23:51 am »
Some time ago, we have started one topic in French section related to "How To" translation. This moved to "official documentation" translation.

We received inputs from a guy from Netherlands, in English  ;) then it's time to move all content here.
First messages are obviously in French. You can drop it or I may translate it later if there is a huge amount of request  :P

ichat

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Re: Localized "How To" and official documentation translation
« Reply #23 on: August 18, 2011, 11:51:19 am »
you people are really strange...  REALLY...

building a community is 'bringing it to people'   so why would we spent time  tanslating the UI   if not also the documentation...  is suposed to be like that,  ... lets say that the avarage end user with never get to the zentyal ui (only its webapps, witch are allready translated by thair devs rather than ours).

so the only person ofter using ghe zentyal is the sys-admin   so if he's going to run a  french spanish or dutch ui... hes sure to get in trouble once he'll need to read the  manual...  'there's no 'properties buttion its called  'eigenschappen'     where is the   advanced button   i only see 'meer opties'     all those translation issues will not   become a issue when there is a localized community...

so ... name your documentation,  in a strickt version controll  and  'we' the comunity can  translate it... 
maybe we do and maybe we just wait a few versions... thats up to us and community demand...

maybe we add stuff of our own and mabey we translate them to english for all to benefit.....   there is NO way stopping us doing that...   so  please be smart...  lets all talk this though and come up with ideas that eventually will benefit us all... 

and NO i dont think any translation tool would be helpfull in this...    it would make creating a document so mutch harder that its nearly impossible for  avarage people (including me) to be of help to this community.

so if you want to write howto's...  try if you can to translate the final draft of your work to inglish as soon as possible...  so others can help, review, comment and translate your work.

there is one thing i would advice...
> only support people based on the english documentation...     
All tips hints and advices are based on my personal experience.
As I try my best to be as accurate as possible, following my advice is always at your own risk,
I claim absolutely NO responsibility in any way!

christian

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Re: Localized "How To" and official documentation translation
« Reply #24 on: August 18, 2011, 12:10:06 pm »
Thank you ichat for sharing your view.

If you feel comfortable with documentation translation, as you say, no one can and will prevent you to translate and share. The whole community will benefit from it  :)
What is more questionable is whenever Zentyal, as a company, can handle it because, trust me, this is a an heavy task.
So there is on one hand the official documentation (currently in Spanish and English) and on the other hand How To and community documentation potentially in different languages. I'm waiting for structure to be modify so that French translation made by Christophe can be published.

Even with this first initiative (thank you Christophe) you will notice that translation is not an easy task, I mean light activity: Christophe made significant effort to translate  8) but relied on English doc, meaning screen copies are... in English.
So coming back to your comment (that I share from this standpoint), the expectation is to have screen copy matching documentation language. It's not difficult but time consuming and it becomes painful each and every time GUI changes, especially when you do this for community while having another job  ;D

ichat

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Re: Localized "How To" and official documentation translation
« Reply #25 on: August 18, 2011, 03:44:27 pm »
im sorry if i didn't make it clear ... im not a public speaker i guess.

what i mean to say is... no you cant stop it,  and i believe, even if you could  you dont even want that...

i also beleave that its impossible to  help people based on unofficial documentation...   thats why im saying provide US the comunity with means (and possible motive)  to get setup with some  directions,  lets call it a default translation profile,  protocol  or  method ... 

make sure that the english documents are vesioned..  so that when i translate, i can refer to that specific version of that document....

hopefully it could lead to  multiple zentyal websites  ... with multiple forums  wiki's  etc   all on the same system,  and a global login system...    all in thair own laguage (fully translated)...

i would be willing to help setting up  nl.zentyal.org  (or zentyal.nl)  for example...   i also wouldn't  mind  translating other people's work from english to dutch or visa versa...   

also localized websites will allow you to  spotlight local zentyal partners,  and   zca professionals  and that could also be valuable...

All tips hints and advices are based on my personal experience.
As I try my best to be as accurate as possible, following my advice is always at your own risk,
I claim absolutely NO responsibility in any way!

nachico

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Re: Localized "How To" and official documentation translation
« Reply #26 on: August 18, 2011, 08:21:53 pm »
Hi ichat,

thank you for your comment. I understand your point of view. However, I have the feeling that there is some kind of misunderstanding about "us" trying to control the community or limit its level of involvement. I would like to sort that out first, before replying to your message.

At Zentyal there is no Business vs Community clash. None, at least that I am aware of. Me, as well as my colleagues, consider ourselves members of the community. And as such, we follow and respect the rules of the community. As in any community, responsibility and power are assigned by meritocracy, which means that whoever contributes the most, gets more privileges and power to take decisions. We (as an organization) happen to be the main contributor and that is the only reason why we lead the project. We have been trying for a long time to get other people involved and share its leadership but, believe me, it is much harder than it seems. Forum moderators are the first successful step in that direction, and hopefully not the last one, but the reason why this is mostly a company-led project is not because we want to keep full control on it, but because it takes time for other members to step in and get involved.

what i mean to say is... no you cant stop it,  and i believe, even if you could  you dont even want that...

Like I said, no one wants to stop it. It just needs to start moving ;)

i also beleave that its impossible to  help people based on unofficial documentation...   thats why im saying provide US the comunity with means (and possible motive)  to get setup with some  directions,  lets call it a default translation profile,  protocol  or  method ...

The community DOES have the means. There is a community documentation repository that can be edited by any forum member. Contributions can be then linked from the community documentation by anyone with administration privileges (currently Zentyal staff and forum moderators). Following Zentyal release cycle, most valuable contributions will be merged into official documentation once it is updated. This is currently the procedure.

We can then discuss about whether official documentation could be modified anytime by anyone (instead of following a strict release cycle) or whether we should spend a lot of effort preparing the wiki and the required processes to handle a flood of contributions (instead of, for example, investing that effort in debugging 2.1 version and publishing a really polished 2.2 next month). But, in my opinion, the current level of contributions does not justify a large modification in our infrastructure or procedures.

make sure that the english documents are vesioned..  so that when i translate, i can refer to that specific version of that document....

They are versioned. Official documentation refers to a particular version of Zentyal and all the howtos contributed during the last three months follow a template indicating date and version.

hopefully it could lead to  multiple zentyal websites  ... with multiple forums  wiki's  etc   all on the same system,  and a global login system...    all in thair own laguage (fully translated)...

i would be willing to help setting up  nl.zentyal.org  (or zentyal.nl)  for example...   i also wouldn't  mind  translating other people's work from english to dutch or visa versa...   

I hope so too. It is just a matter of choices, as resources are limited: if we knew that there were actually going to be throngs of people helping translating and contributing with new documentation, then we would invest whatever it takes preparing all the infrastructure and procedures needed. But if we don't know that, then it is hard to justify (and probably counterproductive for the project too) to deviate efforts from debugging or from the English documentation update, where developers are focused now.

also localized websites will allow you to  spotlight local zentyal partners,  and   zca professionals  and that could also be valuable...

Definitely, I agree completely, and I wish we could do everything at the same time.

Regards,
CEO at Zentyal

ichat

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Re: Localized "How To" and official documentation translation
« Reply #27 on: August 19, 2011, 02:12:10 pm »
ty for your reply, -  he im sorry if i get misunderstanding,  ... i dont acuse zentyal of any  stuf against the comunity... even thought thats a general misconception against commercial parties involved with linux... 

redhat conical  sun and even apple (cups)   have done great things for linux  - and so does zentyal ca..

but you have only so mutch time...   dont spend it on things any idiot (like documentation) could do for you..

i reay cant look at your resources,  so i cant see  if its possible to have zentyal.org setup as a multi site    rather than  1 size fits all... 

having a complete dutch  forum + some sort of wiki (or other information management) would really 
usefull...   rather than a single dutch subforum  or a few pages  somewhere between   the english how to install and the french  'how to find your servers powerbutton'    (no pun intended). 

like i said i cant really  see into what kind of server / webspace is running zentyal and if  your running a cms or not, and if that cms is even possible  to do  more than 1 website ... with diferent contents...  (depending on what database is chosen).

im not sure im not a professional webdevelopper.   

but having an isolated spot,  wherre people can do thair thing  would be so mutch better...

i think in the ideal method.    you would have multiple levels of documentation...

contributed stuff... this is a place where all users can post, edit and comment... (per haps a special sub-forum can be made for this... (per language ofcaurse)...
here poeple should be able to  vote for inclusion in to the documentation wiki for that language...
witch is managed by a few people (example moderators).
if it make for the wiki its probably worth being translated to diferent languages...   and if it makes it there its probably also worth being uncluded into the official documentation...

this would probably involve a documentation team, with at least  1 member per  translation...   and someone from the zentyal devs to represent them and thair clients.. 

this would evenly spread load on  vulantairy users and the zentyal team...

so if anyone has any good ideas on how to achieve this for real, being able to lucalize the sites more.. that please help us..  as i thing is a huge requirement befor having more comunity interest and userbase in non-english speakers...
All tips hints and advices are based on my personal experience.
As I try my best to be as accurate as possible, following my advice is always at your own risk,
I claim absolutely NO responsibility in any way!

jsalamero

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Re: Localized "How To" and official documentation translation
« Reply #28 on: August 19, 2011, 03:30:42 pm »
ichat, before making any significant investment in infrastructure to have everything multilingual,  there are many areas for improvement:

* make sure your language is 100% translated to zentyal and review existing translations
* blog in your own language about zentyal and write how-tos and recipes on howto setup typical configuration
* build up a community in your language subforum
* start translating as wiki pages the most visited parts of the doc, maybe other pages like installation guide or faq as well

i'm sure that zentyal will support all initiatives coming from the community to improve the project in one or other way!

nachico

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Re: Localized "How To" and official documentation translation
« Reply #29 on: August 19, 2011, 08:36:41 pm »
ichat, thanks a lot for your reply. I really like your suggestion of creating a documentation team or having a per-language forum and documentation wiki.

A few months ago we had a discussion on multilanguage support. It might be a good idea to review the conclusions we had then before continuing with this thread. What do you think, ichat?
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