Re: [libreoffice-l10n] Improving the usage of help.libreoffice.org site

Hi :)
I'm not saying to throw anything away.  Well i might be but i don't mean to be because throwing 
stuff away is often a really bad move.  

Also i think i definitely am misunderstanding something.  That is my fault because Sophie really 
has tried to explain it to me several times.  Possibly i am just not close enough to the work to 
see the differences between a few different things.  

The in-built help is enormously helpful even if it is out-dated and even wrong or missing parts.  
When we do get around to updating it then we need a good starting point to work from and that makes 
it even more useful.  It's very convenient for users to just be able to click within their program 
and instantly get hints&tips relevant to what they are doing.  Even if they have a good internet 
connection then it can be faster than a google-search or looking it up in a book.  


If it's not being updated at all then there is no point in re-translating it for each release.  
It's a finished job in most languages already.  Those that are not finished yet should only need to 
translate it once.  All completed or even incomplete translations should (imo) just feed straight 
into the next release's version without even having to glance through.  

If it is being up-dated but only by geeks (and/or devs) then could we find out which bits are 
different and then only translate those bits?  

If translators have been updating it themselves (and perhaps de-geeking it) then could some of 
their work be translated back into English so that everyone can have an improved version to work 
from?  Even bad English might well be a help.  


I definitely agree with NOT throwing it away.  "Release early and release often" suggests that even 
fairly bad releases have the advantage of being seen and hopefully inspiring people to join in with 
the process of improving it.  If something is not released or doesn't exist (or been deleted) then 
how would people ever know how much work needs to be done or where they could help?! :)  You might 
find a number of people all start again from scratch and end up repeating the same work as each 
other and doing stuff that has already been done anyway, which all sounds like a tfn to me.  So, 
definitely keep what we do have especially the translations (which might well be better than the 
original).  

Regards from 
Tom :)  







> ________________________________
> From: Sophie Gautier <gautier.sophie@gmail.com>
> To: l10n@global.libreoffice.org 
> Sent: Thursday, 14 February 2013, 14:21
> Subject: Re: [libreoffice-l10n] Improving the usage of help.libreoffice.org site
>
> Hi all,
> On 14/02/2013 11:05, Rimas Kudelis wrote:
> > Hi Martin,
> >
> > I didn't see a suggestion to "throw away" anything in Tom's post. I
> > think the suggestion was to simply focus on the user guide if you have a
> > choice.
> > And I don't know how Slovenian team works, maybe you are committed to
> > maintaining and updating the Help yourselves, but if not (that is, if
> > you only correct minor mistakes and sync our translation with English
> > original, which, according to Tom, is outdated), then with every new
> > major release, that help content becomes less and less covering, in
> > which case, it might become worth throwing away (or, more likely,
> > reworking it into something better and perhaps easier to maintain) at
> > some point. ;)
>
> The help files and documentation are completely different topics and
> can't replace one by another one (even legally for some countries) but
> can complete (what I clearly explain to Tom, but it seems he is lobbying
> the guides against the help files).
> It's not true to say that the help files haven't been updated for 8
> years, even if it's clear that it wasn't a priority for our dev currently.
> I've retrieved all the necessary tools to work on the help files and we
> have a FR team willing to work here. Jean is also interested but she
> will be available mid march which is not an issue considering the work.
> Andras is also working on simplifying the process, see his blog post on
> http://planet.documentfoundation.org/
> When you see something that is not perfect, don't throw it away, on the
> contrary, try to make it fit your needs.
> The work done by Kendy is also to take into consideration for the long
> run, it has to be organized and we have to agree on a workflow.
> All that to say that the work done to localize the help files, whatever
> their state currently, is to be taken into consideration for each team
> and don't listen to those who tell you that it's a waste of time, it's
> not, it brings a great value to our product and is necessary to deliver
> it in some countries regarding the law.
> Kind regards
> Sophie
>
> -- 
> Sophie Gautier <sophie.gautier@documentfoundation.org>
> Tel:+33683901545
> Membership & Certification Committee Member - Co-founder
> The Document Foundation
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