Guide editing workflow: How to efficiently work with docs, translators and publishers

[Jack Reed]

Hi Kévin,

Thanks for tackling the Installation Quick Start Guide, and I'm sorry 
you encountered those pitfalls.

I just want to clarify why a Zanata config file was checked into git, 
and by extension why we've decided to move the Installation Guide and 
Installation Quick Start Guide from Transifex to Zanata.

As I explained in another trans-list thread, the mechanical reasons are:

1) Transifex can't handle the long filenames that the sheer size of the 
Install Guide necessitates, so we have to maintain some kind of mapping 
between the filename and the Transifex module names. This requires a 
massive amount of manual handling.
2) Pushing and pulling the 800 small files that comprise the Install 
Guide across the 20+ languages that we have partial translations for is 
prohibitive as the connection keeps failing.

More importantly, I want to emphasise that moving to Zanata in this case 
is purely a solution to the difficulties Transifex has with these 
particular guides. It is not reflective of a broader desire to migrate 
to Zanata. I appreciate the myriad reasons why it is best to have all 
Fedora localization work done under one roof.

If and when these technical hurdles are overcome, Transifex would 
naturally be the ideal home for these guides so that all our work is 
consolidated.

Apologies for the confusion that has resulted from this.

Cheers,

Jack



On 06/29/2012 08:52 AM, Kévin Raymond wrote:
> Heya!
>
> Short summary: Discussing before switching the translation system of some
> guides.
>
>
> After spending many hours in the merge issue between our old teams and the
> transifex.net ones, it is still an active task.
> Thanks to involved contributors, it is moving forward, there are already some
> projects fully merged.
>
> Willing to help with the IQSG (installation quick start guide), I noticed an
> issue in the transifex config[1], which  leads me to a zanata config file and the
> corresponding git commits.
>
> A bit of history.
> A while back, we were using our own Transifex instance, which was not sticking
> to the upstream releases. It was a mess with projects unavailable and other
> issues.
>
> There were 2 solutions:
> - Migrating to transifex.net, the online hosted service maintained by the
> Transifex team,
> - Moving to an other system (in our infra or somewhere else).
>    
> Some wanted to try Zanata. There where a RH instance set for this purpose[2].
> After many discussions, it has been decided to move all our projects to
> transifex.net.
>
>
> Few upstream projects choose for specific reasons to move to an other service,
> and even to Zanata (1 or 2). And few others just stops dealing with translations.
> Yes, changing the translation platform is a pain for both, maintainers and
> translators.
>
> Nowadays, we are close to have fully integrated all projects to transifex.net
> (still some merge concerning docs[3]).
>
> So here we are, with translations done through transifex.net for the projects
> correctly set up, the other one needs attention ([4]?).
>
> /end of history
>
> The IQSG is not correctly set up.
> But we just saw on the git log
> "* fb03c3c Adding zanata config file"
> this is… weird without other notice.
>
> On the Zanata instance, we could see:
> Description                              Creation Date      Status
> Fedora Installation Quick Start Guide	   19 juin 2012	      Active
> Fedora Installation Guide	               19 juin 2012	      Active
>
> I just asked more info on IRC, and it appears that we need to discuss/define how
> we deal with our translation platform, and let our maintainers explain why they
> need to move somewhere else.
>
> nb has reverted the ZANATA commits in the above guides, to avoid mistakes.
> @maintainers, could you please explain your needs/wishes?
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> [1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=836383
> [2] https://translate.zanata.org/zanata/
> [3] http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/docs/2012-June/014356.html
> [4] http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/docs/2012-June/014420.html
>
>

-- 
Jack Reed
Content Author
Engineering Content Services

Red Hat Asia Pacific
Brisbane, Australia
Phone: +617 3514 8184