Annoucement: New translation status page is installed

[Lauri Nurmi]

ke, 2004-06-23 kello 03:55, Bernd Groh kirjoitti:
> Christian Rose schrieb:
> 
> >Thus it's not really exciting to see that any random bozo can suddenly
> >take over control over a Swedish translation and fill in dirty words.
> >I'm not amused.
> >
> 
> Do you want me to not give someone access because s/he's got a danish 
> email address and the domain name is a dirty word? Regardless of how 
> fluent this person may be in swedish, and how much this person would 
> like to participate? Do you know for a fact that this persons 
> translations are bad? 

Making a good translation is not as easy as many people would think. The
translator needs to have very good skills both in English, AND his/her
own language. It is not enough, if you know English pretty well and know
how to use an editor. Also, being very eager to participate does not
mean that one has the capability for it. The majority of people probably
could not make a good translation if they tried.

Therefore, it is safe to assume that a newcomer translator who pops out
of nowhere is not capable of translating well enough. I am not saying
this is always the case. Of course there can be newcomers who are good
right from the beginning.

The newcomer does have the right to participate. However, if such a
person enters a project, and starts committing bad translations (ie.
inconsistent, grammatically bad, etc), it can lead to some consequences.

Assuming there have been an active team/person doing the translation,
they may become annoyed seeing some group of untalented newcomers
messing with their translations. Being annoyed, they may dump the whole
project and let the newcomers continue. Which could lead to general
deterioration of the translation. This, in turn, could lead to end users
choosing another language, as they cannot stand the translation.

The scenario which I described above is a rather pessimistic one, yes.
In general, new translators are welcome to participate. Still, in my
opinion, they should at least be asked to write to the mailinglist of
their language before they start, or to contact the previous translator
of the file.