User talk:Spiky

Welcome!

I should really get template-like-welcome message for translators... In the meantime: welcome!

I noticed your page Original page/lang-ja and it states that the 'source' is OLPC FAQ... not being able to read japanese (and a bit lazy to try {{Google Translate}} on it, I can't decide what is 'wrong' with it... except that there's no page named [[Original page]], so I pressume that the intended destination would've been instead [[OLPC FAQ/lang-ja]]... please let me know and I'll move it :)

BTW, I consider the FAQ to be a tricky thing to translate, as you probably don't really want to translate the questions but rather the summaries or 'base q&a' and let the japanese-speaking community generate their own questions...

Either way, welcome! If you have any doubts please check Translating/HowTo or drop me a line. Cheers --Xavi 01:59, 10 August 2007 (EDT)

PS: I noticed that you are using 'version = 0001' when it should be the number that appears in the 'original' page (ie: «HowTo [ID# 57522] +/-») as this will allow the synchronization using the 'changes' link (変更) that shows the modifications since the last version used as the source of the translation and the current source version (see Translating/HowTo#Notes for more information and {{Translation}}). Xavi 02:27, 10 August 2007 (EDT)

follow-up to User talk:Xavi#Thank you for your kind welcome message

Glad to help! :) Yes, translating a wiki is not the usual translation project I guess. If you have any suggestion on how to make it simpler, please let me know :)

BTW, I just moved the page, and tagged the original for deletion. If you have any questions, please do ask! Either wiki or IRC (usually in #olpc-content and some other olpc-channels). Cheers, Xavi 02:57, 10 August 2007 (EDT)

About synchronization between original page and translated page

Xavi,

Thank you so much again, and very sorry for may mistake about the use of "version" parameter. I now understand that. I'm going to fix them.

Spiky

Je... edit conflict, guess you're faster than me :)

I've already fixed them (used the latest # since I'm assuming you started from those) but please do check that I didn't miss any, thanks. Xavi 02:57, 10 August 2007 (EDT)

PS: you can use the Xavi 02:57, 10 August 2007 (EDT) to sign your posts ;)

PS2: originally I meant to put ~~~~.... Xavi 11:51, 18 September 2007 (EDT)

/lang-ja pages

Hi! Making my comeback after too many days off the wiki... anyway, I noticed several /lang-ja pages (and corresponding new or edited /translations) only to discover that they are in english... something that I find confusing at best. I mean, what's the point of having lots of duplicate pages posing as translations? If there's a logic or reason, it escapes me...ᅜ Xavi 15:26, 17 August 2007 (EDT)

Hi, Xavi! Welcomeback. I'm grad to hear you. I guess your point is "why so many 'ongoing translation' pages indicated as Japanese page but still in English?", is that right? Ok, there's a simple reason. I would like to lower threshold for many ordinary Japanese people who would like to contribute in translation work but are not skilled so much to prepare Japanese template pages in wiki world. Talking about me, I think I'm getting used to prepare template pages for Japanese translation work from original English pages now a days, but still it was tricky and bothersome work. I guess It'll be some kind of barrier for ohter Japanese. My concern for now, is to bring as many Japanese as possible to help us out, so I just would like to remove any difficulties for them as much as I can, for their convenince to be able to start helping right away. If this situation will cause something bad for OLPC wiki community, then it is ok to remove or hide them those are not translated into Japanese yet at all. (Also the reason why I put {{Ongoing Translation}} tags in these pages are that we now uses "Category:Ongoing Translation" page as "todo" list. I guess it is easier for other people to know which pages are prepared or under translation and which pages they can start to translate.) Spiky 21:08, 17 August 2007 (EDT)

Anyway, I've just posted one question on your pages about how to translate 'menu' items displayed on the lefthand side of the top pages. Currently all these menus are in English even if user changed page mode to Japanese, like page 'Home' or 'OLPC overview'. If they would like to move from Japanese 'OLPC overview' page to, for example, 'Educators' page, then they once move to English 'Educators' page and then switch it to Japanese page again. I will really appreciate if you give me some advise if you have a time. Thank you! Spiky 21:16, 17 August 2007 (EDT)

If there is one (which I'm pretty sure there has to be) I'm not aware of it... :( Xavi 11:51, 18 September 2007 (EDT)

yatc

(Yet Another Translation Comment :)

That's a nice list you did for your translations, one that finally pushed me to review the {{Translation}} template... which I'm doing right now, and would like to discuss so that it accomodates better to our needs and uses.

For starters the {{Translation}} has 5 parameters, 3 of which are mandatory (lang, version & source); the other two are just visual and not really important. If the translations stick to the subpage scheme, the source parameter is the parent-page, which iirc, can be retrieved by a function. so we could change it from mandatory to optional. There have been several ocassions where the source parameter was wrong (usually copy-paste) and thus the language navigation bar was wrong too) so anything to avoid those dumb mistakes should be ok.

The other problem I see currently is the use of the {{Ongoing Translation}}. The problem with this is that we lose all info on which language we are talking about (ongoing lang-ja? lang-es?)

So I've been thinking on tweaking the {{Translation}} template to drop the required source and add some status or level. The status I was thinking either your approach in the User:Spiky#To Do with a percent number, or something more textual:

{{ Translation | lang = ja | version = xxxxx | status = 50% }}
or
{{ Translation | lang = ja | version = xxxxx | status = ongoing, to review, wanted, to update, synced }}

The xx% approach is nice as it provides some quantification (but don't think that it would be necessary or usefull that level of detail). On the other hand, the discrete status may be annoying. One thing that xx% would be messy in solving is when a page has been translated, but after its source has been modified it'll need to be sync'ed.

BTW, the status would be used to classify the pages accordingly in for example a [[Category:Translation Ongoing lang-ja]] (avoiding you the hassle of manually building the list. Other categorizations should be possible. That way we split things more by language instead of having all languages mixed up.

So, if you have any ideas or suggestions, please drop me a note or contact me in IRC #olpc-content (usually as Xavi there too). Xavi 09:06, 23 August 2007 (EDT)

PS: I made a prototype in {{Sandbox}} on how the new {{Translation}} may end up doing... the resulting categories would need to be reviewed for consistency. Xavi 10:27, 23 August 2007 (EDT)

Hi, Xavi!

Thank you for your sincere comments and modification idea for the improvemnt of the template. I'm just back from my businesstrip and have just read your idea above right now. Would you give me a time to think for a while? regards Spiky 01:37, 25 August 2007 (EDT)

I've left my comments on above page. I'm grad if you take a look at them Spiky 20:13, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

Oops! Sorry for the delay! BTW, there's no real rush (many of my ideas never get implemented ;)) — but I had been thinking of 'upgrading' the {{Translation}} for some time now... so at leaste the meme is in two heads now :) Xavi 11:51, 18 September 2007 (EDT)

yatc2

Two comments: one vis-a-vis translations linking and the other is an open question.

I've noticed that the preserving section anchors in the Translating/HowTo was lacking some steps and details, so instead of explaining them here, I expanded there on how the translated links should work. If you have any questions or commments, please let me know :)

Basically, translated pages should 'link' to [[Foo/lang-xx]] always, if the page doesn't exist, a dummy redirect (categorized as a missing or wanted translation) can be created. This enables adding a new translation and having all the 'backlinks' use it directly (instead of having to go back to each of the other translated pages previously linking to the 'original' instead of the 'translated' version). Xavi 09:56, 7 September 2007 (EDT)

I think I understand the fundamental rules to create the translation pages... But it seems I'm missing some points I should keep as a translator? Especially your explanation inside (), does that means I should keep original link (that is, foo (in English) instead of foo/lang-ja even if inside the translated page? Is that your points? I'm grad if you explain me with more words. There might be problems in my language skill and wiki rules.

What I meant by the (categorized as a missing or wanted translation) is that when I translate a page into spanish, I translate all the links (well, usually I make the exception for highly technical development stuff which usually attract only people that can read technical english nonetheless, so no point in trying to translate something which is code ;) But if you translate all the links that would mean a lot of missing pages (because the page is not yet translated and lots of pages are not really worth translating—ie: few readers in the english version). My solution is to create the missing page but as a #REDIRECT that points to the english original. But in order not to 'lose sight' of that fake page, I put Category:Missing translation. See (LX Power Measurements/lang-es)

Again, all the things I say are to be taken as suggestions and ideas, not engraved in stone or anything like that :) So all feedback is welcome (both on the 'framework' and particularly regarding the Translating/HowTo and how to make it easier for newbies) Xavi 11:51, 18 September 2007 (EDT)

I forgot the 'open question'... which basically was "how to deal with the wanted translations", but sort of answered it through the categorization of the redirects, although I'm not too sure about it. BTW, as a side effect, your (currently manual) to-do list would be maintained by the wiki—albeit without the %s :) Xavi 10:44, 7 September 2007 (EDT)

I'm happy if you saw my idea about how to deal with pages wainting for translation or on going tranlsation pages on your notes of your page though, but I fundamentaly agree with your idea to put some descrete status keywords as a parameter for "Translated text" tag. In addition, I also think it'll be nice to put numerical progress status (for example, in percentage, like in my page) just for the people who are really interested in the progress of OLPC acitivity day by day (it exist, ;-)). FYI, in my page, the percentage I put at the end of all pages which I've prepared the templates for Japanese translation means just the progress of simple and rough simple conversion rate ( from English to Japanese), and I always welcome anybody who modify or continue my translation work in the middle of my work. And, offcourse, after the conversion was completed ( that is, percentage is 100%), that means "Conversion was completed and waiting for modification or refinement from other excellent translators. Simple conversion progress is easy to represent its progress with numerical number, because it is very obvious how much the original was converted from English to , in this case, Japanese, but on the otherhand, it is slight difficult to show people "how fine the completed translation" wiht numerical numbers, so it is nice (as in your idea) to show descrete words. Some people says refinement work (of the translation) might last forever (because there might be some people who don't want others translations or something, or simply because of the difference of translation policy, or maybe simply because of their favors), so the final status of every translated pages maybe "waiting for refinment" (it's a joke, never mind.) Oh well, this is my opinion, but Japanese are one of the most "rashly" people, because almost all traffic signals for the pedestrian has the "meter" that shows "how many seconds they have to wait", in some cases it is a ditital bar meter and some in ditital numbers in seconds, and they know how many time they have to wait watching the bar length or number decreasing. It'll be strange for the people in other countries. Spiky 23:53, 17 September 2007 (EDT)

Oh I've forgot to ask you more important question, would you explain me what does "%s" means? I'm just used to use "Spiky 00:02, 18 September 2007 (EDT)" symbol to attach signature at the end of the comments. ;-P

Actually by '%s' I was referring to your %s in your homepage :) Xavi 11:51, 18 September 2007 (EDT)

yatc3 - the HIG

Saw your edition of the /translations for OLPC Human Interface Guidelines/The Laptop Experience... and thought I should 'warn' you that the wiki-text in those pages is not very friendly :( I tried to set up some notes & guidelines on the translation of the HIG (which I haven't reviewed in some time)... if you have any questions or doubts, please let me know (either in my talk or better, on the page) so that we can make it better :) Xavi 02:48, 17 September 2007 (EDT)

Thank you for your comments. I think you mean the HIG page is still under construction, so that I should wait to prepare Japanese translation page for this for now? If so, I delete it right away ( and from my to-do page, too). Though I take a look at your new HIG page, I think it is a nice page for new comers. I'll wait your complettion. (To tell the truth, I happen to see "recently updated pages" in the left column menu and saw your name and that page, and there was already Spanish and Korean translation bar, so I added Japanese. That might be too early, right?)

The HIG in english is still technically unfinished, but the wiki page setup & contents can be translated. It's just that it has some extra hoops & loops that are not found in the 'normal' translation of a wiki page. For example it has dedicated section/sub-section navigation templates, translated section titles have been factored, and a couple other twists. See translation of the HIG.

If I remember correctly, if you start by the 'root' OLPC Human Interface Guidelines or rather the spanish translation replacing /lang-es with /lang-ja filling in the 'red' links will build you the structure. Xavi 11:51, 18 September 2007 (EDT)

PS: As a reference you may want to take a look at the OLPC Human Interface Guidelines/lang-es (the spanish version I did) that was the guinea pig used to tweak the templates and structure in order to enable translations... Xavi 02:52, 17 September 2007 (EDT)

Thanks, again. I will visit that page later. If I did something strange or something wrong in translation pages, that will be because of my language skill or lack of the knowledge of wiki rules, so I'm grand if you poit out them anytime... I now feel many pressure from inside me and from outside. Generally speaking, the translation work of Japanese is far behind comparing with other countires. If Japanese think we are one of the most advanced IT country, then we should know more about the world and we should contribute our resource to the world (that is, OLPC activity). And any Japanese with the will has to contribute their resource to prepare bigger windows into the world for other Japanese who has the will but not enought skills. I believe I am one of them to contribute and that is my policy. So I have to hurry, and to catch up with the progress of other countries translations. And the pressure from outside of me, there should be many Japanese people who can contribute this project if they have enough information. For these potential Japanese, I should hurry up, too. Spiky 00:18, 18 September 2007 (EDT)

Don't worry, goofing is part of the learning and will always happen! :) And as SJ said: 'history is wise' (all pages have history, and we can revert gracefully :) I'm all for trying to reach those potential contributors that are not fluid in english (that's why I started translating into spanish ;) but I would then try to cherry pick the pages to translate.

I've been trying to do some stats about potentially interesting page Translated pages (but it needs polishing) but the problem with translating in a wiki, is that the source pages in english also evolve, meaning that you are never really finished translating a given page. Towards the end of Translated pages there's a temptative list of outdated pages per language (I updated it on weekends) and may help (as you see spanish has a lot of outdated translations—although some are due to artifacts in how the list is extracted).

Anyway, welcome on board, and don't hesitate in asking. If you IRC you can usually find me in #olpc-content by the name of 'Xavi' --Xavi 11:51, 18 September 2007 (EDT)

Hi, Xavi! Thank you very much for taking your precious time for all the replies above! It's almost midnight now in Japan and I'm going to read through tomorrow carefully once again. Anyway, thanks in advance! Spiky 12:05, 18 September 2007 (EDT)

I would love to talk to you more about what's going on regarding the OLPC in japan. Could you contact me by email (jason@jasonnolan.net)? User:Jasonnolan:jason November 1, 2008

Greetings

Hi Spiky, have you worked on FF2 recently? It looks very cool. I was doing some wiki cleanup and noticed your userpage redirect... Mariano