Talk:Translating/HowTo

This edit has corrupted specific Unicode characters, http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php?title=Translating/HowTo&curid=7623&diff=68250&oldid=68080

Could someone revert the change?

Thanks! Walter took care of it. As far as I can tell, it's a new version of an old bot: one that 'ate +' and 'aborted on &'—also known as the ampersandphobic bot on a + diet... (I saw one of the many corrupt edition you mention falling into the old habits, irrc). --Xavi 19:22, 3 October 2007 (EDT)

Why so complicated?

I find this translation system extremely complicated! I had to struggle with the instructions for an hour before starting to understand a bit, and I don't think I would have succeeded if I hadn't been vaguely familiar with "wiki syntax".
I know that translating the wiki is not priority number 1, but if it ever becomes really important, the system needs to be more user friendly in order to attract contributors.
The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that the procedure is difficult to understand for a beginner: creating a new page with the appropriate tag, editing the language bar, leaving the original text inside special tags (I know there must be a good reason, but I really can't see it!) etc, etc... Contributors who are willing to translate should focus on translation instead of having to take care of technical details before eventually translating, or maybe abandoning the idea because they couldn't understand enough.
Why not adopt a system a bit similar to Wikipedia's one? A project page for each language, to which volunteers could subscribe, could be created. On these pages, a list of the pages to translate, in priority order, would be displayed. The translators would choose a page, and access to an already edited page (maybe a bot could do it). They would only have to click on edit, and translate the content inside the already appropriate tags. Once finished, they would update the status of the page on the Project page. Whenever the original page would be modified, translators could be automatically contacted to update their translation.

These are only a few ideas, and I am perfectly aware of the fact that it means a lot of work for developers to implement such a system, especially when they must be busy with more important things. Yet if the translation becomes a big project, improving the system will be necessary.