[Typo3-doc] [Translation]

[JoH]

>>> You are right, why not. But I prefer a doc written in very bad
>>> english, even bullet points, than in french, as I coun't read
>>> anything from that.
>>
>> Well - I didn't say you won't get your English doc. But you will get
>> two docs: One in perfect French _and_ a very good translation of it.
>
> How many writers will do that in reality? And how many stops
> after writing the native documentation?
>
> Please, we have to be realistic here. We don´t have many writers
> writing at all, so the DocTeam have to "use" those resources in
> the best way possible.
> Not diverge them on manuals that big parts of the Typo3
> community can not read...
>
> Your ideas are good if we had unlimited resources. But right now
> we haven´t...  :-(

Well - I guess you didn't understand what I said so I will explain it again:

If we do it the way you want it we have the following workflow:
1. German writer --> produces bad English --> 1,5 days
2. English writer does a review/rewrite --> 0,5 days
3. You get one well written English manual --> 2 days
Two people --> one manual --> two days

If we do it my way:
1. German writer --> produces good German --> 1 day
2. English writer --> translates into good English --> 1 day
3. You get two well written manuals in German _and_ English --> 2 days
Two people --> two manuals --> two days

Since we both agree that we don't have unlimited resources the second
approach is much more efficient.

>> But this doesn't change the fact that I believe only native (or
>> professional) writers should do the job.
>
> I strongly disagree. So far I haven´t had any trouble with the
> language when reading much of the Typo3 documentation.
> And I think most documents are written by a dannish guy... ;-)
>
>> Since you all love this Wiki thingie: who sets up a list where
>> contributors can inform us about their language skills??
>
> No need to, we should concentrate on english manuals right now!

Hmmm - I don't know the exact statistics but when you simply count the
messages in the German list and compare them to all other lists (keeping in
mind that many German users are on the English list too) you will see that
the native language of more than 50% of the community is German! Another big
part is speaking French. 7 of the top 10 donators (listed on the typo3.org
startpage) are from Germany, Switzerland or Austria. All these people may be
able to understand English but many of their clients are not. But these
clients are the people that pay the money in the end and the first question
most of my clients asked me is: "Is this manual available in German?" - in
many cases I had to tell them: "not yet, but they are working on it" ...

I don't want to prevent people from writing English docs just because they
are no native speakers but IMHO it's a complete waste of time and resources
to do so, since we will be forced to have them reviewed/rewritten to make
sure they are up to a professional standard.

Joey

BTW: Maybe the new doc team leader should decide how to do it? - I guess
it's his job ... Silvain?