Akademy/2025/i18n BoF

Notes

git migration

• Almost ready to start
  • Two possible migration strategies: All at once or one/few language at a time

web based translation

• Historically asked by some people
• Maybe gitlab MRs are good enough? We'll see
• Would possibly need to be a per-team decision
• Needs to happen after the git migration. So future work
• Cristián's experience in the python community is that Transifex will get you quicker/more translations but of less quality and that asking people to use git gives you a contributor that sticks around

Translators documentation

• Our documentation for new translators is "too good", hard to read so much text without losing interest

Webpage translation

• Strings feel a bit isolated, hard to know where it will end up
• Syntax is sometimes complicated, making it easier to break the webpage
• Testing webpage translations locally is hard.
• The three points above makes translating webpages not enjoyable.

Testing application translations

• It is hard to test when you're translating unreleased features
  • Flatpak nightlies seem a good story to test translations. In this scenario it's most of the times if a non perfect translation is committed. It can be improved next day.
    • We don't really have flatpak application nightlies though...

Empowering translators

• Please send an email to the mailing list if you find grammar issues, typos so we can fix the English text
• If you find a translation that is missing context, please also send an email so we can try to improve it.

Action points

• [Albert] Ask teams if they care about history
• We need a 1 page documentation for newcomers quick-start
• Try to come up with an idea to make testing translations of webpages before committing. Either a 1 command that everyone can use or something based on gitlab MRs