Translations

The Xiph.org projects are mainly in English. Some of these projects are used by many non-English speaking users. They will be happy to find some help in their own language.

The main goal of this page is to answer these two questions:

 - how are we going to translate the docs?
 - how are the translated docs going to be integrated on the websites?

How are we going to translate the docs?

First, a translation needs some translators. The Xiph Foundation needs to call for help. Many users are ready to help but need a sign and a clear TODO list. Prior to translating all the docs, users can write some HowTos or a simple FAQ in the target language.

The more simple the translation procedure is, the more I love it.

 - you're going to read the Icecast doc
 - you see a link "Won't you help us in translating or reviewing this doc?" 
 - this link takes you to a simple webpage with a mailform
 - you send a mail and that's it.

This link can drive the users to a simple web form with some checkboxes: what would I translate, have I ever made some translation work, etc. Then the form sends a mail to a translation coordinator. The coordinator sends some parts of the docs to the users and when they are translated, they are merged into the main doc tree. At the beginning, a new user can start in re-reading an already translated doc.

How are the translated docs going to be integrated on the websites?

A newly translated doc can only be integrated on a website by a coordinator or a webmaster. The coordinator needs to be informed by the webmaster in order to produce usable webpages. The coordinator has to produce some translation how-tos for the translators (some useful KDE translator stuff here).

On a FTP point of view, that's quite simple:

/docs
/docs/index.php
/docs/en/... -> all the docs in english
/docs/fr/... -> all the docs in french
/docs/de/... -> all the docs in german
...

Instead maybe we could use something like:

/docs/index.php
/docs/index.fr.php
/docs/index.de.php

There probably isn't any reason to use a .en as all of the official docs are in English anyway.

The main index.php page lists the docs for every language.

- if the doc is fully translated and reviewed, the doc is ok

- if the doc needs to be re-read, a link, at the top of the page asks for some volunteers

- if the doc needs to be translated, a link, at the top of the page asks for some volunteers.

How are we going to start?

Icecast is probably the Xiph project having the biggest need of translation. We could begin by:

1 - Modify the http://www.icecast.org/docs/ page.

Quoting and editing : "Here is an index to the Icecast documentation we know about. If there is something out there on the Web that you know about, but is not listed here, contact us." The icecast documentation is going to be available in many languages. Feel free to volunteer and give your help: click on your flag

2 - Add a flag list.

Each flag takes the user on its http://www.icecast.org/docs/ page. (This page needs a PHP file in order to simply list the docs.)

3 - Each doc links takes the user to a specific doc homepage with the call for help.

4 - Produce some translation guidelines.