Re: Translated PerlMonks FAQ (best of both?)

[tye]

I think there should be a faqlet index for each language that links to the faqlets in the chosen language (if available) next to a link to the faqlet in English (always).

The SDC master plan should allow each question (each line in the index) to be translated into a different lanuage whether the faqlet that answers the question has been translated or not. So you'd have a line in the SDC master plan with the question in a different language but some 'no such' token for which faqlet it should link to.

The faqlet master index would be an English faqlet index with links to the other languages' faqlet indices. The Portuguese faqlet index would list all questions in the same order as the master index. The display of the question should make it clear which case applies for this question/language combination: Not even the question has been translated, Only the question has been translated, The faqlet has been translated (which requires that the question has also been translated), and There isn't even an English answer yet. For example:

• About PM
• O que é o PerlMonks? (EN)
• Who uses PM? (not written)
• Quem roda o PerlMonks.org? (EN)
• Do I have privacy on PerlMonks? (no PT)
• I need help! Who can help me? (EN)

where I've included two suggestions for how to handle the completely untranslated case (depending on how you prefer your consistency).

BTW, "pt_BR" is "Portuguese of Brazil", taken from some standard somewhere (locales, I presume). I prefer just "PT" as well. If we get some non-Brazilian Portuguese translators working on FAQs, then I'd prefer that they just work with the Brazilian(s) on making the PT translations work for both camps, similar to what we should do with any issues of the existing English faqlets being confusing to readers from non-U.S.A. English locales.

[BigLug]

If I'm understanding tye right, I think this is the best solution. Then Portugese index page would look like:

PerlMonks FAQ

English | Portugese | French | German

About PerlMonks

• O que é o PerlMonks? (EN)
• Who uses PM?
• Quem roda o PerlMonks.org? (EN)
• Do I have privacy on PerlMonks?
• I need help! Who can help me?
__END__

And then the English index page would look like:

PerlMonks FAQ

English | Portugese | French | German

About PerlMonks

• What is PerlMonks?
• Who uses PM?
• Who runs it?
• Do I have privacy on PerlMonks?
• I need help! Who can help me?
__END__

At the same time, however, I question the need for a full translation of the FAQs. The rest of the site is in English so you'd be expected to understand enough English to take part in the site. Maybe we should have an 'introduction' page that is translated into multiple languages. Something like:

Welcome to PerlMonks, an online community of Perl developers. The site aims ... ... . This community uses English for discussions, but that doesn't mean we wont listen if your English isn't 100%. We're a patient monastery and we'll do our best to understand.

[tye]

...except I wanted to more explicitly indicate when a translation is not available. I think you could support translated questions by putting plain text into the master plan table instead of a link, like is done for unwritten faqlets -- which I think also need to be more explicitly indicated, as I showed.

[castaway]

This is similar to what I was thinking of when I made the request, just have indexes for each language, listing all faqs, linking those that havent been translated yet to the english versions.

C.

[jdporter]

IMHO that's how it should work.

I think we should be careful to look at it from the perspective of the other_language newbie. Would it be more user friendly to see a link to a FAQ, in my native tongue, at the top of the page? Or to have to scan down a list of questions in English, and see only a pt_BR link next to each? As a native reader of Portuguese (e.g.), I would find the latter decidedly user hostile.

[ysth]

I'd prefer that they just work with the Brazilian(s) on making the PT translations work for both camps, similar to what we should do with any issues of the existing English faqlets being confusing to readers from non-U.S.A. English locales.

You want separate faqlets for different dialects of English?? Can't we just cite Perl's documentation policy?

[tye]

You must be reading it as Australian English. I was writing it in US English. In US English, "I'd prefer that they just work [...] on making the PT translations work for both camps" means that I don't want separate translations. Otherwise I'd be advocating "pt_BR" not "just PT".

[ysth]

Yes, my understanding was upside down (but I would attribute the quality of upside downness to the US more than Australia).

[theorbtwo]

IIRC, Brazillian vs Portugese Portugese are nearly different languages, as are Mexican vs Spanish (Castillian) Spanish. OTOH, American vs British English are pretty interchangable; I don't think you can tell if this paragraph is written in British or American English.

[tye]

Google found one match for "brazil vs portugal" "written language" (second try; first was full of soccer pages), which included:

Although the written language is more or less the same in all countries, speakers of Brazilian Portuguese and Portuguese Portuguese have trouble undestanding each other's spoken language.

That's good enough for me at this point.

[monsieur_champs]

Thanks, theorbtwo. This is the main trouble in having the same documentation for the two languages. There is little chances of understanding from both sides.

[allolex]

Like tye points out from his googling, the spoken languages are problematic for the two main varieties of Portuguese, but not the written ones. Spanish has relatively minor pronunciation and vocabulary differences in the major varieties---a situation which is much more like that of North American and English English. The major differences there have less to do with one form or another not existing in the other variety, but rather with how frequently certain vocabulary and grammar is used.

I would still argue for more specific encoding internally because it is always easier to go from more specific to less specific, but the reverse is much more difficult. Who knows? Maybe someday someone will want to give Perl Monks lots of money for promoting, say, Perl learning in Brazilian Portuguese, but government regulations prevent them from accepting documentation in Continental Portuguese---admitedly a bit of a long shot... ;)