Re: Translating Emacs manuals is of strategic importance

[Po Lu]

Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com> writes:

> If I understand you correctly, your concern is that we will be
> responsible for the translations.  To me, that would imply that we will
> have to spend significant time maintaining them.  But I don't think it
> will be like that in practice.  Instead, we have to make it clear that
> the translation teams (often: interested individuals) for the respective
> languages will be responsible for the translations.
>
> Furthermore, only the English manual can be considered canonical for the
> foreseeable future, since we cannot proofread translations like we do
> with the English one.  It therefore makes a lot of sense to add suitable
> disclaimers (dates, version numbers, etc.) to the translated manuals.

If that be so, why is it of great importance for us to distribute these
translations ourselves, further undermining our public image by their
raw nature?

It is not worth inventing elaborate systems for classifying or
disclaiming manuals and judging which we are directly responsible for,
when another option is to simply refuse involvement in the development
of such non-essential manuals and leave the forces of interest to take
their course, to no detriment of actual readers.

> We could perhaps consider having several "tiers" of manuals: one
> "nursery" for those are not yet meaningfully ready for distribution, one
> "attic" for those that are no longer reasonably maintained, and one for
> those that we actually do consider up to scratch.  The decision for what
> goes where could be based on a dialogue between the maintainers and the
> translators of various manuals.

This scheme is far too complicated for the number of translations or
translators on the horizon.

> I believe that the moment will _never_ present itself when we are sent a
> patch containing a fully translated, high-quality and up-to-date manual
> backed with an active team of translators, copyright assigned and ready
> to be merged.  We have to build things up over time, and preferably in
> communication with the translators themselves.
>
> From the outside, it is likely that the impression is that we are rather
> uninterested in translating Emacs to other languages.  The fact that
> there are fully translated materials distributed elsewhere speaks to
> that.  If we double down on a workflow where we are happy to see manuals
> translated, but do not want to distribute them, then that impression
> will be cemented.
>
> On the other hand, if we already had the infrastructure in place for
> translations, it would be more clear that we are, in fact, interested.
> This would be true even if we had only a small handful of manuals or
> work-in-progress translations there: at least we would have a framework.
>
> Our obviously central position in the Emacs world means that this in
> itself could help promote these efforts, and hopefully also encourage
> volunteers to take on translation work.

You are speaking out of an interest in sending the message that
translations are welcome in Emacs to encourage the creation of new
translations, which is one potential means to an end, namely, to
encourage non-English speakers to learn Emacs.  This end is well-served
whether such manuals be distributed by us or not, under the condition
that they are complete and up-to-date, so the question of outside belief
regarding our priorities is immaterial, and their existence does no more
than attest to interest from translators.

However, the fact I was trying to emphasize is that the consistent
failure of such efforts arise not from an absence of interest, which is
plausibly addressable by promoting them ourselves, but a shortage of
time experienced by already-interested contributors that is beyond our
control, being more in the realm of rent and gas prices and suchlike,
and that it is best not to intercede in affairs and processes in a
manner that we are powerless to change them by, all the while
inconveniencing ourselves yet more.

> It was not my intention to call your stance defeatist, but rather to
> warn against it, since the current situation is neither fixed nor
> impossible to change.  I apologize if I was being unclear.

I don't disagree that it is possible to change, only that it is not by
our distributing miscellaneous translations before so much as the
distant prospect of a full translation of the prinicpal manuals emerges.

TIA.