Re: QAC Apr. 17, 2004 Meeting

[Abdulaziz Al-Arfaj <alarfaj0 at yahoo dot com>]

Salam,

First of all I am proud to be associated with a
project that has something as sophisticated as a
Quality Assurance Committee ;)

There are a _number_ of issues which are worrying me,
dare I say haunting me, as an amateur translator. I
know its not my place but I hope the committee members
will just hear my opinion out regarding the decisions
that have been reached :)

1. Regarding the use of shadda, the decision reached
is all too well and it makes perfect sense. However
its a bit incomprehensive. What if a letter doesn't
have a shadda originally but it is forced upon it by
the "alif lam atta3rif". Like this:
صورة
الصّورة
Should shadda be included then? I think its a case
that should be dealt with seperately.

2. As for harakat, again, the decision makes perfect
sense. But what about tanween? Some words just sound
very weird without it. My example; which sentence
sounds better to you:
أنشئ مراسل جديد
OR
أنشئ مراسلاً جديداً
It would be nice to say its up to the translator, but
we should enforce a single policy to achieve that
super-elusive concept, consistency ;)

3. This is the most horrible subject of all.
Imperative Vs. Noun form. I like the decision made by
the QAC, however, I present to you a single case:
menu->go to...
Here it is the user who is asking the system to do
something, so according to the decision, it should be
in noun form. But does it really make sense? A noun
form of something that is so obviously an imperative
verb? Wouldn't it make more sense to try and explore
how a user feels about what is imperative and what is
a simple statement? Personally I feel that menu names
are just that, names (nouns), and that everything
under that, is a command from me to the system to do
something (imperatives) and of course we should be
open to exceptions like view->encoding etc...

These are just my opinions, not my grievances (if I
was voicing grievances the list would be pretty long
;) but I hope they will be heard, maybe even discussed
in the next meeting, and I hope they will also
underline the need for a way the amateur translators
(like me) can pose the problems they continuously face
to the QAC. Thanks a bunch! :)

Abdulaziz,


	
		
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