Re: PROPOSAL: QAC another take

[Abdulaziz Al-Arfaj <aalarfaj at gmail dot com>]

On Wed, 8 Dec 2004 22:29:54 +0100, Arafat Medini <arafato at gmail dot com> wrote:
> Salam all,
> 
> I wanted to post today something aboutQAC too! But I have a completely
> different idea which I want to propose.
> 
> working on the gnome codebase showed me, Abdulaziz and Ayman, that
> that codebase is very usable for day to day work. And that at the same
> time there are many words which needed to be changed and which have
> been changed indeed.
> 
> Working with Abdo and Ayman made also something clear. We can indeed
> meet, discuss and agree upon words, we can then accept the final
> decision made and apply the changes on the files. All of us were happy
> and all of us agreed.

You did not mention here how much time and effort it was taking from
us. We averaged around 20 words per hour. Thats not a lot. I do not
know how long it will take from all of us (and by us I mean all
Arabeyes translators) to reach a full agreement on a complete and
concise Arabeyes Technical Dictionary but I do not seeing it
happenning before 2 years or so. Having come to terms with this time
target, I do not think its too much to ask for a little organization
at the beginning.

Yes, our Gnome QA meetings were producing results. We were content to
actually just sit down and WORK and get things done, rather than spend
time arguing about how we will do things. This produced great results,
but its short-lived, and I do not know how much longer it would have
been successful because we still did not put a solid mechanism in
place. What Elzubeir is talking about is exactly that kind of
mechanism and I agree with him that we need it, no matter how long it
takes to set it up initially.

> the words we've chosen are words which are or rather #seem to be#
> standards compliant, "very good" and clear for any user.
> 
> That's why I propose to make the gnome work the unofficial QAC, and to
> make the agreed upon words the OFFICIAL QAC outcome so "the technical
> wordlist" which we had to have long ago.

A little too unfair. Other translation projects have been just as
successful as Gnome lately (Debian/Firefox). Moreover this proposal
would produce a rather weird and illogical system. Gnome should not be
setting rules for QAC, it should be the other way around. This will
not reflect well on us, professionally.

Of course, we are in desperate need of the technical wordlist. Since
yesteryear. This has to be looked into, but everyone has to be
involved (and I don't mean everyone who _wants_ to be involved, I mean
everyone period :-)

> This decision came because of:
> 
> 1) Every "inherent" QAC goal was attained by our work on polishing gnome.
> 2) Due to our commitement and the prallel work the output is of very
> high quality and very high consistent quantity and it will be good for
> and good for the TWL
> 3) due to the fact that every time we are "gauging" against gnome
> which matured in its string code base and became nearly constant and
> consistent gave and will give us the opportunity to make our
> translation better and better! As we have something real to work on.
> 4) I think at the end this whole way is far simpler far more
> prodcutive, and indeed NOW HAPPENING then other roads we could take.
[...]

Valid points, but I think you will agree even gnome still requires
months of work, which I can assure you that you, me and Ayman will not
be able to do on our own. We still need a governing body.

Have faith in QAC, I am sure we are able to get it going. I am at
least glad that someone finally raised their voice about this. This
has to be made a top priority. I have my own plan for QAC revival
which is more or less a resonance of the things Elzubeir mentioned.
Other things I would like to see:

1. Reducing QAC's size to 3 or 4 to make it more manageable.
2. Setting up some sort of web interface for agreement on words. Pft
all we need is a bit of modification on the voting PHP code! Instead
of candidates we will have translations. With this method we easily
involve everyone PLUS we wouldnt get as much noise as if it were done
on the doc list.
3. A regular meeting time. Lets not do it on a meeting by meeting
basis like we used to do. That was bad.

Any Comments/Objections/Threats of physical injury to my person?

Salam.

Abdulaziz,