[kde-doc-english]<OT> Translation differences

[Jonathan Singer]

>From: Thomas Diehl <thd at kde.org>

>OTOH, I think we _could_ agree on some basic style requirements and a
>consistent terminology (eg in the infamous folder <-> directory thing) and
>apply this to existing and upcoming KDE texts. Unfortunately, this is alw
>ays >only "considered" but nobody of the native speakers seems to be prepared
>to actually pick it up and _do_ it so far.

OK, OK, I'll talk to Malcolm and we'll get on it.  ;-)

Speaking for myself, I've been out of touch with KDE development in general because:
a) I've had a huge amount of real work to do.
b) Since the build system was changed, and some other post-3.0 changes, CVS rarely compiles on my Linux boxes.
c) I've stopped following the main devel lists, since they (especially kde-devel) have gotten so overrun with pointless chatter that they're too much trouble to read through. That inattention probably contributes to the problem with b).

and with the style requirements in particular because:
a) Like most volunteers, I joined up to scratch an itch. Spelling errors in dialog boxes drive me crazy so I was willing to spend hours fixing them. Personally, I don't care that much if one app uses 'email' and another 'e-mail'.
b) The original goal was that we would propose a standard, get comments from developers and then expect them to comply with it. I've come to realize that getting even the most basic cooperation from developers, like having them notify the documentation maintainer when they entirely rework the UI weeks into an interface freeze, is impossible. I'm reluctant to unilaterally impose a standard on everybody (although I probably shouldn't be) and I'm completely unwilling to spend the upcoming years fixing standard violations in new code.

Hmmm, that all sounds a little, well, _tense_. I badly need a vacation but can't take one because I need to weigh my mice every other freaking day and plead with with them to stop eating their babies and...

Errr, anyway, I'll dig out those emails with the proposed standards. We can make one more round of suggestions on this list, and then post it to kde-core-devel as a fait accompli.