Some questions about the translation of the new fundraising campaign

[Matjaž Jeran]

Hi there!

I tried to “softly translate” the campaign but I completely agree with Eloy

I believe that we at KDE are good people that try to be polite and correct even to people that are not polite.

Besides his arguments I will try to add some more:

1. Timing
If we want to use Haloween as an event for marketing, we should start it BEFORE and not AFTER. We should also plan a day or two for the translations to take place.

2. Cultural context
For someone not totally familiar with the American films, the BIG TITLES associated with the films have no deeper meaning – so in my opinion have very little marketing effect. For example I did not know the Peeping Tom from a film but from an English literature about Lady Godiva.

Haloween is a very Anglo-saxon holiday, which has been trying spread around the world through American films. It is not native some cultures.

I am not a specialist in marketing, but as much I was taught, the pleasant feelings and nice emotions are preferred over fear, hate and doubt. If KDE wants to appear as a group of pleasant and good people, maybe FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) is to be avoided (even if influenced by American elections).

The stories mentioned in the campaign appear as being an old fashioned story from 19th century in some countries. E.g. in Slovenia you don’t have to sue anybody to get a divorce and have useless discussion about who bears the guilt for divorce, but can do as a nonviolent agreement between two parties (of the same or mixed gender).

3. The code of marketing in Europe and USA
The European maybe only EU codes explicitly forbid mentioning competing companies and products in marketing campaigns. US freely us negative campaign against others. Some statements describing behaviour of companies could be used to sue KDE for offending good name. Unless we have an explicit case with he persons involved, that may be costly.

4. The whole world translation problems
Using play on words is very difficult for efficient translations, because you cannot used direct translations but more clever adaptations of the text. Considering that majority of translators are volunteers and are not professional translators, this may be risky feature.
Have you ever compared original
“Winnie the Pooh”, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh)
“The good soldier Švejk”, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Soldier_Švejk)
“Asterix the Gaul” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_the_Gaul)
and similar difficult books to translate with its translations in different languages. How many new words had to be invented by the translators, how many phrases of Švejk have no meaning unless you know the context of K.u.K Austria during the first world war and how many funny names of the Asterix’s dog were invented for the translations.

5. What to do now?
I suggest to reformat the campaign to something friendly. If the idea was influenced by American election campaign, do not bother all others with it. It may be bad for some already.
Maybe try organize the campaign with common goal to save the planet from pollution, climate change and reduction of biodiversity. I believe these are the problems that all the planet has in common.

Thanks
Matjaž Jeran