Lost translations from ubuntu-docs

[David Planella]

Hi Matthew,

2008/10/15 Matthew East <mdke at ubuntu.com>:
[...]
>
> I don't think so myself - the strings, while similar, are genuinely
> different and it's wholly undesirable for Rosetta to preserve
> inaccurate translations. Even a slight change to the original English
> could make a big difference to the meaning.
>

Not all strings were so much different. I can see the point in your
example, but even in this case the gettext tools do a good job of
suggesting fuzzy strings, especially on long ones. And as a
translator, even if the fuzzy translation is not nearly identical to
the original msgid, on most cases you can reuse part of the suggested
translation.

In any case though, the second link I was pointing out on my original
message[1] refers to this string, on which simply the <application>
tag was removed on the new template.

Old:
#: add-applications/C/add-applications.xml:25(para)
msgid "<link linkend=\"gnome-app-install\"><application>Add/Remove
Applications</application></link> - Quickly installs and removes
popular programs, as well as providing ratings."

New:
#: add-applications/C/add-applications.xml:34(para)
msgid "<link linkend=\"gnome-app-install\">Add/Remove
Applications</link> - Quickly installs and removes popular programs,
as well as providing ratings."

I can also see the point of not showing the original (old) translation
on the UI as a suggestion (I guess you cannot always make sure that a
fuzzy string is relevant), but at least I would have expected to see a
fuzzy string in the downloaded PO file, especially when the strings
are nearly identical.

You just have to think that for a translator it is really confusing to
have translated a string which after a couple of days suddenly becomes
untranslated. Both strings are nearly identical, so you start to
think: did I really do it :) ? And as a GNOME translator, as many
other on this list, I am used to be able to reuse strings.

Finally, here's another example of a template that has been imported
in the last few days (from bluez-gnome, I've just noticed it today):

Old msgid (Hardy) -> Pairing request for '%s'
New msgid (Intrepid) -> Pairing request for %s

The importation of the new template caused the translation of the
Hardy string to become untranslated in Intrepid.

Anyway, I do not know whether this is new behaviour, but even as a
long time user of Rosetta I have just noticed in the last few days,
and I think it can simply lead to a waste of work.

Regards,
David.

[1] https://translations.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/intrepid/+source/ubuntu-docs/+pots/add-applications/ca/21/+translate