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openSUSE:Wiki Translation Guidelines

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Wiki Guidelines:
Style Guidelines - Template Guidelines - Template Messages - Article Template - Portal Template - Tag Guidelines - Categorization Guidelines - Translation Guidelines


Geeko The Wiki Translation Guidelines answers common questions about creating a completely new, separate wiki in a different language. For the translation of text messages in openSUSE software and documentation see the openSUSE Localization Guide.


Working DRAFT


Contents


The openSUSE project is currently running wikis in the following languages:

Other languages are supported by creating temporary pages in the English wiki, until such time that there is sufficient interest and support for a language to create its own wiki. Translating mandatory pages is just part of the process, attracting more translators and creating a team is equally important. Having language wiki up to date is not one man job, it is just too demanding.

Please visit the Translation Team page for the current status of other language pages in the English wiki.

Adding a new language

Step 1 - Announce intention

Add a new heading for your language and also your name to the Translation_Team page, to identify and help collaboration between translators of the same language. Also subscribe to the opensuse-wiki@opensuse.org mailing list and announce that you want to start a new language translation. This will introduce you to the community, and you may also find others with an interest in the same language. You can subscribe via this link: [1]

Subscription is 2 step process. First you send mail (request) using above link, than you receive email with instructions how to confirm you request by sending another email (confirmation). This makes sure that you are requesting subscription, not somebody else in your name.

Please be aware that this is not a one time job, if you continue on and become the "official" maintainer for the language you should keep the pages up-to-date, our master wiki is the English one at http://en.opensuse.org . It's recommended to add central and ever-changing pages to your watchlist so that you don't miss important changes for adoption. It helps a lot to work in a team, if you want to start a new language please try to get some people to work with you on it to prevent an unmaintained, not up-to-date wiki.


Step 2 - Translate pages

The next step is to translate the main pages from en.opensuse.org to the wanted language.

Please do not submit Automatic Translations. It is better to have no translation than a bad translation.


Naming conventions

Use the following naming when you create a new page in the English wiki:

  • Article: <Language Code>-<English Title>
    • Example: HU-Download
  • Templates: Template:<Language Code>-<English Title>
    • Example: Template:HU-Download
    • Note: Above form you can get automatically if you use {{HU-Download}}

Where the Language Code is the two-letter ISO 639 code.

Mandatory pages

Note: The list of mandatory pages has been rewritten. The goal is to make translation job easier by listing all pages and templates in one place (here) instead of requiring translators hunt for them scattered throughout the wiki.


Next steps:
  • Create placeholder pages with the string "LANG" to point to the need for a new template or page. This should further simplify the translator's work.
  • Add editorial comments on those pages to explain what to translate and what not. This should help translators who are often confused by formatting tags, which must not be translated.
  • Add a few more pages to present translation help/tips/hints in the first steps with openSUSE.

And, yes we need:

  • To further develop the translation process.
  • A maintainer to oversee all translation activities.
Volunteer translators please contact Wiki Team using our mail list opensuse-wiki@opensuse.org or message board. Mail list is the preferred method as it is impossible then to forget new volunteer's contact information.


These are the mandatory pages which must be translated:

Below are instructions with more details.
In the lists below LANG must be replaced with language code for your language.

Note that this list is a minimum, please feel free to translate as many pages as you want, as there may be a delay involved in Step 3.

Header

Please add this at the begining of each page: 

<!-- INT information
 INT:title: <title of the page in the translated language> 
 -->

Make a tar.gz archive of the pages and send them on Step 3.

Single words

We need also some single words to be translated:

  • Welcome_to_openSUSE.org
  • Communicate
  • Download
  • Report a Bug

Paste this into the mail on Step 3.

Templates

There are some templates which should be translated: 

This article is not yet (fully) translated. Here you can find the [[{{{1}}}|english page]].

Translate this to your language and paste it in the mail.

  • Check the translated pages for used templates and translate them also.

For example, Download uses: 

 {{DownloadNav}}

Sidebar

The left sidebar needs also to be translated.

  • To look at the content of MediaWiki:Sidebar, click on "view source".
  • Copy and paste it and change it in an editor of your choice.
  • Paste the translation into the final mail on Step 3.

Step 3 - Language wiki creation

When you have completed the translation of the minimum (mandatory) pages and have created a team that can maintain the translated wiki pages even when you are busy, send another mail to the opensuse-wiki@opensuse.org mailing list.

If your translations are accepted a new wiki will be created at <languagecode>.opensuse.org, where <languagecode> is the two-letter ISO 639 code.

If you are given the role of maintainer, you will be given the permission to edit the normally protected pages in the new Language Wiki.

Checklist

  • set up a team of translators and mainteners
  • subscribe to opensuse-wiki
  • send mail to opensuse-wiki that you want to translate
  • all needed pages translated, with header, compressed as tar.gz
  • translate the few words mentioned above
  • translate sidebar
  • translate templates
  • everything is in wiki syntax, not html
  • send the mail

Some things above looks not necessary, but make it easier for us to put the pages into the new wiki. If you have questions about the process, please ask on the opensuse-wiki mailinglist.

Maintaining a language wiki

Templates

Initially the new wiki will of course not be fully populated with translated pages. Some of the "main" pages may include links to other pages which you don't want to translate in the first batch, you should make a template to prevent dead links. In the template just add in your language something like this:

This page is not translated at the moment, please use the English one <link>

Dead links are the wiki way to tell that something has to be created, in this case translated. Change system message for empty page to tell that, instead of creating tons of links to defeat built in wiki feature. See Special:Wantedpages to understand how that works. Be aware that feature is not perfect, so apply common sense.


Here are some examples:

Put this into the pages which are not translated: 

{{NotTranslated|:en:Development_Version}}

This will point to the English page Development_Version.


You have to make the template one time, the contend of the template: 

This page is not translated, here you can find the [[{{{1}}}|english 
page]].

Of course you should translate this to your language.

Interwiki links

The name of the page should be the same as in the English master wiki, this makes the handling of interwiki links much easier. Because the page name is also the headline for the article you should move it after editing the page to the right name in your language. Just click on the move button at the end of the page. This will allow to access the page with the new name and the name the "master" wiki uses.

Every page you translate should use interwiki links to the other translated pages. To make interwiki links, please add to the "Template:<pagename>_Translations" page the interwiki links: 

[[en:Download]]

[[cs:Download]]

[[de:Download]]

[[es:Download]]

[[fr:Download]]

[[it:Download]]

[[ja:Download]]

[[sv:Download]]

[[tr:Download]]

The order is not important. If other interwikis are available, please add these to. We try to keep the list above up to date, so copy and paste should do the job. Don't add the interwiki link for the language you made the article for, it will show up at the bottom of the page, not at the left sidebar.

Example

You want to translate this "Wiki Translation Guidelines" page.

If your language has its own wiki

like de.opensuse.org
  1. The original page must have a link to your language, e.g. [[de:OpenSUSE_Translation_Guide]], with the English title of the document.
  2. Create the page with its English title on your language's wiki. This can e.g. be done by going to the page you want to translate on en.opensuse.org, i.e. http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_Translation_Guide. Then edit the address to http://de.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_Translation_Guide. You will get a notice that the page does not exist yet on your language's wiki.
  3. Edit that page, i.e. put in your translation.
  4. Save your translation.
  5. Move that page, i.e. rename it to the translated title, e.g. move from "OpenSUSE Translation Guide" to "OpenSUSE Übersetzungsanleitung".

If you have already created the localized page, create a new one with the English name and add it:

#REDIRECT [[localized page]]

You can also enter this template at the end of any page translated, to have all the localized wikis listed. It should be only used on pages which are required to exist in all wikis (see Step 2, above). 

{{IW|page name}}

This method has a great added advantage. To translate a page it's often handy to copy first the original page to the new location and translate sentence by sentence. With this naming convention, there is no need to translate internal links, just click on them, create the new page and move it.

Links to other languages

If you want to add a link in the page, no interwiki link to a translation of the page, use this: 

[[:en:Download]]

This will look like this: en:Download and add no interwiki link on the left menu.

See also

Category Policies and Guidelines
General Guidelines
Wiki Guidelines
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