Thread:Translating talk:IHRIS/End-user - translator communication/reply (2)

As far as recruiting translators for iHRIS amongst end-users is concerned, what I was thinking was that it might contribute towards 'end-user ownership' of the software. The opportunity to contribute translations and to report errors was in my mind, rather than any necessity on the part of translatewiki.net to recruit translators for iHRIS.

I don't think that any projects have a reporting mechanism for localisation errors or amendments. Translatewiki.net staff members may know better than I. The emphasis with MediaWiki was to encourage contributions at translatewiki.net, rather than set up a reporting scheme - because that's the way wikis work anyway! Potential contributors are guided towards translatewiki.net by a link at the top of the list of MediaWiki messages. Links to localisation statistics also used to be provided each month on the community discussion page. However, WikiMedia terminology is still usually discussed and localised on individual wikis (Wikipedia usually, because it generally has the largest community of contributors to that language) rather than at translatewiki.net. FUDforum has a forum for FUDforum translation. FreeCol has a mailing list for FreeCol translators. However, I appreciate your comments about access to a reliable internet connection. Perhaps e-mail or text messaging are more practical ways of providing communication. Or perhaps in some countries, communication is more possible via a country headquarters who can then relay messages to iHRIS or translatewiki.net by internet.

The strongest reason for establishing communication with end-users (or local project managers) from my translator's point of view is to get input on localised HR technical terminology. If we take Swahili as an example of a localisation which had already mostly been done previously. I have assumed that all the Swahili HR technical terms are correct, but have no practical way of checking this since I no longer live in Tanzania and the other most active Swahili translator (a Tanzanian) doesn't work in the public sector. It is also possible that the Swahili technical terms used in Tanzania are different from those used in Kenya. I'm not sure whether the Swahili version is used in Kenya at all. If the Swahili version is used, it would be nice to get feedback from end-users or project managers in both countries. We have also spotted some IT terms which we would like to update, and would appreciate feedback if the amendments are not popular.

I'm not sure how relevant these comments are, but hope some of them are useful.