After years of delay and stalling from current Arabic team manager 'alaa' and his very few friends, and after many unofficial translations (http://ifadah.net/), and after many discussions and criticisms (http://drupal.org/node/570404), Arabic language first official translation is finally at http://drupal.org/project/ar. Thanks.

However, the current Arabic team manager 'alaa' and his very few friends are still stopping Arabic language from being added to localize.drupal.org. They are still ignoring the majority of us (http://groups.drupal.org/node/47724). They have paralyzed the Arabic translation efforts. They have forced many translation contributors to go outside drupal.org with many unofficial translations (http://tiny.cc/lk2y7).

According to http://localize.drupal.org/, there is 62 translation groups for 62 languages. And according to http://drupal.org/project/Translations, there is 74 languages in total. Which means, there is only 12 languages not added to l.d.o yet. And according to http://drupal.org/project/Translations, "Translations are now primarily available from http://localize.drupal.org" So, I'm just wondering: Will the Arabic language be the last one to be added to localize.drupal.org? because of the self-interest of the current Arabic team manager 'alaa' and his very few friends. Should the current Arabic team manager be changed (http://groups.drupal.org/node/59373)?

Comments

alaa’s picture

alaa commented

the problem is I fail to see how localize.drupal.org will lead to more contributions. I fear it will in fact lead to less.

without version control it will be difficult to revert back mistakes. and as far as I can tell l.d.o doesn't have any features to help me review the work of other translators. or track what's going on. so I'll end up only granting the translators I already know and trust access and everyone else will still have to send me files via the issue queue or by email.

since the interface is not file based it makes it more difficult to split work among multiple translators. unless we only use l.d.o for exporting and importing files.

the only compelling feature I can see is that it makes it easier to get strings from contrib projects via l.d.o

as I've made it clear in previous issues, some previous translations where rejected due to bad quality the rest due to conflicts in terminology. nothing in l.d.o makes it easier to agree on unified terminology.

Marat’s picture

Marat commented

I agree with @alaa, the translation quality must be monitored and controlled.

sinjab’s picture

sinjab commented

@alaa

You say you fail to see how localize.drupal.org will lead to more contributions. According to http://drupal.org/project/Translations, "Translations are now primarily available from http://localize.drupal.org" Since localize.drupal.org will be enforced on all languages sometime you should argue with them not us. I have realized that there is 9 languages working with Localization server (but not yet on Drupal.org) http://drupal.org/project/l10n_server. There is only 3 languages not working with Localization server. Arabic is one of those 3 languages. What a shame!

You say you fail to see how localize.drupal.org will lead to more contributions. And you say l.d.o doesn't have any features to help you review the work of others. However, the slogan of http://localize.drupal.org/ is "Contribute Suggest, translate, review". According to http://localize.drupal.org/news?page=1, "we have new moderation functionality for suggestions right at your fingertips." Again, you should argue with them not us.

You are still ignoring the majority of us (http://groups.drupal.org/node/47724), why? So, either the current Arabic team manager should be changed, or please add Arabic language to localize.drupal.org, or the Arabic language will be the last one to be added to localize.drupal.org when localize.drupal.org will be the only way to contribute translations.

The quality of translation should not be discussed here. However, I suggest adding two versions of Arabic language or more to localize.drupal.org. One version for every terminology. Many languages on localize.drupal.org already do that such as English (British) (en-gb), Portuguese, Brazil (pt-br), Portuguese, Portugal (pt-pt) and Swiss German (gsw-berne). Your failure to accept localize.drupal.org should not be forced on us.

Please, respect the majority and don't enforce your failure on us.
http://tiny.cc/2a2g3

marafa’s picture

marafa commented

@alaa

this is a plea to alaa to live up to our ideals of transparency and equality of all egyptians. let us live as equals within egypt and without. to be united with one voice as egyptians and as arabs

editing here to add that with l.d.o, all strings from all contrib modules will show up as in need of translation. which means if a person needs an obscure module to be translated he will find it on l.d.o. he can then translate the strings. the next person in need of the arabic translation of the obscure module will find it already translated instead of hunting it down on the net or duplicating work already done.

thanks

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented

I have a client from SA and it's annoying that I cannot use the l10n_update module to fetch Arabic language. Instead, I have to search with Google to find a translation...

Moving this to localize.drupal.org is the future of Drupal languages.

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented

@Marat: what is more important,

a. central control, but SLOW process + ONLY drupal core
b. decentralized control, but FAST proces + ALL drupal modules

For the sake of arabic drupal sites around the world, they need translations right now, not in 10 years.

finedesign’s picture

finedesign commented

I'm pleading with everybody to get Drupal 7 Arabic localization out faster. (Can we expect it ready when D7 is out of RC?) While I understand Alaa's reasons for wanting better ability to monitor the vast and unwieldy Arabic language (Is that Misry, Shamy, Khaleegy?) I think the track record has proven we need a change. Drupal 7 beta 2 is out. I am extremely anxious to get some bilingual sites going, but am afraid I'll be forced to resort to WordPress.

--
Please Alaa. Give us a timetable as to when D7 will be available on the Localization server, and when Arabic will be ready for D7.
--

If you need help, I will coordinate my list of several native Arabic speakers to help with the project. But you need to give us a platform that is easy for non-techies. Updating via the command line with version control ain't gonna cut it. There are probably several others like myself that would help if we were given the chance.

While I understand your wish for control, I think we're at a point it would be better to throw the translation out there and let the wider community refine it. If there's strong disagreement over certain terms or phrases, bring it up as a discussion among the wider community.

Is the problem related to dialects? Are the Egyptians and Lebanese and Emirati at odds over certain words/phrases? If so, let's just open it up for everyone to contribute, and if there's disagreement, bring it up to the whole community.

If we don't see Arabic for D7 until Drupal 8 has a code freeze, I'm moving to WordPress or elsewhere.

alaa’s picture

alaa commented

D7 isn't in string freeze yet. so not the best time to start translating it since strings might keep changing.

I always provided an easy to use platform (pootle http://translate.arabtechies.net, or sending files by email and using a desktop localization editor), no one had to deal with command line and CVS except me. my complains about localize.drupal.org where that I'd be prevented from using these tools effectively.

and the stand off had nothing to do with tools, people sent translations that completely disregarded current translations, insisting on reinventing all of the terminology. or sent translations of really low quality (eg all variables translated). will change nothing about this.

but anyway that's over after the drupal.org redesign I was more or less forced to move arabic localization to http://localize.drupal.org/translate/languages/ar . so go ahead and use it lets see if it will really help us deliver quality translations faster.

alaa’s picture

alaa commented
Status: Active » Fixed
finedesign’s picture

finedesign commented

Ok, thanks for the explanation Alaa. I don't want to be too quick to judge either way...I know how big of a mess this could be if you get a bunch of folks arguing about terminology. We do need good leadership and someone to make the final call. But this should be after a group consensus.

Trying to find the current status of Arabic in Drupal is always tough for me so thanks for directing me to the specific page on the localization server. I'll see what I can do.

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.

rouand’s picture

rouand commented

totally disagree, quality comes next in priority, and we can work it out at ease, but we cannot afford leaving drupal untranslated. and this is why most of Arabic devlopers translated the needed terms for their sites by sole efforts.