XPost: linux.debian.www

Package: www.debian.org
Severity: important
Tags: l10n
X-Debbugs-Cc: deibna-l10n-german@lists.debian.org

Dear Maintainers or Translators,

please remove the German translation of https://www.debian.org/CD/.

- It is outdated.
- The page itself tells me with a box on top that it is out dated and should be used anymore.
- It seems no one tracks the sync status of that translated page or there are no resources to keep it up-to-date.

It is a serious problem and harms the project Debian. That Download page is the landing page for most of new users and the press. It is embarasing for the project and does not look professional to have an outdated translation. It also should discussed if there really is a need to have such translated pages, even if we would have the resources for it.

Thanks for keeping the project up and running.

Regards,
Christian

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Please let me add additional German pages, also with the same request
for removal:

- https://www.debian.org/distrib/
- https://www.debian.org/releases/
- https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/
- https://www.debian.org/distrib/pre-installed
- https://www.debian.org/CD/live/

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XPost: linux.debian.www

I found more candidates.

- https://www.debian.org/international/l10n/ddtp

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Hello Boyuan Yang,

thanks for your reply.

Am 23.03.2025 16:42 schrieb Boyuan Yang:

I don't understand. What are you trying to do?

Sorry, if this wasn't clear from my initial posting.

All URLs I posted do have German translation. They are outdated and
should be deleted because it harms the project regarding how the project
is perceived in the public.

The intention of the ticket is to mention a problem.

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Hello Thomas,
thanks for the reply and the details.

I know and understand the technical details behind that topic. But that
is not the point.
My apologize but it seems I wasn't clear enough.

The problem is that users (readers of the website) do get the message
that a page's translation is outdated and they should use another one.
That website is Debian. Users don't care if it is an official website, a
wiki, a community project or something else. It is just "Debian". And in
there perception the website is kind of "broken".

It is a matter of public relations and marketing.

It IMHO harms the project "Debian" having such pages online, no matter
how tiny the git diff is. The problem is the out of date translation
message.

One solution could be to just don't show pages out of date. In this case
you never have to show that out-dated message to users. It is that
simple.

Again: This ticket is not about technical details or problems. It is
about how the project is perceived by outsiders, potential new users and potential new contributors.

Regards,
Christian

Am 23.03.2025 17:54 schrieb Thomas Lange:

We track all translations of our web pages on https://www.debian.org/devel/website/stats

For german you see a list of up-to-date and outdated pages
on https://www.debian.org/devel/website/stats/de

And you can directly see which git command will show the differences,
that are not yet applied to the translation.
The differences vary greatly, sometimes it's only a typo or a link
update from http to https, but sometimes larger parts of text are
changed, added or removed. Therefore it's not easy to decide if a
translation that is a couple of git commits behind the english version
should be removed or not.

IMO there's no need that you look for outdated pages manually.

But it seems there's a minor bug the the script that generates theses statistics (stattrans.pl), because the l10n/ddtp page is not listed.

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Hi Thomas,

Am 23. März 2025 17:54:26 MEZ schrieb Thomas Lange <lange@cs.uni-koeln.de>:

But it seems there's a minor bug the the script that generates theses >statistics (stattrans.pl), because the l10n/ddtp page is not listed.

I guess this is by intend:
.transignore contains

international/\w+/index.wml

so this includes international/l10n/ddtp/index ?


Holger



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Hi,

c.buhtz@posteo.jp wrote (Sun, 23 Mar 2025 20:11:30 +0000):

Hello Thomas,
thanks for the reply and the details.

I know and understand the technical details behind that topic. But that
is not the point.
My apologize but it seems I wasn't clear enough.

The problem is that users (readers of the website) do get the message
that a page's translation is outdated and they should use another one.
That website is Debian. Users don't care if it is an official website, a wiki, a community project or something else. It is just "Debian". And in there perception the website is kind of "broken".

It is a matter of public relations and marketing.

It IMHO harms the project "Debian" having such pages online, no matter
how tiny the git diff is. The problem is the out of date translation
message.

One solution could be to just don't show pages out of date. In this case
you never have to show that out-dated message to users. It is that
simple.

In that case, the user would see not many translated pages.
English would be the usual language.
So we could skip the whole translation effort at all.
Good idea.
Tell the user, to just learn English.


So: NO, it's not that simple. Please contribute to translation of Debian, and/or recrute many translators for Debian, after that you can introduce such rules.

Again: This ticket is not about technical details or problems. It is
about how the project is perceived by outsiders, potential new users and potential new contributors.

I could think about expand this "outdated translation" message, to include something like "We need people to translate this webpage into <language>. Please think about contributing to Debians translation effort".


Holger


--
Holger Wansing <hwansing@mailbox.org>
PGP-Fingerprint: 496A C6E8 1442 4B34 8508 3529 59F1 87CA 156E B076

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Hello Holger,
thanks for your reply on this topic.

Am 23.03.2025 22:30 schrieb Holger Wansing:

In that case, the user would see not many translated pages.
English would be the usual language.

That is not bad. It is good. No errors or indications of low quality.
That is the goal and in the interest of Debian.

So we could skip the whole translation effort at all.

That is not what I've said.

Please contribute to translation of Debian,
and/or recrute many translators for Debian,

I understand that you don't mean it that way, but this "card" is rude.
Don't play this card to others.
I am also a maintainer and investing spare time and resources in
projects.
Don't blame for reporting a problem.

Don't take an issue to personal. I just reported a problem with Debian.
That's it. Don't feel pushed. This issue is not about that you or
someone else in the team need to fix it now. This is not the point.
Managing resources and schedules is not topic of that issue.

But if maintainers agree with my view that my initial reported problem
is a report, other contributors can catch up.

Doing the cost-benefit-calculation I still think it is better do delete
or disable/hide out dated translations, until they are up 2 date again.

after that you can introduce such rules.

Do you really feel it that way?

I could think about expand this "outdated translation" message, to
include
something like "We need people to translate this webpage into
<language>.
Please think about contributing to Debians translation effort".

That is IMHO not a solution to the problem I reported. No matter which
message users will find, it indicates low quality. The issue is about
the public view of Debian as a project.

Regards,
Christian

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Hi,

Am 24. März 2025 10:47:48 MEZ schrieb c.buhtz@posteo.jp:

Please contribute to translation of Debian,
and/or recrute many translators for Debian,

I understand that you don't mean it that way, but this "card" is rude. Don't play this card to others.
I am also a maintainer and investing spare time and resources in projects. >Don't blame for reporting a problem.

Don't take an issue to personal. I just reported a problem with Debian. That's it. Don't feel pushed. This issue is not about that you or someone else in the team need to fix it now. This is not the point. Managing resources and schedules is not topic

of that issue.

But if maintainers agree with my view that my initial reported problem is a report, other contributors can catch up.

Doing the cost-benefit-calculation I still think it is better do delete or disable/hide out dated translations, until they are up 2 date again.

after that you can introduce such rules.

Do you really feel it that way?

Sure. It's as always (or at least at many points) in Debian: the main issue is lack of manpower.

I could think about expand this "outdated translation" message, to include >> something like "We need people to translate this webpage into <language>.
Please think about contributing to Debians translation effort".

That is IMHO not a solution to the problem I reported. No matter which message users will find, it indicates low quality. The issue is about the public view of Debian as a project.

See above. Removing the work from translators will likely not lead to more motivation.


Holger



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Hello Holger

Am 24.03.2025 13:16 schrieb Holger Wansing:

It's as always (or at least at many points) in Debian: the main
issue is lack of manpower.

I disagree on that point. Lack of human resources is one factor but not
the main factor.
But it is always an excuse for low quality. This is a FOSS problem not
limited to Debian itself.

Removing the work from translators will likely not lead to
more motivation.

But that is not the point. The motivation is not important when it comes
to Debian as a project and how it is perceived in the public. As a
maintainer I also do take responsibility for the well-being and
motivation of my contributors. But there are other factors a maintainer
need to take into account. And the big thing is, to bring this factors
in kind of a balance. If a translation/language don't get enough love in
my project I do delete it to protect the project and my users.

I used this issue to bring the problem to attention. I am acting with
Debian as a project in my mind.
If you, as maintainer (?), feel different, that is up to you.
Close it then.

Regards,
Christian

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Please allow me to add some more, because sometimes it is not easy for
me to find the right words.

Even if there are no resources (human, time, infrastructure, etc)
someone need to make decisions. Being scared of decisions will harm the project. That is what maintaining is about.

I am aware that there are no resources to update the translations, not
on my side not on yours or the projects. That is why I opened that
request to delete the pages. That is why it feels rude to me to be asked
to participate on the translation while I was reporting the request.

The harm for the project "Debian" comes from the fact that no one makes decisions about it and takes action. As a consequence this gives the
impression to outsiders that no one cares.

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