Bug 394019 - [Usability] l10n.kde.org hinders new translators to contribute
Summary: [Usability] l10n.kde.org hinders new translators to contribute
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: www.kde.org
Classification: Websites
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Other All
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: kde-www mailing-list
URL:
Keywords: accessibility, usability
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2018-05-08 20:18 UTC by Sven Claussner
Modified: 2022-11-29 09:29 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

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Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:


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Description Sven Claussner 2018-05-08 20:18:00 UTC
As a potential contributor of translations I find it hard to quickly find all required information to start.

Example:
I'd like to contribute to the German UI translation to Krita. So I browsed the krita.org website and found a link to l10n.kde.org. Still I was motivated.

Expected result:
With only very few user interactions the new contributor finds a page with *all* necessary information to start quickly and contribute.

Steps to reproduce, results:
1. At l10n.kde.org read an overview page. In the list box select German team which only works by mouse. Typing in the first letters G, e, r etc. will always bring me to the Galician site, because this is the first list item starting with G.
2. At the German team's site see first a table with links to Statistics and items like "GUI messages for kdelibs4-based trunk etc.", then some other information. These items might be meaningful for someone who as been working in the KDE system for years and knows where to search for a particular application, but not for a new contributor. So he is left with diving deeper and hopefully finding it by trial and error.
3. After clicking each statistics list item, one sees a list of packages - not telling him which contains the desired application. So trial and error on the next level.
Eventually I found Krita in trunk-kf5, extragear-graphics. To get there I used the search input field bottom left of l10n.kde.org. I typed in "Krita" and found a mess of irrelevant items like "zh_TW messages errors for revision 1511747". As a computer savvy person I read the first item's URL with the text "trunk-kf5" in it, went back to the statistics pages, searched in "GUI messages for KF5-based trunk". Even I as a person with tech experience found this awkward. How much more laborious and frustrating must this be for someone else without a Computer Science degree.
The next thing: reading the krita.po file I see items that don't match to the appearance on the screen. Some seem to be translated properly while being untranslated on the screen. Perhaps the file on the website doesn't match to the latest stable version I downloaded from the website. 
As it seems the website was designed from insiders for themselves, but not for contributors.
After all this mess I feel frustrated and rather live with the bugs or try another software than ever thinking again to contribute.

Here is a proposal:
1. At the l10n.kde.org landing page show an interface as easy as the Google search: two text input fields for the application and the language and a search button. The text input fields could also be two combo boxes with a smarter text completion than the list box in step 1.
2. As search result show a page with all the necessary information at hand: links to the po file (latest version, released versions), team contact, how tos/tutorials, translation process etc.

It would be fine if you could consider this.
Comment 1 Luigi Toscano 2018-05-08 20:45:50 UTC
The l10n.kde.org needs to be redone, and this is not knew. The most likely choice is Damned Lies, the web application developed and used by the Gnome project.

That said, the text in the home page should just point out to the team list: you should not translate anything without getting in touch and coordination with your team first.
Comment 2 Justin Zobel 2022-11-29 05:06:19 UTC
Thank you for reporting this issue in KDE software. As it has been a while since this issue was reported, can we please ask you to see if you can reproduce the issue with a recent software version?

If you can reproduce the issue, please change the status to "REPORTED" when replying. Thank you!