Correctly credit translators

Hello,

I hope you’re well.

I’ve noticed that the way translators are credited in the release notes is rather inconsistent at present. It seems to vary quite a bit, falling roughly into four levels:

Level 0: No mention of the translation update at all.

Level 1: Just a line with “updated translations” or similar.

Level 2: Languages with updates are listed, but only by full name or ISO code, with no individual credit.

Level 3: Both the language and the translators’ full names appear.

Would it be possible, please, to consider treating translators as we do other contributors, and crediting them by name in the release notes? I think this would be a lovely way to recognise their efforts and bring a bit more consistency to the process.

Many thanks for your time and consideration.

Kind regards

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There were a few comments on Matrix, but it’s helpful to mention them here:

  • GNOME does not have a shared, enforced format for NEWS files
  • GNOME does not have shared tooling to extract the information from the Git repository to generate the translation credits
  • Using the commit log will give you the committer of the change, which is usually the localisation team lead, not the person that changed the translation

It would be great to have a project-wide shared policy on attributions and style for NEWS files, especially if it can be done via shared tooling.

Various projects use tools like:

but many maintainers have their own hand-rolled tools, like mkhelp.sh inside gnome-user-docs.

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If the translator put their full name in their Damned Lies profile, the committer can select it in a combo box to set them as the commit author (and the git committer is always “Administrator”). Of course, that doesn’t mean that committers always know about it and do it consistently, but they should.

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Hello!

Many thanks for the responses, and for taking the time to share some of them here too!

I’m pleased my topic generated some interest in translators. A shared policy on attribution would be great indeed.

Regards

1 Like