Site copy: we can get started!

[rho]

I've been promising for a while that we could get started with site copy work real soon now, just as soon as some technical details got sorted out. Now, thanks to pauamma (here) and mark (here) we have the code updates we need to finally get going!

Before I go any further, let me introduce everyone to the site copy team. Joining me will be:

ephemera
fae
isabeau
ivorygates
lferion
katieastrophe

I'm looking forward to working with all of you. I'd also like to reiterate my thanks to everyone who applied who I haven't selected for the team.

For those of you on the team, if you haven't signed your CLA yet, you need to be doing that now. For those of you who I know have signed a CLA, I've given you the privs you need to get started. If you have signed the CLA and I haven't given you privs (you can check by seeing if your name is listed at http://www.dreamwidth.org/admin/priv/?priv=translate) then poke me and I'll get them sorted ASAP.

The actual updating of the site will be done through the Lovecraftian Horror that is the translation system. If you've heard bad things about this, then you should know before we start that they're all true. However, katieastrophe has valiantly wrestled down the eldritch tentacles long enough to write a guide for us, which I put on the wiki.

The way I'm going to suggest we work things is as follows:

Start off by updating one page. Do the one that you did in your application if you want, or somewhere else if it takes your fancy. Get familiar with the workings of the translation system. Then contact me (DW private message, email, IRC, comment, whatever works best for you) and we'll go through the page and discuss any issues of style or anything that I think we need to cover. Then after that, I'll just let you loose on the site to go through and rewrite everything at your leisure.

Just one word of warning: there's currently some lag time between updating the strings in the translation interface and them actually appearing on site. This is a known issue and mark has it on his big long list of things he needs to look at in his Copious Free Time.

Orphaned translation strings

[rho]

The prize for being the first to point out an issue with the site copy process award goes to katieastrophe who pointed out to me that there seem to be some strings that are listed in the translation interface that don't seem to be used on site. If you find any of these, throw them up on the wiki page and I'll check through them to see if they really are orphans, and if they are I'll see that they get removed. If you're not comfortable with the wiki, feel free to comment here instead.