Copy editing is go!

[rho]

Hot on the heels of introducing the site copy team, it's now time for me to introduce the copy editing team. Everyone, say hello to:

bohemianeditor
chasy_la
cheyinka
ivorygates
rainbow
ryan

Their job will be to go over all the text written by the site copy team and the userdoc team, and correct all the dumb typos we inevitably make. OK, all the dumb typos I inevitably make, and possibly one or two made by the rest of the team.

Copy editors, here's what I want you to be doing now:

I'm afraid you're going to be grappling with the translation system. I'm so very very sorry. There's a guide to it on the wiki that katieastrophe wrote for us, but here are the cliff notes:

* Go to http://www.dreamwidth.org/translate/edit.bml?lang=en_DW (I've given you the privs you need)
* In the top left frame, scroll down and select prf: no and upd: yes, then hit search.
* Select one of the pages in the bottom left frame to bring up a list of translation strings.
* In the list, select "edit" for one of the strings, then copy edit it, and select proofed.
* When you're done with the age, click save at the bottom.

In proof reading you should be checking for:

* typos
* spelling mistakes
* grammar and punctuation
* Manual of Style compliance
* correct use of terminology

(Please read through both of these thoroughly before you get started.)

If you see any problems with any of these, change them and mark the string as being proof read. If you proof read a string and see that it's fine as it is (hopefully most of them will be!) then mark it as proofed without making any changes. If you see anything that you think needs a more substantial rewrite, then don't update it yourself, but instead comment here letting me know which string you think needs rewriting, and what you think the problem is. We might revisit this if we end up with a lot that need substantial rewrites, but we'll go with this for now.

Above all, have fun with it, and don't be shy of contacting me if you have any questions.

Comments

[rainbow]

Is is acceptable to not do all of the entries on a given page? There are a few that are more complex than just something in the [[brackets]], and I don't know what the other bits mean * to be able to proof them.

* Things like

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<a [[aopts]]>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

Is is acceptable to not do all of the entries on a given page? There are a few that are more complex than just something in the [[brackets]], and I don't know what the other bits mean * to be able to proof them.

* Things like <a [[aopts]]>log in</a>, for instance.

[rho]

Totally acceptable, yes.

[WARNING! Techie bit follows!]

In this case, the [[aopts]] will get replaced with something like href="http://www.dreamwidth.org/login.bml" so the whole thing will expand to give a full HTML link.

If you aren't comfortable with this, or with HTML, feel free to just leave any that you're unsure of.

The Management

[ivorygates]

When we refer to The Gods of the Copybook Headings here at Dreamwidth, what is the appropriate terminology to use when referring to the Court of Last Resort, They at Whom the Buck Stops, Da Man (and Da Woman), the Owners, Site Administrators, etcetera and so on and so forth?

Re: The Management

[denise]

"Site administrators".

[zorkian]

"* When you're done with the age, click save at the bottom."

Suggest page. *ducks*

[rho]

Hey, I did mention that they'd mostly be correcting my dumb typos, didn't I?

[ivorygates]

Code: /community/moderate.bml.error.noentry

My question with this addresses no lapse in due diligence upon the part of he or she who wrested it from the primordial bml.ylem, but rather, one of the great metaphysical questions of our age: since the person whose comm it may well be is now an administrator, and may indeed be a comm's sole suzerain, language in messages such as this, which speaks of "another moderator", may perhaps be unduly confusing, since a comm may have no moderators at all.

[rho]

I hate community owner/admin/maintainer/moderator/founder/grand-poobah nomenclature. I want to just change every single string that contains any of them to just say "tapirs are cool!" then run away giggling and hide behind the sofa. I'm not sure that mark and denise would get behind that, though, alas.

I hereby decree that we shall keep this as it is now, partly because I think it's sufficiently clear that there won't be any great misunderstandings, but mainly because I totally can't think of anything to change it to that would be better.

[chasy]

I just need to make sure I'm understanding correctly what I'm doing here.

I click the edit box. The text I see is "Change Status". <-- That's all I'm copy editing on this string, correct? So then I check "Proofed" and move on to the next string which is "There has been a database error processing your request." (And is also spelled correctly, etc.)

I guess it seems "too simple" so I'm wondering if I'm misinterpreting what's supposed to be happening here.

Halp!

[rho]

Nope, you're doing it right!

Some translation strings are very short. A air few are just one word. But then there are also some that are complete paragraphs. The whole system is a confusing mess, I'm afraid.

[rainbow]

Code: /manage/circle/add.bml.add.text2 Sev: 0

English:
[[ljuser]]'s status in your circle has been updated.

I'm thinking "ljuser" might be an error?

[rho]

Things in [[brackets]] aren't rendered literally. They're used to refer to variables that get passed to the translation system by the code. In this case [[ljuser]] will be replaced by the username of the person in question.

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Is too late to volunteer to pitch in and join the team? Sorry, only found my way to DW this week...

[rho]

We have all the people we need for this for now. You might want to keep an eye on dw_volunteers though, as that's where we're planning on posting new volunteer opportunities as and when they come up.

[bohemianeditor]

*waves hi!*

Is there an IRC Participation Guide for the Clueless? I may need a real-time HALP! resource.

[rho]

There is! Behold: http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/IRC_help

[rainbow]

Code: /manage/circle/index.bml.about

The updated version seems very awkward to me, but I'm not sure how substantial my substantial changes are compared to what you might think. So just in case, I'm posting to you here rather than editing there.

This is what I'd suggest:

"Dreamwidth offers two types of relationships between users: subscription and access. Subscribing to a user allows their entries to show on your Reading page so you can easily keep track of new entries. Granting Access to another user lets them see protected entries in your journal. The accounts you subscribe to and the accounts you grant access to form your Circle. You can also subscribe to communities and feeds."

I've capitalised "Circle" as that seems to be what the Manual of Style suggests; "Access" seems like it could also be capitalised in this instance because it's capitalised on the profile pages.

Carys

[rainbow]

*sigh* I missed being able to edit comments when my brain and my fingers get tangled up. Please excuse the second "substantial".

[cheyinka]

If there are no matches for Prf: no, Upd: yes when I click the second search button, does that mean there's no proofreading to be done at the moment?

[cheyinka]

(Third button, not second. I just now noticed there was one at the top too.)

[rainbow]

Code: /editjournal_do.bml.error.getting Sev: 0

English:
There was an error getting the journal entries to edit:

Is "getting" referring to the act of the retrieving the entries or the act of editing the entries?

[rho]

After the latest code change to get rid of the strings that weren't doing anything, this one seems to have vanished. Hopefully that means that we don't need to worry about it at all. If it comes back, I'll look at it again.

[rainbow]

Code: /login.bml.loggedin.suggest1 Sev: 0

English:
Did you know you can now easily add a photo?

Is this purposefully phrased as an interrogative? It seems to me that it would fit with the rest of the section better as a declarative (ie "Add a photo").

[rho]

I'm fairly sure that this is something that won't ever show up any more, so I'm fairly sure it doesn't greatly matter either way. I'll look into it further if/when I get a chance though, to make sure.

[rainbow]

Code: inbox.menu.new_friends Sev: 0

English:
New Friends

The edited version for this one is "New People". That works if it's only personal journals, but if it's also comms and feeds, "New Subscriptions" would be clearer.

[rho]

In this case, it's people only. It's the menu thing in your inbox for when people add you to their circle.

[rainbow]

Code: /didyouknow/index.bml.notips.text Sev: 0

English:
You've hidden one or more tips, and so you won't see them here. If this makes you sad, you can restore them:

Is the mood relevant, or can this be changed to a preference for seeing all tips?

[cheyinka]

grak, I should have looked here before marking that one as proofed (actually, all the way down) - I didn't even think about "make you sad" as seeming weird. :(

[rainbow]

Code: /interests.bml.findsim_do.similar.text Sev: 0

English:
The following are the most related users to [[user]]

Unclear. "most related" = "most similar" (since that the coding) or ?

[rainbow]

Code: /interests.bml.results.toomany
(edited copy from the page rather than orig)
The interests you deselected were successfully removed from your interests list. However, you selected too many interests to add. You may only have [[intcount]] interests in total. None of the selected interests were added to your interests list. You may wish to go back and try again, selecting fewer interests to add or deleting some old ones.

That's the same copy as for Code: /interests.bml.results.del_and_toomany -- is it meant to also mention deselecting? The original copy for the code doesn't ("You selected too many interests to add. You may only have [[intcount]] interests in total. None of the selected interests were added to your interests list. You may wish to go back and try again, selecting fewer interests to add.")

[rainbow]

I *really* want to rewrite this one extesnively, because it's always made my editor side flinch.

Code: /lostinfo_do.bml.lostpasswordmail.part3

Here's what I suggest

This information was requested on the website from [[remoteip]].

Don't worry if you didn't make this password request; you're the only person who received this email. The user who made the request may have mistakenly thought he or she controlled this username or may have made a typo in a username or email address.

(Although I'd prefer to stick in Dreamwidth rather than "the website", but I don't grok the deep magic *g* )

[denise]

If you think that there should be deep magic done, let rho know and she can put it on the list of code updates to be done (something like that, switching in "Dreamwidth" for the site name, has to be done with a code change).

[rainbow]

Code: /manage/circle/add.bml.confirm.text1.news Sev: 0

English:

Adding [[user]] allows you to read new content from it on your reading page.

This is another awkward one. "It" works for a comm or feed, but not so much for a person.

Suggest: "Adding [[user]] will allow you to read (user)'s new content on your reading page."

[rainbow]

Code: /manage/emailpost.bml.error.invalidimagesize Sev: 0

English:
Image size must be [[size]] or less to disable the lj-cut.

Is "lj-cut" being used here (outside of the double brackets)?

another one

[rainbow]

Code: /schools/manage.bml.error.cantbeauthenticated

The orig string is "You could not be authenticated as the specified user."

The updated is "Your account could not be authenticated as the account that you specified."

Could it be simplified to "The specified account could not be authenticated" or "You could not be authenticated as (deep magic brackets for user)"?

/community/pending.bml.success.added

[cheyinka]

/community/pending.bml.success.added
is currently
You've added [[num]] [[?num|person|persons]] to this community.
Is there a good reason it's not person|people? "You've added n people" sounds better than "You've added n persons", at least to me...

/manage/circle/index.bml.about

[cheyinka]

/manage/circle/index.bml.about
is currently

We let you define two different kinds of relationship between your account and the other accounts you add to your Circle: Subscription and Access. When you subscribe to a personal journal, community, or feed, its new entries will be included on your Reading Page. That account will be able to read your public entries even if it doesn't subscribe to you in return, but your public entries won't appear on its Reading Page unless it also subscribes to you. People you've Granted Access to will be able to read the protected content (locked entries) you post to your journal.

Would it be worthwhile to add "even if they don't subscribe to your journal" to the last sentence? (I did mark it as having been proofed, since I think it's still relatively-easily findable even with that, and it's certainly fine as it is.)