团结中文翻译力量 / Federating Chinese translation efforts

See English version below.

大家好！

简体中文翻译组正在进行一场投票： 要求更换中文小组管理员 (Demand of electing new manager for Chinese, Simplified team)，大多数翻译组的组员们希望重组翻译组并对组员们的反馈进行响应。

这不是针对类似问题发起的第一个投票，因为对组织者不作为不满，2年前已有相似投票：Would you like a new effective manager for our Chinese Translation project?。

其中的一些抱怨，如提议、求管理员权限，都是来自于活跃用户非常合理的诉求，这些用户本可以贡献更多，可惜他们很难获得回应，要不是屡屡发出请求、通过在其他获得广泛关注的热门或有争议的讨论中评论以获得些许关注，他们几乎不可能得到任何反馈。

诸多问题导致Drupal在中国发展的基础受到严重阻碍，更广泛的意义上影响了drupal.org社区的利益（drupal.org简称DO, groups.drupal.org简称GDO, localize.drupal.org简称LDO）：

• 打击翻译/开发者积极性:
  开发者的积极性被打击，导致他们只能通过其他渠道贡献、管理翻译，这显然是不合适的。
  例如请求加入管理者，请有权限的朋友批准，这个讨论的最后，大家决定通过QQ群合作（而不是LDO）。

• 资源分散:
  中文翻译分散在各个网站上，缺乏集中、统一管理和维护，错过了Drupal已有、非常好的一些系统和工具，尤其是支持语言包直接与LDO同步（并且提供一个开放讨论的平台)的Localization update。例如：在汉化问题中，一位用户提出在LDO上无法得到回应，而在其他许多Drupal相关的中国网站上可以找到更多语言包。

• 恶性循环:
  如此恶性循环，用户对Drupal逐渐失去信心和信任，从而转向其他本地社区，所谓的协同合作变得十分分散、碎片化，这与我们合作贡献的本意完全背道而驰。
  潜在的合作交流被各种各样的本地渠道所稀释，集中地交流讨论如此困难……假如没有这样的问题出现，用户就可以在Drupal活动中自发组织、合作翻译。

• 对代码库的消极影响:
  对代码的影响更是最直接的了。现状是许多第三方模块的中文翻译缺失，中文的开发者/建站者需要花更多时间从其他网站上搜索信息和语言包(解决Localization update这个问题花不了多少时间)。
  因为没有重视建议，积累了大量翻译，更加重了翻译组的工作，翻译任务越来越烦扰。

我们还可以列举更多现在出现的问题。但是最重要的是如何改进现状、重新赢回用户信任、团结起来继续贡献。

需要做的事非常多，我想没有几个LDO翻译组比简体中文组需要处理更多建议了：
- 超过15,000条建议等待确认(多年不作为积累的成果)
- 许多语言包需要从不同网站获得/上传/检查/审批
好的一点是至少社区本身非常勤奋，贡献了大量翻译。而验证/审批环节的薄弱/也是不争的事实。

僵局被最近的投票打破，根据投票结果，社区似乎已经一致同意选出新的翻译组管理员。
出现了大量资料、讨论、有意思的评论和建议，这些都应当被收集起来，形成一个集中的纯中文WIKI文档，见简体中文组翻译管理指南。

接下来可以做的是选出新管理员，利用LDO的投票列出积极的候选人名单，使最终入选者能够合理地向drupal.org LDO 提出申请。

欢迎各位对此事发表评论和反馈、提出问题和建议。
如果您关注此事，希望您加入我们，参与今后的投票。

谢谢！

 
Hi guys,

It seems there has been a pretty active poll going on around the organization of the Chinese, Simplified Translations team and I thought this might be of interest to other group members that wouldn't necessarily follow the work done on the translation side.

In particular, it appears that after several unsuccessful attempts trying to get things to move forward with this translation group, a poll was posted to open a discussion and try to obtain more support from the community to potentially re-organize the group and provide a response to the complaints from users: 要求更换中文小组管理员 (Demand of electing new manager for Chinese, Simplified team).

This doesn't seem to be the first time this kind of poll or initiative was proposed, for similar reasons, mostly due to a lack of activity from the team organizers:
Would you like a new effective manager for our Chinese Translation project?, about 2 years ago.
Among some of the sources of insatisfaction, for example, 提议 or 求管理员权限, which seem to be very reasonable requests, from motivated users that could potentially greatly contribute, but unfortunately, it appears to be very hard to get any answer, almost impossible without following-up with multiple requests or bringing the issue in the spotlight through cross-posting in comments on active or controversial discussions.

The resulting consequences from such a problematic situation certainly constitute a dramatic obstacle/break at the foundation of the growth of Drupal in China and to a greater adhesion to the drupal.org communities (drupal.org, groups.drupal.org, localize.drupal.org):

• Turning down translators/developers:
  The motivation from developpers is turned down, leading them to contributing or managing translations on different infrastructures, which are not necessarily all suitable.
  For example see: 请求加入管理者，请有权限的朋友批准。 where users ultimately decided to keep working on the QQ groups (and therefore not on LDO).

• Scattering resources:
  As a result, translations are scattered on multiple websites with no central management or maintenance, missing out some of the greatest values of using Drupal's infrastructures and tools, in particular the excellent Localization update allowing translation packages to be directly synchronized from LDO (and of course keeping a central place to discuss these matters).
  For example: 汉化问题 where a user mentioned other Chinese Drupal related websites where more translation packages could be found due to the lack of response on LDO.

• Vicious Circle:
  Turning into a vicious circle, users have less confidence and trust in Drupal's infrastructures, turn themselves towards other local communities, resulting in an even more scattered and fragmented state of collaboration (completely going against our overall purpose and federating efforts).
  The collaboration and communication potential being diluted over various local and very diverse channels, it becomes harder to keep a centralized communication, discussions, etc... to potentially organize structured efforts or initiatives to pull out Translation sprints or coordinate Translation work at various Drupal events, for example.

• Impact on the code base:
  Not to mention a direct impact on code, where it would seem that a lot of translations for contributed modules (in particular) would be missing, getting Chinese developers or site builders confused or spending more time to search for more information or translation packages from other websites (when the solution to this should actually take no time: Localization update).
  Suggestions not being processed, leave out a lot of outdated translations that increase the amount of work on the translation team, making the task even more frustrating.

We could keep going on and on, listing out problematic aspects of the current situation, but what matters the most would be how we could get all that to improve, move forward and potentially gain back users' trust in order to federate our efforts?

The work is tremendous and I would assume there would be few other translation Groups on LDO that would have more pending suggestions than the Chinese, Simplified Translations group:
- More than 15,000 suggestions awaiting approval (accumulated over years of inactivity)
- Many translation packages to be obtained from various websites (scattered all around) and submitted/reviewed/approved
Which is a good indicator that at least the community is very prolific and productive in terms of contributions, but it seems something is not necessarily working well in the validation/approval process.

Obviously, at this point, the ice was broken with the direct poll on which the community seems to have agreed to elect a new translation team manager.
Various resources, discussions and interesting comments, advice, suggestions, etc... have been posted on the page and should be collected to constitute a centralized documentation Wiki entirely in Chinese, for Translators, see: 简体中文组翻译管理指南.

The following step shall go through the election of a new manager, through a poll on LDO with a choice of motivated candidates, which should give the selected user more legitimacy to formally apply on drupal.org LDO infrastructures.

We encourage any users who would feel concerned to get involved and try to vote on the polls that would be posted through the process.

Thanks in advance to all, for your translations, great ideas, efforts, interest and involvement in the Drupal community.