proposal for translated content projects

Hi all,

I am overwhelmed by the fantastic response we've had to 
the call for translated content on the website.  In just
a week we've added 6 new languages to the home page, we
already have all the suggested "essential docs" translated
into Spanish, there are at least another 2 home page
translations that I know of in my overflowing Inbox, and
probably more pages that I haven't yet seen (but will get
to!) ... Excellent stuff!  Congratulations to you all,
and many thanks.

So all of this has got me thinkng.  Seems like we have a
lot of interest in doing this, and people are willing to
offer help, but we have no real plan or way to make sure
volunteers have something to do, if and when they come 
along.

Here's some ideas, but they're just that - ideas.  Not
final, just proposals - please add your comments and
suggest alternatives if you have them.

It seems a bit hit and miss to offer the translated pages
that we have only "parallel" to their english versions,
buried deep in the site.  Sure, we have spanish, dutch,
french ... versions of /community/lists/index.html, but
what if a spanish speaker who doesn't speak english
lands on the site ?  If they came from Google they might
land anywhere in the site, not be able to read any
navigation etc, and never find our translated pages -
and never know that there are other spanish speaking NB 
community members out there that she could talk to.
Hopefully they'll check the home page, and find their
translated welcome page, but that doesn't link to any
other translated content on the site ...

As you might know, SourceCast, the app that hosts
netbeans.org, uses the principle of "modules", where each
SourceCast module has it's own website, issue tracking
category, cvs permissions, mailing lists, etc etc.  I was
wondering if we shouldn't set up new modules for each new
language, ISO.netbeans.org where ISO is the language code
as we have been using for html pages (fr, nl, es ...).

We would have to set up some guidelines for creation of a
new project like this, eg :

- make sure there is enough interest in doing it
- make sure there is/are volunteers interested and able
  to actually *do* the work required
- some minimum number of translated key docs to put on 
  the site ?
- A volunteer leader who controls commit permissions etc ?

In the standard site navigation header or footer, we
could add links like (please excuse my spelling and incorrect
chars) :

<link>Cesky</link> | <link>Espanol</link> | <link>Francais</link> | ...

These links would either appear on the home page (or maybe
every page ?), and link to the appropriate language site.

Each site would start off with some minimum set of docs,
say the 5 or 6 "essential docs" we've discussed.  There 
shoudl be some standard navigation for each site, linking
those docs up.  

There should be a well defined list of other things to 
work on, if and when new volunteers come along :

- other website content (the new "Using NetBeans Guide"
  for eg);
- translate Sprout
- translate the IDE ?
- other docs selected by the localisation team, that
  they feel are important to that language community ...

After the essentials are there, and the TODO list is
up, and the "how to get involved" info is up, basically
whatever else appears on the site would be entirely up
to that team.

That site should also be the focus point for the translation
effort - meaning there is info there about how to join
if interested, there is some kind of status dashboard
showing what is done and what is needed ... 

It would also be great if that site could be the focus
point for localising the IDE itself into that language -
same principle, a status board showing what is done and
what needs to be done.

translatedfiles.netbeans.org should serve as the "home" of
IDE localisation efforts, where HOWTOs and guides on what
to actually do to localise the IDE are hosted.

Initially a/the project leader/s would have commit
privileges, and, following the existing guidelines, grant
commit access to new members who contribute content.

Each language project would be independent of the main www
project - don't need to wait on someone with commit
privileges for www to add your pages or make corrections.

Enough for now.  Comments ?
-- 
Jack Catchpoole
NetBeans/Sun Microsystems
http://www.netbeans.org/