Re: [needs proofread & translation] April newsletter

Thank you.

I have proofread the webpreview, and attach a version with my suggestions.
My file is generated from the xhtml you attached, but in .odt format to get
the benefit of highlighting my suggestions with the LibreOffice Track
Changes feature.

I am making the effort to do this quickly enough that you and the
translators will be able to work on it on Friday.


1.  Figure alt caption:  "A screening of Ada in a cinmea"  Replace "cinmea"
with "cinema."

2.  Table of Contents:  "*>Chemnitz Linux Days: 2025 edition*
<https://webpreview.fsfe.org/cgi/fsfe.pl?pad=1392#CLT>*"  *Remove the >
sign before the first word.

     In this draft of the newsletter, I see a greater than usual quantity
of things like this that look superficially like typographical errors.
Please, each time I make any suggestion for a correction, remember that if
I have misunderstood something that you intended, you should go in the
direction of your intention, not blindly follow my advice.  But it will
probably be appropriate to make a change so that other readers won't
misunderstand the way I did.

3.  "Especially for those FSFE supporters who regularly donate amounts
smaller than those listed on our donor website, which make up one third of
our total funds."  There are three quite distinct issues here.

(a)  There is a formal grammatical problem here that this sentence as a
whole lacks a verb.  (There are verbs in some of the clauses within the
sentence, but none for the sentence as a whole.)  My suggestion in (b)
addresses this.

(b)  The "donations for those FSFE supporters" are donations from the
supporters not for the supporters.  I suggest rewriting the first half of
the sentence (up to the comma) as a first sentence "This was especially
true of supporters who regularly donate amounts smaller than those listed
on our donor website."

(c)  There is an ambiguity here that I might be able to resolve with
research, but I don't have time.  Do the donations that are listed on the
website make up one third of the total, or do the donations in smaller
amounts than are listed make up one third of the total?  (To phrase the
ambiguity technically, what is the antecedent of "which"?  Is it "amounts"
or "those"?)  I suggest rewriting the second half of the sentence as "These
small/large donations make up one third of our total funds."  I am putting
both adjectives into my version.  Please pick one.

(d)  I suggest providing a link to the donor website.  (I am not putting
this into my version.)  I have made a similar suggestion in my #4(c),
below.  I can see no reason not to provide both links.

(e)  This sentence refers to the donor website.  In the next section, it is
referred to as the donors page.  The references are far enough apart that I
do not find them jarring, but you might opt for consistency.

4.  "You find the donors like Stichting Internet Archive, Proton, the
Linuxhotel and others who donate more than 720€ per year on our donors
page."

(a)  Insert "will" after "You."  English usage.

(b)  Insert a comma after "Linuxhotel."  This is an Oxford comma.  The use
and absence of Oxford commas in this newsletter is inconsistent, but use
seems to predominate.  Consistency is desirable.

(c)  I suggest providing a link to the donors page.  (I am not putting this
into my version.)  I have made a similar suggestion in my #(3), below.  I
can see no reason not to provide both links.

(d)  This sentence refers to the donors page.  In the previous section, it
is referred to as the donor website.  The references are far enough apart
that I do not find them jarring, but you might opt for consistency.

5.  "This year we changed to format of the page"  Replace "to" with "the."

6.  "we are highlighting long term sustainable FSFE supporters"  I suggest
rewriting as "we are highlighting long-term consistent FSFE supporters"

(a)  The hyphen that I suggest in "long-term" is not mandatory.

(b)  I do not know what a "sustainable" supporter is.  My suggestion
describes what I see on https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus-2025.en.html .

7.  "On 24 March 2025, we held and online Q&A session"  Replace "and" with
"an."

8.  "The event was aimed to inform other Free Software organisations about
FSFE’s work around the DMA implementation"

(a)   Remove "was."  English usage.

(b)  Replace "around" with "on."  English usage.  [As a bonus reason -- in
addition to English usage -- saying "work around" is suggestive of the
English word "workaround" which has a very different meaning.]

9.  "It was very motivating to see so many other Free Software
organisations discussing on this topic and its importance for software
freedom."  Remove "on."  English usage.

10.  "talk about Router Freedom, our work to protect freedom of choice
regarding internet devices."  Replace the comma with "and."  There are two
subjects of the discussion described:  the concept of Router Freedom and
the work done by the FSFE in support of that concept.  With the comma in
place, the sentence says that Router Freedom is the work that the FSFE is
doing.  Surely the concept and the work are different.

11.  The Chemnitz Linux Days (CLT) are the largest Free Software conference
in Germany."  Replace "are" with "is."  Yes, it is tempting to say that the
subject of the sentence is the plural noun "Days," but I think that better
analysis says that the subject is the three-word name of the conference,
and the conference is a single event.  [The same sort of analysis treats
the United States as a singular two-word noun.  But see
https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/united-states-plural-or-singular-civil-war-history
]

12.  "It was a pleasure so see our community there"  Replace "so" with "to."

13.  "You can watch the recordings from our talks
<https://media.fsfe.org/w/p/cwqusshTKqehD25cb8XwZf> about the Fediverse,
Freedom in Banking and Openwashing in our Peertube instance."

(a)  I suggest inserting (DE) after the link to the talks, to warn readers
of the language.

(b)  Insert a comma after "Banking."  Not only is this an Oxford comma, but
even if Oxford commas were not being generally used it would be necessary
here to avoid the interpretation that the talk about freedom included
freedom in openwashing.

14.  "Our local Danish group organised the premiere of the film “Ada &
Zangemann - A Tale of Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream” on 27
March, with a screening for schools and a second screening for anyone
interested."  This report does not mention the soundtrack of the movie.
Whether this was the premiere of the Danish version or the first Danish
showing of the English version, I think that this information should be
provided.  As I did in my #3(c), above, I am putting both languages into my
version.  Please pick one, or put in some other language as appropriate.

15.  "discussed the message of the film in relation to topics such as the
need for free and open source software in schools and its role in both the
public and private sectors with the participants"  I suggest rewriting as
"discussed with the participants the message of the film in relation to
topics such as the need for free and open source software in schools and
its role in both the public and private sectors."  English usage, to
involve the participants in the discussion.

16.  "I Free Software is indispensable for public authorities to overcome
dependencies and achieve technological sovereignty."  Remove "I".

17.  "The 2025 edition of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom (YH4F)
<https://fsfe.org/activities/yh4f/index.html> is officially underway."  I
suggest removing "officially."  The competition has been underway for
several months.  To say "officially" in the March newsletter implies that
everything done in January and February (both by the contestants and by
those administering the contest) has been unofficial.  In a newsletter
published on 2025-01-14, the FSFE announced "The new edition of YH4F has
officially begun, marking the start of its programming period earlier this
month."  So this is not only misleading, it is old news.

18.  "During the last weeks"  I suggest replacing "During the last" with
"In recent."  English usage.

19.  "The children not only enjoyed the readings but also tinkering in a
robotics laboratory."  I suggest rewriting as "The children enjoyed not
only the readings but also tinkering in a robotics laboratory."  The
enjoyment covered both activities, so the verb should not be within the
scope of "not only."

20.  "In Verona, our volunteer Tommaso Marmo gave a talk in a high school
about the history of the Internet and the Free Software movement while in
Napoli, Marta Andreoli, deputy of FSFE ITaly, presented the importance of
Free Software in the education field and discuss its future."

(a)  This is a rather long sentence.  I am not suggesting changing its
structure, which is fairly elegant, but I suggest slight changes in
punctuation.

(i)  Insert a comma after "movement."  This delimits the description of the
first talk.

(ii)  Remove the comma after "Napoli."  If a very short phrase like "in
Napoli" introduces a sentence, the comma after it is optional.  I think
that the same rule should apply here, when a very short phrase introduces a
long clause.  If the comma is present, it is the first of three commas in
quick succession, and this makes the structure harder to decipher.

(b)  I suggest inserting "coordinator" after "deputy."  She is a Deputy
Coordinator, not a Deputy, of FSFE Italy.

(c)  Replace "ITaly" with "Italy."  [When I read this, I thought that it
might be a clever pun combining the abbreviation for the language with the
name of the country, and maybe even making an additional gesture toward
Information Technology.  But it's more likely just a typographical error.]

(d)  Replace "discuss" with "discussed."

(e)  I suggest that you say to whom the presentation in Napoli was made.
If you can do it for one Italian speaker, you can do it for the other.  Of
course I am not putting a suggestion in my version.


On Thu, Mar 27, 2025 at 6:23 AM Ana Galan <[email protected]> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> it is time for our April newsletter. We will publish it on Wednesday so
> I am kindly asking you for your proofread and translation. Be aware that
> we might have to remove the PMPC news if we reach the amount of people
> who can participate as registration is still opened.
>
> As usual. here is the link to the webpreview:
> https://webpreview.fsfe.org/cgi/fsfe.pl?pad=1392
>
> Attached the xhtml.
>
> Best and thanks a lot!
>
> Ana
>
> --
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