[Caminol10n] Mentorship for new teams

[Markus Amalthea Magnuson]

On Feb 19, 2008 12:17 AM, Marcello Testi <m.testi at gmail.com> wrote:

> Tonight I looked at the list of people registered to cl10n.rwx.it and
> started taking notes on a spreadsheet. Since I see a regular flow of
> new registrations, I was curious about what we could do.
>
> Well, the good news is that there are 7 languages (that are not part
> of the current Camino ML package) with at least 2 people registered
> and not "on hiatus". That's room for improvement, I'd say!
> The bad news is that these people haven't showed up at all with
> something done, even partial; that lead me to think something must be
> in the way, kind of intimidating. I can't really say; maybe localizing
> a Cocoa app isn't as trivial as one might expect, or (surely)
> something must be fixed in the documentation we provide. Digging the
> reasons is beyond my intentions and my available resources, so I had
> this weird idea...
>
> ADOPT A NEW LANGUAGE TEAM
>
> It's a sort of mentorship program where existing localizers (on
> voluntary basis) pick one of the enough-populated potential teams and
> guide its members through the initial tasks, on the technical and
> organizational side.
> I guess the main focus in this mentorship is more social than
> technical: the tech burden can be shared using the mailing-list; what
> really makes a point is putting an act together.
> New potential localizers have 2 steep disadvantages to overcome: they
> don't know each other and they don't know much of the technical stuff.
> Existing localizers can provide confidence about feasibility of all
> things technical and introduce the new people to the teamwork practice
> we're already used to.
>
> I still haven't figured out all the details, but the thing sounds like
> it could work. I'm interested in hearing opinions and hopefully
> several applications from existing localizers.
>
> Thanks.
> Ciao.
> Marcello.

I think it's a wonderful idea, and I am sure it will work out fine,
getting new teams into the loop. Unfortunately, I won't have time to
mentor anyone myself, too much work nowadays.

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