Ok, so given the tests @Rachel did with automatic translation of the user guide (see here) it seems we are heading toward a consensus that we won’t have just one version we maintain and delegate all the other language version to some automatic translator tool…
BUT nevertheless, I think we can still propose to maintain and update only one version of the user guide, and only manage pure translation of that guide in language specific user guides (that will require though that all French transifex translation are quite harmonized I guess, like @Rachel if we translation order cycle “cycle de vente” in Offrance and “cycle de commande” on the French-Can translation, we will have the same issue that you mentionned with DeepL…)
To take back here some proposals made by @lin_d_hop here let’s see how we can go with that proposal:
1- Unify the user guide. For me it means we gonna have only one version of the user guide, but then translated in various languages. If a local curator want to modify the content beyond pure translation, modifications need to happen first in the master version and then translation should be done.
Even if we did some work on during the last weeks in the French version, I still think only the English version can be the master one, and we could reverse translate the French version, and rethink some bits where it needs to be “internationalized” like the payment method descriptions, maybe review the page to specify in which country which payment gateway is available, etc.
If we all agree on that let’s keep this specific conversation here : User guide harmonizations : what could be our new common skeleton?
2- Organize some form of notification system whenever a change happens in the master English guide (which in our process will be the single point of truth, so any change should be made first in the English user guide) so that all language version curator of the user guide can be notified and translate the content (just as we do with Transifex today somehow…). There is no Gitbook / Slack integration to do that, I don’t know if there is an easy tech way to send a notification to a slack channel for instance whenever a new draft is merged with a list of all modifications… maybe through github as there are synchronizations between Gitbook and Github and there is an integration I think between Slack and Github to get notification if a new PR is merged for instance, to see the content of that PR.
The first step I was suggestion was to have a dedicated Slack channel channel where we share anytime we do any modification to English user guide so translators can regularly take the history of notifications to translate modifications.
Btw this is valid both for updating existing content and adding new ones. This might trigger some conversation like when I translate a new page someone wrote in the English guide, I might find unclear the way it is explain, so might suggest an improvement in English version instead of just adapting the content in the French version, which is what we have done until now…
3- This setup will allow also to easily organize some automatic translation, or delegate that tasks to some local freelance contractors potentially, or anything else interesting in the future…
@lin_d_hop @Rachel is it aligned with your visions and proposals ? @lauriewayne1 @tschumilas @EmilyRogers @Kirsten @Theodore @luisramos0 does this make sense as well ? I’m happy to move forward the conversation in the other discourse thread on content harmonization, aligned with point 1 mentioned here if everyone agrees. For point 2, two options : start with specific Slack channel and manual notification, or integrate, but I’ll need someone more techy to investigate auto-notification (@lin_d_hop?).
Thanks for your feedbacks !