[Pangloss] Functional spec

[Dan McQuillan]

hi Steve

i finally had time to read this properly.

most of it is very clear & seems like what's needed.

USER?
my main query is: who is the ordinary User?

i think i'm not sure because for multikulti keywords are currently a 'behind
the scenes' matter between administrator, translator & proofreader. 

are you imagining pangloss being a general feature of a site that a user can
interrogate seperate of any specific translated text? 

if so i have 2 points:
- for multikulti, the translations of the keywords may be an important
resource for our sustainability, so we might want general access to the
keywords to be by subscription. 
(from your spec i understand that a user would still have to have priviliges
to access the keywords)
- we might consider tagging the keywords by subject area, and for this to be
a filter for a search 

SUBJECT TAGGING?
Tagging by subject area could also be useful for translators. 
i'm imagining it might be useful for a translator to see, for example, all
health terms, in case there's anything in the list that would give them
ideas on how to translate a new but related term.
I'll check this out with Njomeza and see what she thinks. 

LONG VERSIONS?
Another thought is whether we should expand the definitions to short-version
and long-version.
The short-version would be the one that replaces the English term in the
text itself. The longer version might be a more heuristic explanation. 
I'll also ask Njomeza about whether she thinks this is a good idea.
It may not be important/necessary, as currently we're only paying
translators to translate keywords, not to write an essay about each one ;-)

GENERATING GLOSSARIES?
i don't understand the fisrt part of sction 1.4 
"A glossary will be generated based on the user's navigation / search
through the site."
can you explain a bit more please. 

For the second part, where the glossary is generated via a submitted URL,
will the processing of the source text take in to account word-stemming etc?
(it moght not be exactly the same use of the term in the text).
Also, if we have a word like 'disabled' in the keywords already, and we have
'disability' in the new text, would the processing pick that up and give the
translation of 'disabled' in the glossary?
(That might be asking a bit much, but maybe not.)

OTHER COMMENTS:
in section 2.4.1, B.4 where is says ".  Pangloss deletes the selected user
(and all dependencies?) "
i guess the dependencies is the translations previously done by that user?
In which case i'd say 'No'. (we want to keep the previous translations). 

For section 2.4.2, B.4
"Pangloss deletes the selected language (and all dependencies?) and returns
to (2)"
i can't think we'd want to delete previous translations for a language, even
if we stop doing 'live' tranlsations of that language. 

In section 2.3.1.3 is says "3.Proofreader selects new status (and optional
comment)." 
I think the opint about the proofreader adding a comment should be more
prominent i.e. included at the beginning under 'system roles'
for us,anyway, the role of proofreader will always be to comment, rather
than to reject out of hand. 

typo? For section 2.4.2, A.4 i think it should read "Pangloss adds
*language* (if possible)..."

Anyway, thanks for the spec & HTH.
dan


>-----Original Message-----
>From: Steve Purkis [mailto:spurkis at mkdoc.com]
>Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 03:09
>To: Pangloss Developers List
>Subject: [Pangloss] Functional spec
>
>
>Hi guys,
>
>Here's the first stab at a functional spec - It's meant to build
>on the Weblex Spec that Jean-Michel put together last month.
>
>I've even included a text-only version for those of you who are
>afraid of MS Word :-)
>
>Comments appreciated,
>-Steve
>
>