[Translators-l] Ready for translation: Tech News #29 (2016)

[Philippe Verdy]

Of course it needs some translation, but not necessarily an equivalent. May
be this acronym is known in English, but only in a few select countries.
Many people reading articles in another language will just wonder what it
means or why it is there.
If you're speaking about some Emergency team, jsut name it correctly,
instead of using vague allusions that are country and language specific.
And even if you think this is a sense of humour, this is not shared across
the world and culture.

For example, almost nobody knows that acronym in France, or may be
confusing it with other English terms (I know some of them associate it to
some meaning related to spider or spider webs, or some 6-feeted bugs, or
bees, or confuse it with some terrorist group, and don't even think this is
a special police force). If we were looking for some equivalent of SWAT in
France we would use "GIGN", do you really think I'd ask you to keep it in
English??? But then people would also wonder why we associate them to some
Wikimedia project, even if it's technical and limtied in scope (but this
limtied scope is even farther from the activities of the real SWAT).

The simpel fact of associating the name of an official enforcement force to
these independant volunteered projects is a bad idea I think. And beware of
homour, it mayu be fun in sopme context when you know what is your public,
but here it is very bad in a context where you ask for translations for use
worldwide. Even when you use a wellknown international brand name, it must
be done accurately on topic.

2016-07-15 18:37 GMT+02:00 Nick Wilson (Quiddity) <nwilson at wikimedia.org>:

> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 4:32 AM, Benoît Evellin (Trizek)
> <bevellin at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 12:57 PM, Purodha Blissenbach
> > <purodha at blissenbach.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Benoît,
> >> yes, thank you. I had found that page already. Now it is a bit clearer
> >> what the SWAT window does mean, but I still do not have a clue what
> "SWAT"
> >> is. Is it related to the military abbreviation S.W.A.T.? If so, I'd
> >> probably
> >> leave it untranslated as a(n English) technical term, do I ?
> >
> >
> > I think to refers to the tactics police forces: the point is to act
> quick.
> > I've put that "SWAT" term, because I know some people know it. I don't
> think
> > it needs a translation.
> >
>
> SWAT has a humorous definition, explained (with dry humour) at
> https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/SWAT_deploys#Humour (and is
> possibly a backronym - a definition chosen after the word itself was
> selected, not before.)
> It does Not need a translation in Tech/News! :-)
>
> I would guess that the term was chosen partially because it is meant to
> imply (in my words) "heavily trained/experienced developers, working
> on something complicated and time-critical", with a vague allusion to
> the name of the specialized police teams.
>
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