[wesnoth-i18n] Translation catalogues status/reminder

[Iris Morelle]

Hi all,

A week ago, Wesnoth 1.14.16 was released along with several string changes 
mostly revolving around the Editor section in the game help. Unfortunately due 
to a major oversight, we forgot to remind translators about the string freeze 
two weeks prior, so although there effectively was a string freeze, nobody 
other than people on Discord and IRC found out about it. We only realized a 
couple of days before the release when we noticed that the translation stats 
at https://wesnoth.org/gettext/ weren't quite what we expected from the 
translations that were at 100% for 1.14.15 before.

As such, we would like to apologize for the communication mistake on our part. 
In the future we'll ensure that translators are notified of the string freeze 
in a timely fashion as usual.

***

I would like to take this opportunity to remind our translators again about 
our current policy for translation updates on the stable branch (currently 
1.14):

 * There are regular pot updates every two weeks independently of anything 
else that's going on. This does mean that if we are not in the middle of a 
string freeze, the catalogues may change in the middle of translation work, so 
you need to be aware of that.

 * Because of the current policy for pushing string modifications and 
additions in C++/WML/Lua to stable branches, you can usually assume that any 
such changes are permanent and won't be reverted before the eventual string 
freeze. You should be able to take this opportunity to do translation updates 
in advance if you prefer, without your work being discarded later on.

 * The next stable release is scheduled as soon as the development team deems 
it necessary to push a new stable release through our regular channels. There 
isn't a predetermined schedule, unlike with dev releases.

 * Always in sync with the biweekly pot update, there is a 2 weeks long string 
freeze instated before the next stable release. Another pot update is done 
right before the release is tagged to ensure translations are correct and that 
manual and manpage localizations are properly rebuilt. The biweekly pot update 
cycle continues as normal from that point onward.

The current release policy can also be found at the Wesnoth forums:
<https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=52785>

As usual, if you have any questions with regard to the matter at hand, send us 
a follow-up email and we'll be sure to answer as soon as possible.

***

Finally, there was supposed to be a pot update today, but according to the 
build toolchain there have been no changes to translatable strings since 
1.14.16, so the current catalogues in the Git repository/gettext.wesnoth.org 
should be considered up to date for all intents and purposes.

-- 
Regards
  Iris Morelle <shikadiqueen>