(from the CLDR-users archives; source: CLDR-users index for Mar. 2007)
From: "Don Osborn" <dzo@bisharat.net>
To: <cldr-users@unicode.org>
Cc: "'CLDR list'" <cldr@unicode.org>
Subject: RE: Concerns about relative dates
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 18:45:24 -0400
Thanks Mark for the clarification re the settings. I think this will help, and it would be useful for all working on developing locale files to discuss the coverage issues with people compiling them.
Re "yesterday," that wasn't an issue, but the other relative terms did prompt the discussion (day before, +3 etc.).
Re forcing translation, what I mean is that folks may feel like blanks need to be filled even when the answers are not clear (not that anyone is actively requiring them to do so). I'm not so keen on suboptimal translations, unless one is sure that (1) there is not already a better translation (in some cases there may not be a readily available source, so it probably requires some vetting with language experts before getting in print), and (2) it does not take on a life of its own (i.e., get picked up and repeated in other places as if it were authoritative before it gets corrected). The option of a fallback language or two for names of countries and languages might be a better choice in the short run at least, for some languages that can't be expected to have that full repertoire (in some cases one strategy is to retranscribe names from English or French into the orthography used in the language in question, but that's not always as straightforward as it seems).
Don
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