Re: Localized versions of freebsd.org outdated and linked to by google

> On 23. May 2024, at 22:08, Lorenzo Salvadore <developer@lorenzosalvadore.it> wrote:
> 
> On Thursday, May 23rd, 2024 at 18:41, Michael Gmelin <grembo@freebsd.org> wrote:
> 
>> I think this situation needs to be resolved, either by updating these
>> pages by whatever means or by giving up localization - at least for the
>> languages we cannot support.
>> 
>> Best
>> Michael
>> 
>> --
>> Michael Gmelin
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Some attempts to choose a path between the alternatives you propose has already
> been done:
> https://wiki.freebsd.org/Doc/Translation/Website
> 
> However, due to some planned changes to the website which had to be delayed,
> no work to save any localization has started yet.
> 
> Anyway, it looks like that there is not much interest in saving those
> translations, so they will probably just die... It is a pity, I believe
> localization is important, but FreeBSD is a voluntary project: if no
> one would like to work on it, nobody will work on it.

It’s sad on many levels indeed, but based on the current state of affairs I think users are better off using the English website (and the in-built translation feature of their web browser, if needed). There is no point offering localized pages if they don’t provide current information on even the most basic facts like the current release version. Imagine googling “FreeBSD latest release” and ending up on a page telling that it happened four years ago. That’s not helping anybody.

So, facing the facts, I would suggest one of the following:
1. put a warning on localized pages that they’re outdated (not a good solution, imho)
2. automatically translate to localized pages and put a warning on top that the translation was generated automatically (meh)
3. replace localized pages with redirects to the English originals

To me, given our target audience and the stage of tooling, 3. sounds the most straightforward solution to me.

Cheers
Michael