Bug 154204

Summary: It is unclear what it refers to in system-config-users messages
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Christian Rose <menthos>
Component: system-config-usersAssignee: Nils Philippsen <nphilipp>
Status: CLOSED RAWHIDE QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: rawhideKeywords: i18n, StringChange
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Last Closed: 2006-04-05 15:04:57 UTC Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Christian Rose 2005-04-08 12:34:01 UTC
#: ../src/mainWindow.py:639
msgid "- It is part of an installed software package."

#: ../src/mainWindow.py:641
msgid ""
"- It belongs to a system user and removing it may impair the system's "
"integrity."

#: ../src/mainWindow.py:643
msgid "- It doesn't exist or isn't writable."

#: ../src/mainWindow.py:645
#, python-format
msgid "- It isn't owned by the user '%s'."

I doubt that starting a new paragraph with "it" is good English.
In any case, starting a new paragraph or seperately marked message with "it"
causes big problems for translation, because in many languages, the "it" or
other parts of the sentences may need different translations, depending on what
object the "it" actually refers to.

I would recommend that these sentences are rephrased, and made stand-alone and
complete, i.e.:

  "I could not delete the foo %s, because it doesn't exist."

  "I could not delete the foo %s, because it is part of an installed software
package."

  ...

This would result in more messages, but they would probably end up being better
English, and they would be much easier to translate, and it would be possible to
translate them correctly, which isn't the case now.

Comment 1 Nils Philippsen 2006-04-05 15:04:57 UTC
I've fixed this in rhlinux CVS.

Comment 2 Nils Philippsen 2006-04-05 15:09:56 UTC
system-config-users-1.2.44-1 is building right now in Rawhide.