Hello Localizers,
After years of discussions with branding and legal teams as well as
numerous surveys and input from you, we finally made some progress in this
area. We are "meeting in the middle" so to speak, so we have some of what
we have asked, but not everything.
List of Brands and Product Names:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1F-n8Wle0BCgim5707kBA74T0eMFnWAsyf0ENJZ04ycg/edit?usp=sharing
*Summary of the agreement we have reached:*
- Brand names remains in English. There are lots of legal implication on
translating, transliterating the names. We will not touch them in this
round. (Firefox)
- All Logos with text will remain in English even if a logo contains both
brand name and product name (Firefox Marketplace)
- Product names can be localized but with several exceptions (see the list)
- Some product names are hard coded, even though they can be localized. If
it is "in-product", it should be left in English. If it appears outside of
the product, on Mozilla.org, for instance, you can put the translated names
in parenthesis. (Firefox Beta)
- Some product names can be translated but require additional attention to
convey the correct meaning (Persona)
*Third Party Brand and Product Names:*
My discussion with creative and legal teams *did not address* 3rd party
brand names and product names. Please leave them in English, unless these
names are trademarked or registered. They should be easily identified on
the company's official local sites. Some companies have the names
localized for certain markets but not globally. Be respectful to their
policies no matter how popular the expressions of the brands/product names
are in social media or press coverage.
*Begin the discussion within the community:*
We would like to have you start the conversation within the community. If
there is a great interest in translating/localizing the product names open
for localization, be sure
- to work on one product name at a time. *There is no deadline to complete
the project.*
- that the final localized term is the result of broad consensus among
community members
- that once the term is finalized, corrections can start in various
repositories so the expressions are consistent across products and
projects. Some *old* marketing projects such as screenshots will not be
fixed due to this policy change.
I want to stress that it is totally up to your community to decide if you
want to keep everything as is or if you want to localize some of the
product terms.
*Where can I see my consolidated localized term list*
Flod, Pascal and I are discussing the needs and technical issues regarding
this project. We will communicate to you once they are resolved.
Ultimately, we want your team page to be linked to your locale specific
brand/product page, where new community members as well as long time
contributors can see them. Additionally, this is a living document. We
will add new product names as they come up.
A big Thank You to those who took part in the surveys and participated in
discussions, which drove the partial change of the policies. If you have
any questions, let us know.
Thank you,
Peiying