Issues with the "Last Week" sort group in Thunderbird / SeaMonkey
Benoit
Our translation of the "Last Week" sort group in the
Thunderbird/SeaMonkey message list has been reported as misleading:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=505697
In French, when someone talks about "the last week", it usually means
the previous calendar week (from Monday to Sunday) and not the last
seven days before today. In Thunderbird it means the latter, or more
precisely the last seven days except yesterday (which has its own
sorting group).
Did you encounter the same problem in your language? What did you do?
For example we thought of variants of "The last seven days".
But we would want to extend the discussion a little more. Isn't the
original English string already misleading?
Or is it the sorting behaviour itself? Wouldn't it feel more natural to
sort messages by calendar weeks instead of a sliding window of days?
In short, should we consider this as a l12y issue or as a Thunderbird bug?
--
Benoit
Khaled Hosny
> Hi all,
>
> Our translation of the "Last Week" sort group in the
> Thunderbird/SeaMonkey message list has been reported as misleading:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=505697
>
> In French, when someone talks about "the last week", it usually means
> the previous calendar week (from Monday to Sunday) and not the last
> seven days before today. In Thunderbird it means the latter, or more
> precisely the last seven days except yesterday (which has its own
> sorting group).
>
> Did you encounter the same problem in your language? What did you do?
> For example we thought of variants of "The last seven days".
The same for Arabic, the last week would mean the last calender week,
talking about weeks in general means calender weeks, not an arbitrary
seven days period.
I think it is even misleading for English, or at least not clear enough.
Regards,
Khaled
--
Khaled Hosny
Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
Free font developer
Simon Paquet
> Our translation of the "Last Week" sort group in the
> Thunderbird/SeaMonkey message list has been reported as misleading:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=505697
>
> In French, when someone talks about "the last week", it usually
> means the previous calendar week (from Monday to Sunday) and not
> the last seven days before today. In Thunderbird it means the
> latter
Same in German, "last week" is the last calendar week there, not the
last seven days.
> But we would want to extend the discussion a little more. Isn't
> the original English string already misleading?
>
> Or is it the sorting behaviour itself? Wouldn't it feel more
> natural to sort messages by calendar weeks instead of a sliding
> window of days?
>
> In short, should we consider this as a l12y issue or as a
> Thunderbird bug?
IMO the string should be changed to "last seven days". Can you file
a bug for that and CC me on it?
Simon
--
Thunderbird/Calendar Localisation (L10n) Coordinator
Thunderbird l10n blog: http://thunderbird-l10n.blogspot.com
Calendar website maintainer: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar
Calendar developer blog: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/calendar
Axel Hecht
> Benoit wrote on 23. Jul 2009:
>
>> Our translation of the "Last Week" sort group in the
>> Thunderbird/SeaMonkey message list has been reported as misleading:
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=505697
>>
>> In French, when someone talks about "the last week", it usually means
>> the previous calendar week (from Monday to Sunday) and not the last
>> seven days before today. In Thunderbird it means the latter
>
> Same in German, "last week" is the last calendar week there, not the
> last seven days.
>
>> But we would want to extend the discussion a little more. Isn't the
>> original English string already misleading?
>>
>> Or is it the sorting behaviour itself? Wouldn't it feel more natural
>> to sort messages by calendar weeks instead of a sliding window of days?
>>
>> In short, should we consider this as a l12y issue or as a Thunderbird
>> bug?
>
> IMO the string should be changed to "last seven days". Can you file
> a bug for that and CC me on it?
There is an extensive discussion about the very same paradigm in a
corresponding bug for Firefox history dialog,
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=390614.
Axel
John Wilcock
> IMO the string should be changed to "last seven days".
That would resolve the ambiguity in the English string (and thus
potentially improve the translations) - but is it the best thing to do?
The current categories are:
� Today
� Yesterday
� Between 2 and 7 days ago (the "last week" that started this)
� Between 8 and 14 days ago ("two weeks ago")
� Older messages
I'd argue that it would be more useful and intuitive to change the
categories:
� Today
� Yesterday
� Earlier this week (i.e. sometime between the beginning of the current
calendar week and the day before yesterday). This category obviously
would only exist if today is at least the third day of the week, bearing
in mind that different locales start the week on different days.
� Last week (i.e. the previous calendar week)
But that is only my French-centric (and also native English) opinion.
Does this mental model of categorising time work well in all locales, or
is the current "previous 7 days" model more intuitive to some?
John.
--
-- Over 4000 webcams from ski resorts around the world - www.snoweye.com
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Hasse
wrote...
> Or is it the sorting behaviour itself? Wouldn't it feel more natural to
> sort messages by calendar weeks instead of a sliding window of days?
It certainly would for the Swedish version. Although we have a term
that can apply to the last seven days, we do not have one for "the last
seven days, except the last two days".
Nor do we have a good way to describe the period 8-14 days ago. And
even if we had, I'm not sure our users would find it sensible to have
such a group. It would be far more intuitive to group last Wednesday
and last Thursday together.
--
Hasse
sv-SE l10n team
Benoit
> IMO the string should be changed to "last seven days". Can you file
> a bug for that and CC me on it?
Filed as https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=505981
I also added some other propositions from this thread if the sorting
behaviour was to be changed.
--
Benoit
Simon Paquet
> The current categories are:
> • Today
> • Yesterday
> • Between 2 and 7 days ago (the "last week" that started this)
That seems wrong to me. For me "last week" with the wrong meaning or
"last seven days" means "between now and seven days ago".
> • Between 8 and 14 days ago ("two weeks ago")
Same as above.
> I'd argue that it would be more useful and intuitive to change the
> categories:
> • Today
> • Yesterday
> • Earlier this week (i.e. sometime between the beginning of the
> current calendar week and the day before yesterday). This
> category obviously would only exist if today is at least the
> third day of the week, bearing in mind that different locales
> start the week on different days.
The last item is the tricky part, especially from an l10n perspective.
I wouldn't go down that road if I can avoid it.
Cya