Subscription to the Debian Installer development list (<debian-boot@lists.debian.org>)
is also encouraged though not mandatory. This list has a traffic of
about 20-30 mails per day, including many administrivia mails
(packages uploads or bug reports), but is the best method for being
involved in Debian Installer development.
Many Debian Installer developers and translators also use the #debian-boot channel on irc.debian.org for instant communication. Translators are highly welcomed on this channel which is regularly monitored by the Debian Installer i18n coordinators. A dedicated #debian-i18n channel also exists on irc.oftc.net. Feel free to join it and chat with your fellow colleagues who work on other languages.
If translators, and especially language coordinators, happen to not be able anymore to work on the translation of Debian Installer, they should notify the Debian Installer i18n coordinators. When doing so, they should do their best for pointing them to other l10n resources who may be able to continue the work on the given language.
Welcome on board: you are now a Debian Installer team member! In Debian Installer development process, translators are NOT a special kind of developers. I18n and l10n are full part of the development and translators are involved all along this development. Several Debian Installer developers started by working on translations and later contributed to other pieces of code.
If you didn't already read it, please go and read this documentation chapter for translators (Chapter 1, For translators: translating Debian Installer). It contains all the needed information to answer questions such as "Where do I start and how do I work?"
As soon as you will have commited your PO file for level 1, even with only a few strings translated, the new language is temporarily called a prospective language. It will be removed from the list of such languages when the level 1 translation (see Section 1.4, “ Level 1 ”) will be about 25% completed (except during the pre-release process), as long as these 25% cover the beginning of the file which contains the most used strings.
Don't wait for level 1 to be complete before commiting something. Quick and frequent commits are a good sign for Debian Installer i18n coordinators that you're really active.