[development] Preparing for 5.0 string freeze

[Angela Byron]

I know it has not traditionally been something we've done, but I'd  
really like to do a string freeze @ RC1 if we can possibly help it.

For those who don't know the term, a "string freeze" means  
"everything that's in a t() can't be changed from this point out"  
unless it's to fix a 'critical' bug; for example, instructions that  
tell you to click something that isn't actually there. This makes it  
possible for translators to start kicking into high gear and  
translating Drupal 5 at the RC phase, so by the time 5.0 is released  
we have a plethora of options to choose from.

So in preparation of this, we need to do the following:

a) A large patch, or series of patches, which "clean up" translated  
strings; stuff like getting rid of \' and change t('<p>blah...') to  
'<p>'. t('blah...') and such. Which would be best? One patch per  
file, or a large one that just makes these minor changes everywhere?

b) Reading of error messages, help text, field descriptions, etc. for  
clarity. If something's not clear, we need patches submitted to make  
it more clear.

c) An answer to question posted @ http://drupal.org/node/92992:  
Should we remove the "You can" links from module help? And if the  
answer's "yes", then patches to make that happen. (my personal vote  
is for "yes" since those bloody links were the bane of my existence  
when I was writing those help handbook2helptext scripts back in the  
day).

Also, anyone have a sense whether the next release of HEAD that's  
rolled will be another beta release or whether it will be a release  
candidate? I'd love to get an approximation of how much time I have  
to work on these issues (and also if anyone's interested in helping).

-Angie