Comments on: State of the language selection in MediaWiki and Wikipedia http://www.gpaumier.org/blog/633_state-of-language-selection-mediawiki-wikipedia/ open knowledge, design & technology Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:05:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: Henk van Deelen (HenkvD) http://www.gpaumier.org/blog/633_state-of-language-selection-mediawiki-wikipedia/comment-page-1/#comment-6182 Henk van Deelen (HenkvD) Sun, 27 Jun 2010 08:59:23 +0000 http://www.gpaumier.org/blog/?p=633#comment-6182 I compliment on the nice overview. Regarding "Autotranslate" it should be mentioned that it uses Fallback languages instead of just one default language. See the list at http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:GetFallback. For instance if the user language is af (Afrikaans) the /af subpage will be displayed if it exists. The fallback language is nl (Nederlands). If the /nl subpage does not exist the defaul language page (English) will be displayed. An other example would be any of the chinese languages that will fallback to zh. I compliment on the nice overview.

Regarding “Autotranslate” it should be mentioned that it uses Fallback languages instead of just one default language.

See the list at http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:GetFallback.

For instance if the user language is af (Afrikaans) the /af subpage will be displayed if it exists. The fallback language is nl (Nederlands). If the /nl subpage does not exist the defaul language page (English) will be displayed.

An other example would be any of the chinese languages that will fallback to zh.

]]> By: Jean-Fred http://www.gpaumier.org/blog/633_state-of-language-selection-mediawiki-wikipedia/comment-page-1/#comment-6181 Jean-Fred Sun, 27 Jun 2010 00:34:22 +0000 http://www.gpaumier.org/blog/?p=633#comment-6181 Though {{Multilingual description}} is indeed scarcely used on Commons, its behaviour could easily be massively deployed by adding two lines to {{Information}}. (Absolutely no idea of the impacts of such a modification, though :-) Though {{Multilingual description}} is indeed scarcely used on Commons, its behaviour could easily be massively deployed by adding two lines to {{Information}}.

(Absolutely no idea of the impacts of such a modification, though :-)

]]> By: Guillaume Paumier http://www.gpaumier.org/blog/633_state-of-language-selection-mediawiki-wikipedia/comment-page-1/#comment-6180 Guillaume Paumier Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:46:23 +0000 http://www.gpaumier.org/blog/?p=633#comment-6180 Hi Siebrand. I didn’t address the RTL support because my article was specifically about language <em>selection</em>, and not a general article about language <em>support</em>. But you’re totally right that MediaWiki isn’t RTL-friendly enough. I experienced the very example you took (trying to add a wiki link inside brackets) a few times when I tried to illustrate articles on the Hebrew or Arabic Wikipedia with pictures from Commons. It was extremely confusing. Hi Siebrand. I didn’t address the RTL support because my article was specifically about language selection, and not a general article about language support. But you’re totally right that MediaWiki isn’t RTL-friendly enough. I experienced the very example you took (trying to add a wiki link inside brackets) a few times when I tried to illustrate articles on the Hebrew or Arabic Wikipedia with pictures from Commons. It was extremely confusing.

]]> By: Siebrand Mazeland http://www.gpaumier.org/blog/633_state-of-language-selection-mediawiki-wikipedia/comment-page-1/#comment-6175 Siebrand Mazeland Sat, 26 Jun 2010 10:43:22 +0000 http://www.gpaumier.org/blog/?p=633#comment-6175 Nice overview, Guillaume. One issue - major as far as I'm concerned - that you have left unaddressed, is language directionality of the user interface, compared to language directionality of the content. Even with the 'uselang' parameter, this is not resolved. Nice examples are the main pages of the Arabic[1] and Hebrew[2] Wikipedias with an English user interface. You can imagine that navigating ''our'' Western Europan language wikis is like hell to everyone who is used to reading Right to Left, instead of Left to Right. A fun example is the behaviour of the inline text editor. Try to add a wiki link inside brackets ([[link]]) while looking at the text entry screen :). Not addressing this issue in this context, too, means in my opinion that the gap between left to right and right to left languages increases, in turn decreasing chances of Wikimedia playing a major part in the internet future of the countries where the affected languages are used. [1] <a href="http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%81%D8%AD%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A6%D9%8A%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%A9?uselang=en" rel="nofollow">Arabic Wikipedia main page with English uses Interface</a> [2] [1] <a href="http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A2%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%93_%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%A9%D7%99?uselang=en" rel="nofollow">Hebrew Wikipedia main page with English user interface</a> Nice overview, Guillaume. One issue – major as far as I’m concerned – that you have left unaddressed, is language directionality of the user interface, compared to language directionality of the content.

Even with the ‘uselang’ parameter, this is not resolved. Nice examples are the main pages of the Arabic[1] and Hebrew[2] Wikipedias with an English user interface. You can imagine that navigating ”our” Western Europan language wikis is like hell to everyone who is used to reading Right to Left, instead of Left to Right. A fun example is the behaviour of the inline text editor. Try to add a wiki link inside brackets ([[link]]) while looking at the text entry screen :).

Not addressing this issue in this context, too, means in my opinion that the gap between left to right and right to left languages increases, in turn decreasing chances of Wikimedia playing a major part in the internet future of the countries where the affected languages are used.

[1] Arabic Wikipedia main page with English uses Interface
[2] [1] Hebrew Wikipedia main page with English user interface

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