Project:Article versioning
This page provides information on a versioning process, introduced in relation to the localization (L10n) efforts within this wiki. See Project:Languages for general L10n guidelines and the Community Translation Projects for ongoing official projects.
The Problem
One goal of the L10n project is, to translate articles and to keep them in sync with their English source pages. In order to reach this goal, it is important to know which source articles received updates after their initial translation. These articles are out-of-sync and in need for an update. The problem is, to identify these articles and to inform translators and coordinators about them.
The Solution
A possible solution to this problem is a versioning scheme:
- Every source article receives an arbitrary version number.
- Every substantial update to an article increases the version number.
When a translated article is in sync with version number n, it receives the same version number. When the version number of the source page is increased to n+1, the translated article is automatically marked as out-of-sync and added to a dedicated category, until it is updated to n+1 as well.
The readers are informed via a warning box, while the translators/coordinators are informed via the categories.
The Implementation
This system is implemented as part of Template:Multi-lang and added to Template:KBmaster.
Edit-links and information boxes were added, but are hidden from the default view. In order to see them, interested users need to add <css>.L10n-hidden { display:block; }</css> to their User:Firstname Lastname/monobook.css (e.g.: User:Khepri Contractor/monobook.css).
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Note: User CSS are currently turned off due to a recent MediaWiki exploit. A MediaWiki upgrade is planned but might not be deployed before mid June. Please use the MediaWiki skin named Modern to reveal the L10n-meta-info meanwhile. In order to do so, go to Special:Preferences, change to the "Skins" tab, click the radio button next to "Modern" and save your changes by pressing the Save button. |
English Source Articles (Doc Team)
When the above CSS settings are set, every English KB article containing Template:KBmaster displays either a change version number or add versioning link in the upper right, beneath the Seal. Clicking this link will prompt the editor to a page where the version numbering can be set. Such a page looks like follows:
{{multi-lang/Version
|version=1 <!-- The version number. Supports floating point like 1.5 etc. -->
|priority= <!-- Leave empty for no priority. Set to 3 for low, 2 for middle, 1 for high. -->
|notes=Initial creation <!-- What changed within the last versions? Make it easy for translators. -->
}}
The first section contains the version number. Increase this number, whenever a substantial edit to the source page took place (never decrease this number).
The second section gives the option to specify a priority for the update. This can be interpreted as a counterpart of JIRA priorities and tells the localization team how important it is that the translated articles receive this update as well.
The last section provides space to specify which changes took place within the last updates. It would be nice to have some short statement per version number in this place. Nothing verbose... All details can be retrieved from the articles history. Just a short note on what to expect.
Here is an example how such a page could look like:
{{multi-lang/Version
|version=3
|priority=1
|notes=
*Version 1: Initial creation
*Version 2: Added paragraph foo
*Version 3: Removed paragraph bar, edited section baz
}}
The above example would fit to a page which had 3 major updates, while the most recent is a critical update that should be translated as soon as possible.
Localized Child Articles (Loc Team)
Localized KB articles in need of an update appear in a special category, named Category:Articles in need of updating/KB/ISO-639-1-Code. For example: Category:Articles in need of updating/KB/fr for French.
These articles display a localized warning message for every reader. to be implemented
Those who modified the above mentioned CSS file will also see a box containing the specified editor notes. When an article is updated to be in sync with the English source page, the version number of the translated article needs to be set to the same value the English page has. This will hide the warning box and will take the article off the update-category. In order to set the version number of a page, alter the included Template:KBmaster on top of the localized article. The template would therefor look like
{{KBmaster|English Source Page|/ISO-639-1-Code|version=NUMBER}}
Here an example for a French translation of What is the Second Life Destination Guide?, in case it would need version number 2:
{{KBmaster|What is the Second Life Destination Guide?|/fr|version=2}}
Quick Links
The following table presents the update links with respective localized KBs in a clearly arranged way: