Help:KB article localization

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Emblem-important-yellow.png Note!

This is currently a draft / work-in-progress.

This page intends to give a short manual on how to localize Knowledge Base (KB) articles. See Project:Languages for localization instructions unrelated to the KB.

Knowledge Base translations are provided as a part of the Community Translation Project (join us!).


How to publish a localized article

Step by step instructions:

  1. Log in with your Second Life name and password.
  2. Browse to the English base page of the article you'd like to publish.
  3. Add the appropriate ISO-639-1 code to the URL of the article in your web-browsers navigation bar.
    For example: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Knwoledge_Base would become https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Knowledge_Base/fr for French.
  4. The software will let you know that the page you're requesting doesn't exist and will ask you if you'd like to create it. Click the provided "edit this page"-link, in order to do so.
  5. Paste your article in the edit form.
  6. Perform all syntax substitutions the way they're explained in the wiki syntax chapter of this article.
  7. Save the article by pressing the Save page button.

You will now need to move your article. The destination depends on whether or not the base article resides within the "Linden Lab Official" (LLO) namespace.

non-LLO articles

Articles which are not within LLO, can just be moved to their localized names:

  1. Click the move link on top of the page.
  2. Enter Localized Name as new article name.
    Example: This is a test article/de would need to become Dies ist ein Testartikel.
  3. After the successful move, click the protect link on top of the page.
  4. Choose "Administrators only" and click the Confirm button.
KBcaution.png Important: Do not check the "cascading protection" option.

LLO articles

In case it is within LLO (you may tell from the URL saying "Linden Lab Official") the article needs to be moved to a localized LLO namespace. For LLO articles, operate as follows:

  1. Click the move link on top of the page.
  2. Enter LLOiso-code:Localized Name as new article name.
    Example: Linden Lab Official:This is a test article/de would need to become LLOde:Dies ist ein Testartikel.
    The LLOde-part becomes automatically substituted by the correct translation for "Linden Lab Official". So this is a convenient way to avoid typos.
  3. After the successful move, you're done.
KBnote.png Note: LLO articles don't need to be protected, since the namespace is edit protected by default for all regular users.

How to deal with Wiki Syntax

Most wiki syntax doesn't need to be changed for localized pages. For example style elements for '''bold''' or <u>underlined</u> etc. All of these can stay the way they are.

However, some syntax needs to be changed. This includes all links and categories, as well as some templates. Links should always point to other articles of the same language. Since this isn't always possible to achieve, we got Template:L to help us out. The template checks if a localized version of the link is available. When that's the case, it links to the localized version. Otherwise it points to the English version. However, this only works for links within the wiki. Links to external pages need to be localized manually "by hand".

For templates (everything written in-between {{double-braces}}), it's more tricky. Since templates are entirely customizable, each template might require different treatments. Within the KB translation project, we try to keep them all easy to localize. The easiest imaginable case is always the case that doesn't require any special treatment, so that's the one we're aiming for. When you encounter a template, just leave it as is, unless it's stated in the table beneath or unless it contains text that's displayed somewhere (like the {{KBnote|Text}}-style templates).

All categories are supposed to be ignored for now, until the English KB revised its categorization scheme. Just remove any string that looks like [[Category:Something]], but be aware that this treatment will change in the (hopefully) not-to-distant futute.

When you run into trouble with templates (or with anything else), see the section about troubleshooting.

Description English base Localization Example
Regular internal wikilink [[Knowledge Base]] {{l|Knowledge Base|Localized Name}} {{l|Knowledge Base|Base de connaissances}}
Internal wikilink w/ alt text [[Knowledge Base|look here]] {{l|Knowledge Base|Localized alt text}} {{l|Knowledge Base|sehen Sie hier}}
External link w/ alt text [http://original-link.com alternate text] [http://localized-link.com localized alternate text] [http://secondlife.com/my?lang=de-DE Benutzerkonto]
Specific Templates
Template:KBmaster {{KBmaster}} {{KBmaster|Base Page Name|/ISO-639-1-Code}} {{KBmaster|Knowledge Base|/fr}}

Troubleshooting

Localized article displays an "out-of-date" notice

You will need to set the appropriate version number for the article. In order to do so, add |version=NUMBER to {{KBmaster}}. For example: 

{{KBmaster|What is the Second Life Destination Guide?|/fr|version=2}}

Box template displays no text

When box templates (like {{KBnote|Text}}, {{KBcaution|Text}} etc.) aren't displaying any text, then prefix the Text with 1=. Like {{KBcaution|1=Text}}.

Something else is wrong...

When something else fails, don't hesitate to call 555 HELP ME KHEPRI.[1] I will try to help as soon as possible :)

  1. ↑ This number doesn't actually exist... But my talkpage is a good way to go. Or send me an email, inworld IM, skype call, smoke signals...
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