Project talk:Languages/Meeting Agenda

Alissa's opinions

Firstly, I want to state my preference to follow ordinary Mediawiki conventions on wiki namespace usage. One of the consequences of this policy is that the page Project:Languages/Meeting Agenda should not be in the project namespace; it should be either in the default (unprefixed) namespace or in the project-talk namespace, because project namespace is dedicated for the meta information regarding the wiki site itself, and discussion on the meta information should be on project-talk namespace. At the same time, the page is on an in-world activity, and it can be in the default namespace. Well, this may seem somewhat off-topic, but one of the discussion item here is related to a page of the name "Project:I18n", that I believe is not appropriate for the project namespace and being there makes some confusion. (I'm writing my opinion on this issue in more detail later.) I'm raising this issue here because I'm afraid that putting this page in project namespace makes yet another confusion for future readers... Please be sure to note that the page Project:Languages is not on any project at all; it is on this SL wiki. See Project:Editing Guidelines#"Project" namespace if you are not familiar with the concept.

Hm... My intenetions behind creating this page as a subpage of Project:Languages were

• it is very connected to Project:Languages.
• it serves the same purpose like Project:Editing Discussion which is in the project namespace already.

But i can see that Project:Editing Discussion might be missplaced as well, as it should be at Project_talk:Editing Guidelines. So I want to state that I would be fine with moving it, as long as there's some connection (link) from one page to another so (interested) people are able to notice that this page here is in existence. I'll comment later to Project:i18n. --Zai Lynch^{(talk|contribs)} 19:21, 7 July 2008 (PDT)

Secondly, I believe the SL wiki guidelines should be set primarily to facilitate readers first. Writers' benefits are less important than the readers', where they conflict. I'm stating this because I have a feeling that some discussion items are related to this policy.

I totally agree with that. --Zai Lynch^{(talk|contribs)} 19:21, 7 July 2008 (PDT)

My opinions on specific issues follow:

Should translated pages link to other translated pages or to the english (possibly more up-to-date) parent?

At this moment, translated pages have links to all available translations. I see no problem with it. Why is this an issue?

Sorry for my poor wording. What I meant was the case described at Project:Languages#Links and I'm ashamed to admit that I forgot that this case is already mentioned within the guidelines. However, I would like to add to Project:Languages#Links and Project:Languages#Page titles that it should be allowed to create pages with non-english names as redirects. To stick with the example of Project:Languages#Links: The permission (or even guideline) to create a redirect from [[voix]] to [[voice/fr]].--Zai Lynch^{(talk|contribs)} 19:21, 7 July 2008 (PDT)

In case there is no translated page available to link to, should a link to a non-existing page be implemented or a link to the english parent?

I prefer linking to the English page. I believe it is more convenient for a reader than writing a dead link, in both of the following three cases:

1. if a reader prefers, say French, but is capable of reading English, seeing an English page is better for him/her than seeing an empty edit page,
2. if a reader prefers French, is not capable of reading English, but is capable of, say, Spanish, and the target page has no French translation but has English and Spanish, then linking to English page is better since he/she will be able to find the Spanish translation on the top of the English version of the target page, and
3. if a reader prefers French, and it is the only language he/she can read, there are no difference between linking to the existing English page and linking to the non existing French page.

On the other hand, I guess linking to a non existing translation page has following advantages:

1. It is easier for a translator who is looking for pages that need his/her help to find one, since the link appears in red if it points to a non existing page, and
2. When a translator created a new translation, if other translated pages points to the English page, the translator (or somebody else) needs to fix the links to point to the newly translated page. If those pages pointed to the non existing translated page, the links need not to be modified.

Both advantages of linking to a non existing translation page are for translators but readers. Hence, I don't support this. I have no alternate idea for the first advantage, but I have one for the latter; I suggest using Mediawiki Special:Whatlinkshere feature so that the job of finding links to be fixed is easier.

Yes, I agree that linking to the English page would be best in case there is no translation available.--Zai Lynch^{(talk|contribs)} 19:21, 7 July 2008 (PDT)

Should a link to an english parent become marked in any way? How?[1]

Hmm. I thought just write a link (anchor texts) in English if it points to an English page. (I implicitly assumed it when I wrote "it's better to link to the translated page. Such links are better to have translated anchor".) Do readers prefer seeing anchor texts in the page's language even in case the linked page is only available in English?

Hm... at least it is what the translators did so far (translated everything, regardless of what it is). I got to admit that I didn't even had the idea to just leave it in English, instead of marking it... might be a solution, tho. And a better looking one as well. I'm honestly not sure what readers might prefer.--Zai Lynch^{(talk|contribs)} 19:21, 7 July 2008 (PDT)

How to implement categories for each language?[2]

My original intention was simply follow the www.mediawiki.org policies' on pages under help namespace, that was, when I first wrote Project:Languages, just put all translated pages in the same category as the English page. That implied no localized/language-specific categorization. Early complains I heard regarding this policy was "Seeing non English pages in a category page is just harmful; I have no interest on pages written other than English," and I just ignored those voices... However, I later foud that most people don't want to see pages written in languages other than his/her own preference... Well, I was wrong guessing what's best.

I have a feeling that the current convention that is common to both SL wiki and www.mediawiki.org regarding this issue is to create a category of the name category/language where category is the category name in English and language is a two letter language code. Why a language specific category name sould be in English? (Well, I know the answer; it is because our cross language reference tool (Template:Multi-Lang) assumes that convention. So, this is not a question really. :-) This of course relates to the next issue.

So yes, we got Template:Multi-lang as a tool but like you stated earlier, we should have a focus on the reader, rather then on the writer. So there would be a conflict with following the mediawiki.org convention and finding the best way for the reader at the same time. We can, of course, avoid using Template:Multi-lang for categories, making a look-alike language box "by hand". Like User:Zai Lynch/Sandbox and User:Zai Lynch/Sandkasten. This would of course be a dirty solution but it would only apply to categories. Normal pages could be treated via redirects, instead. --Zai Lynch^{(talk|contribs)} 19:21, 7 July 2008 (PDT)

How can articles become categorized with a translated articlename?[3]

I'm not exactly sure what this issue really means. I guess many readers prefer to see article names in their preferred language. I guess many readers also prefer their pages are categorized in translated category names. Anyway I have no good idea how we can achieve them...

I don't have a good one either... A possibility would be to categorize redirects like done at User:Zai_Lynch/Sandbox/Testseite which redirects to User:Zai_Lynch/Sandbox/Testpage/de and which is categorized with the non-existent Category:Zai's Testing Category. This would have the positive outcome that all articles within the category would be in the right language. It would also have the negative outcome that the page where the redirect links to, doesn't display the categories on the bottom... --Zai Lynch^{(talk|contribs)} 19:21, 7 July 2008 (PDT)

Merge or distinguish Project

Languages & Project:i18n (discussion)

I remember the debate I had with SignpostMarv Martin regarding this issue. I don't understand why someone raised this issue. The Project:Languages contains information for (primarily) all SL wiki readers and writers. So I believe it is very appropriate for project namespace. On the other hand, the contents under Project:I18n is not really suitable with the project namespace; it is on a project called "Project:i18n" and is not intended for a meta information reagarding SL wiki.

If I were a writer of the page, I would change the name of the page as Project i18n, putting it under the default name space. One of the activities of the project seems being translation of SL wiki pages, so the guidelines of the actual translation work can points to Project:Languages. I don't think it is appropriate to merge the contents in Project:Languages into Project:I18n since they are both for members of the project i18n and for non participants of the project. I don't think it is appropriate to merge the contents in Project:I18n into Project:Languages since they primarily contain something outside of SL wiki itself.

Please note again there are no project called Languages or Project Languages. The thing written in the page Project:Languages is the SL wiki policies on language uses.

Thx for your namespace explanations! I was indeed not sure about that. So while Project:i18n seems to be a group of people rather then a project within the mediawiki's project definition, it should be moved to another namespace and made clear on the page itself as well. Furthermore, the goals of this group shouldn't be contrary with the editing guidelines of Project:Languages. I'm especially referring to ISO 639-1 alpha-2 vs. ISO 636-3. No matter which solution is found, it should be the same on both pages to minimize confusion.--Zai Lynch^{(talk|contribs)} 19:21, 7 July 2008 (PDT)

-- Alissa Sabre 08:26, 7 July 2008 (PDT)

Thank you very much for all this input on the topic! I wrote all my comments in between yours to make it spottable to what I'm referring to. I chose another color to furthermore make it easier to distinguish. Please feel free to alter the style in case it's not the appropriate way to comment. Looking forward to the meeting! Greetz, Zai Lynch^{(talk|contribs)} 19:21, 7 July 2008 (PDT)