I have been considering coding a simple Python + mechanize script to handle the bulk of this, but am worried about simple mistakes causing major damage. I am relatively unfamiliar with MediaWiki bots/scripts/extensions that may exist, as well, and would hate to "re-invent the wheel", as it were.
It would appear that 1/2 the language categories already follow the "English" naming scheme, so this task may not be as overwhelming as it appears at first glance. Further, many translated categories are empty or contain only a handful of pages. The difficult ones will be Spanish and the Chinese categories, I believe.
Before embarking, I would like to begin by including [[Template:i18n]] on English category pages -- this will allow us to more easily see which categories exist and which still require attention.
]]>Well, it's almost official. Please see Help:i18n for near-complete draft of the final product of this discussion. Please voice any objections/suggestions now before it's too late!
I'm still looking for feedback regarding category naming. I believe they, too, should follow the "English" naming scheme for similar reasons (facilitate administration and inter-language linking).
Yeah, IMHO categories should be renamed too. For those thinking of translation concerns, this won't have effect on their respective Main Pages and Table of Contents so navigation should still be fairly feasible in several areas. For any willing to help for those pages that don't have a fully localised redirect to their 'English Title (Lingua)' equivalent (e.g. many of the (Deutsch) pages don't) you can probably help numerous people by doing so.
On note of the categories, this is going to take some dedication . When I moved titles to their new English title, there was around 500 articles to do so. For categories, I'm guessing this number would be around (1000-1500, possibly more). Translators will be needed (though I supposed Google Translate will do) and then all pages that contain the category will need to be updated(?). From what I remember categories cant' be 'moved', right???
]]>Localized titles can and should be created, but must redirect to the English-named article as described above. Redirect titles need not include language tags. For example: Manuel du débutant redirets to Beginners' Guide (Français).
That would be a better idea to do it the other way. The title you see must be in the same language than the whole page don't you think ? So I advise you to redirect the reader from Beginners' Guide (Français) to Manuel du débutant.
]]>I'm still looking for feedback regarding category naming. I believe they, too, should follow the "English" naming scheme for similar reasons (facilitate administration and inter-language linking).
]]>Specifically:
1) What should be done with categories? i.e. should categories follow the same scheme (Title in English (Language)) or something different (keeping in mind that category redirects will not behave ideally)?
2) How should i18n templates/linking be implemented? See http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Use … te_Sandbox for some early ideas.
I'd prefer to use English category names simply to facilitate administration. i18n links could also be added to category pages. I also prefer the "Main Page"-style i18n links.
]]>I'm thinking this standardizing for titles ('Title in English (Espanol)') not only helps Admins find pages for maintenance but also for tasks like bot maintenance for cleanup tasks. The titles aren't technically 'thrown away', they are still there but are now exist as redirects. I've seen it in a good number of wikis use this structure and believe it's important to keep this here as well. Perhaps to help non-proficient English readers a fully localized ToC could be used (i.e. all links there should point to fully localized titles). This can help with any ambiguities!?
I think it should work quite good that way. Would it then be possible and useful to have a 'Title in Language' page redirecting to 'Title in English (Language)', for each of the last ones? I'm thinking of people using "Search" function in particular
]]>As for renaming titles in the native-tongue (Bonjour) and then re-directing them to the English title (Welcome) they can still be done for those that are interested. It's nice feature that some may find useful.
I personally like more the idea of redirecting from the "english title (language)" to the fully localized title "Title in language" than the opposite way around, I think it makes it more clear to non english-speaking people like me, even the difference is quite small. Why "through away" internationalized titles in an international wiki?
]]>I noticed that most titles where already in in the English title, however, a good deal of the categories are not. I'm guessing the categories are going to fall under the same category?? (can't see how they wouldn't). If categories are going to be renamed then there is to consider that creating a new Language category each page that contains that category will need to be edited. Perhaps there is a better way to do this? Manual doing this seems like a lot of work.
A couple other things I noticed as I went through:
Category:Nederlandstalig is wrong, should be Category:Nederlands.
Some translations marked the 'Official Arch Linux Install Guide' as 'Official Arch Linux Install Guide (Lingua) (Deprecated)'. I removed (Depracated) and marked articles 'Out of Date' as it seem the proper way to do this.
]]>pointone wrote:I agree; all that remains is to decide on the standard (English language identifier (e.g. German), localized language identifier (e.g. Deutsch) or some other short form as karol has listed above?) I favor the full localized version.
Since the title name is only important to the relevant locality, I think the full localized is the way to go.
pointone wrote:faelar wrote:I missed this thread before, but you should be interested by our solution on ArchServer : http://bbs.archserver.org/viewtopic.php?pid=60#p60
I made a similar suggestion above, and am glad to see a working example. I think having both localized names and accompanying English redirects will greatly improve navigation for non-English users.
I like this too. Been looking at the language categories and a number of people from different locales will be needed. Currently we got 18 language categories with a good number of them already having 'English Title (Language)'. To do this they will need to be renamed to 'Título Inglés (Idioma)' and then redirected back again. Will begin moving (redirecting) pages that already have a local title to the English title, unless there are any major objections!!?
good idea, it works both ways, improves non-english navigation and wiki maintainers would still know what the article is about.
]]>I agree; all that remains is to decide on the standard (English language identifier (e.g. German), localized language identifier (e.g. Deutsch) or some other short form as karol has listed above?) I favor the full localized version.
Since the title name is only important to the relevant locality, I think the full localized is the way to go.
faelar wrote:I missed this thread before, but you should be interested by our solution on ArchServer : http://bbs.archserver.org/viewtopic.php?pid=60#p60
I made a similar suggestion above, and am glad to see a working example. I think having both localized names and accompanying English redirects will greatly improve navigation for non-English users.
I like this too. Been looking at the language categories and a number of people from different locales will be needed. Currently we got 18 language categories with a good number of them already having 'English Title (Language)'. To do this they will need to be renamed to 'Título Inglés (Idioma)' and then redirected back again. Will begin moving (redirecting) pages that already have a local title to the English title, unless there are any major objections!!?
]]>