Support/Archive/2008/2

The pages in this archive are:

Localisation guideline for unaltered texts
Localisation guidelines does not specify whether or not to translate texts that are not changed from the fallback language. Should we better do so, or shall we better leave them alone? Or does the best choice depend on something, e.g. not translate more technical stuff like "project:Babel" or accesskey-x-y-z, and do translate real language texts since we are not sure whether or not the fallback translation may be changed to something we cannot use any more? --Purodha Blissenbach 11:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Usually a fallback is a way to make things slightly less inconvenient if there is no full localisation for a certain language. All fallbacks lead to English if there is no alternative in the fall back chain. My opinion is that all non-optional messages should have a localisation in any language. There are a few exceptions, f.e. if a whole language code falls back (zh->zh-hans, als->gsw), in which case there should be no localisations at all, and in the case of de-formal, where only affected messages are to be localised. Siebrand 13:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Fully agreed with the exceptions.
 * A note on using fallbacks filling gaps in translations. There are occasions where two or more localisations could be mutual fallbacks of each other,
 * such as dialects of a macrolanguage (e.g. the two main serbian ones; or our varieties nds, and nds-NL; or the yet to be created Ripuarian varieties) or
 * differently scripted versions (e.g. sr-Latn and sr-Cyrl, and several more).
 * Currently, we do not have a way to reflect this "mutuality" in the software. We only have straight fallback chains - put more precisely, we descend trees, from some branch node strictly towards the root (English) - and we cut the process after 5 steps, so as to avoid loops.
 * I'd like thoughts and feedback about the idea to make this more flexible, while at the same time retaining or even enhancing a strict limitation of processing time. --Purodha Blissenbach 09:25, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's agood idea to have a fallback between two differently scripted versions even if it's the same language. The fallback may not be readable, and it's notreally posssible to say which version is the default one (is it Cyrillic or Latin for Serbian?)
 * On the opposite, the Serbo-Croatian (Latin) mixed language (srh) can be a valid fallback for Serbia-Latin, Croatian-Latin, and Bosnian-Latin. The same is true between generic Norwegian (no) which can be a valid fallback for Bokmål/Riksmal (nb) and Nynorsk (nn) because they share the dame script, and a very good mutual understanding (and a large comon vocabulary).
 * As well, generic Chinese (zh) is probably the same as simplified Chinese (zh-hans) used in PRC and Singapore (these regianal variants, if needed shoud used zh-hans as their fallback), but is a valid fallback for other Chinese variants (including Traditional Chinese zh-Hant, that has at least three minor variants for Hong Kong, PRC Cantonese, and Taiwanese; it's not simple to determine if the Hong Kong dialect or Taiwan dialect is the default, both will use zh-hant, but if needed zh-HK and zh-TW may use zh-hant as a valid fallback and specify translations only where this makes a difference from a common default; when it's not possible to determine which of the two minor variants is the default one, both minor variants should specify the value, even if one is equal to the one specifed in the default fallback zh-hant).
 * Verdy p 14:52, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

WikiAdmin e-mail
maybe it's just me ;), however, it seems mailing system has a small error with url. Example (part of e-mail): The Betawiki page MediaWiki:Ipb already blocked/hr has been changed on 18:15, 6 June 2008 by FuzzyBot, see http://localhost/wiki/MediaWiki:Ipb_already_blocked/hr for the current version. this is e-mail about changes for article on watchlist, if i'm not mistaken, there should be translatewiki.net instead localhost. --Dalibor Bosits 21:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's crap. Go kick Niklas :) Siebrand 19:37, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

New i18n related bugs in Mediazilla
Please voice your opinions, and vote for the bugs. --Purodha Blissenbach 23:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * bug 14434 — MediaWiki:categoriespagetext should offer links to Special:UnusedCategories, and possibly Special:WantedCategories
 * bug 14438 — int:sitesupport, int:sitesupport-url not updated from svn version of MessagesKsh.php
 * bug 14454 — "Member of group(s)" in Special:Preferences
 * bug 14455 — Invitation e-mail subject to be translated.

MediaWiki talk:Bw-mainpage-intro-text
I suggest to add a link to the extension page such as provided by an extension to the message. I tried it in the  translation, it seems to work and looks good. --Purodha 20:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I have no idea what you want to change or accomplish. Please elaborate. Siebrand 19:37, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki talk:Babel-desc
Suggestion: the text " " could be a link to  --Purodha Blissenbach 18:44, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think that this makes much sense, MediaWiki:babel-url has nothing to do with "babel userbox column". MinuteElectron 19:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Generally available special pages.
 * Restricted special pages.

by: Sp5uhe
 * Not done. Too minor a change to fuzzy everything. Siebrand 19:32, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Deleted contributions

by: Meno25
 * I disagree. The current description is accurate and does not require change. Siebrand 00:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Does "active" here refer to whether the user has made contributions at those sites, or whether the account is enabled there? – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 07:15, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The latter. "A present user, not necessarily with contributions" Siebrand 00:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Renamed messages
The message MediaWiki:Missingarticle/ksh was deleted from MessagesKsh.php some days ago. Today, I accidentally find an untranslated message MediaWiki:Missing-article/ksh which, it seems, is exactly the previously deleted one. That means, it actually has been renamed, but the process of renaming did not reach the translation to. That is imho not a good idea. I would not know of one, but imho there should be a way to semi-automatize a task like this. (-: I prefer not be bothered with re-entering messages after incomplete renames :-) --Purodha Blissenbach 19:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It looks like you missed a $2 in your translation. Siebrand 20:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I did. My apologies, the messages were look-alikes, but different. :-( --Purodha Blissenbach 02:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering what "vet" in MediaWiki:Stabilization-tab means. I am trying to translate it into Esperanto. Some other languages have: What in the heck does this mean? :-) -- Yekrats 13:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Spanish: vetar (which seems like the English word "veto")
 * French: (aq) (which I have no idea what that's an abbreviation for)
 * Portuguese: cgq (again, an abbreviation... no idea)
 * Russian: (кк) (again, an abbreviation.)
 * Dutch: (er)
 * For localisation it is a stupid word: to appraise, verify, or check for accuracy, authenticity, validity, etc.: An expert vetted the manuscript before publication. Siebrand 14:21, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

What this message means? Is it action or person? --EugeneZelenko 14:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Is a action!  M. M.  S.  15:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * "Oversight" is the process or action that enables you to completely suppress versions or log entries from sight. Not even sysops can then see the versions that have been taken out of sight. Siebrand 17:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for help! However will be good idea to reflect this in message documentation. --EugeneZelenko 14:02, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

A bit fuzzy on FUZZY!!
I just scanned a few translations marked "fuzzy." But the translations look fine to me. Where can I find the former English text to compare and see what changed? I'd like to double-check myself and make sure I'm not missing something (hopefully) subtle. I tried looking at the main entry (without the / and the language code), but all I see is a deletion log with the text available only to sysops. Thanks, Snakesteuben 12:46, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Without letting us know which messages you checked, there is hardly anything we can do for you. Please try to be as detailed as possible when asking for help. Cheers! Siebrand 08:27, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think, the question was very clear: Where can I find the former English text to compare and see what changed?
 * But I guess, Siebrand is indicating, that the answer is: Nowhere. (At least not on Betawiki.)
 * You could try to look for the changes in the diff links on, but it can be hard to find the exact corresponding diff for an change, if the summary line does not mention the message name. --:Slomox:: &gt;&lt; 13:19, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Babel extension bugs
Hi Minuteelectron.
 * 1) Babel.css does not load from server. My suggestion: add MediaWiki:Babel.css for customisation output by CSS
 * 2) Following messages content and option should changed to default values (else sysops spend many time for understanding why is Category:En-3 tough expected at least Category:User en-3):
 * 'babel-category-prefix' => 'User_', # only translate this message to other languages if you have to change it
 * 'babel-template-prefix' => 'User_', # only translate this message to other languages if you have to change it

--AlefZet 23:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * See the message in the header of Babel.css - it is intended for copying to MediaWiki:Common.css rather than being loaded directly, this ensure customizability and reduces uneeded extension code.
 * Not reason for increasing regular MediaWiki:Common.css or MediaWiki:Monobook.css that already very HUGE on live wikies. It is appears silly.--AlefZet 11:45, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is very sensible, it means that it has to be translated and if the wiki changes content language things will break. The message itself is documented on the extension page thoroughly so confusion should not be an issue.
 * MinuteElectron 20:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It breaks normal rendering of the categories like Category:User en-3 today and now. About 50-100 languages used to Babel with 6 levels in sum it is 300-600 categories. You propose change 600 categories? :D Any extension should work normally without any settings maden by SysOps or settings per wiki maden by shell admins. Else that extension should withdrawn. I not imagine Tim Starling settig User_ translation for each wiki :D)) --AlefZet 11:45, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There are no settings which need to be altered by shell admins to get the features you request, please note that the likelyhood of Babel being enabled on Wikimedia wikis is negligible anyway. Adding a MediaWiki:Babel.css page would not improve the situation in any way either, it would be more efficient to automatically add the default code, and then this be altered by MediaWiki:Common.css - either way this feature is simply a workaround and adding the code to MediaWiki:Common.css is very easy. Also Sysops are free to change the category prefix, saying that 600 categories would need changing is incorrect. MinuteElectron 21:06, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Typo in
There is a typo in this message. Seperate --> Separate --Meno25 21:57, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 10:46, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Typo in and
These messages say "Bologne blue skin", not "Cologne blue skin". /Lejonel 10:37, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 10:45, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Some problem with language mhr
I can't find mhr in language combobox in my preferences/user profile. When I registered this language was there. And I had set it up as the interface language. Recently I have changed it to ru. And now I can't change it back because it had disapeared. Please, help me.Сай 16:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone know what should I do to change my language to mhr? There is no mhr in language list, but I can make translations on it. It is not comfortable to translate interface without being able to see the result of translation.Сай 07:50, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * There something must be wrong, because i also do not see mhr in languages list, in user preferences. -yyy 09:29, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Local modification was lost in the update. Should work again. – Nike 09:39, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * At the moment it is not working yet.Сай 10:51, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

require sysop access
Hi. May I have sysop access in betawiki? I want to take a more active part here and check my translation in administrative environment. cheers!.Mostafa 00:22, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 07:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

checkuser-log
Could somebody please add descriptions for MediaWiki:checkuser-log-userips, MediaWiki:checkuser-log-ipedits, MediaWiki:checkuser-log-ipusers, MediaWiki:checkuser-log-ipedits-xff, MediaWiki:checkuser-log-ipusers-xff? I really would like to know what exactly $1 and $2 are saying in the final message. I really don't understand the purpose and I have no access to CheckUser forms. --:Slomox:: &gt;&lt; 13:44, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks to Lejonel for the description. --:Slomox:: &gt;&lt; 17:38, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Translatable groupnames
Can it be possible to translate the names for messagegroups, here is a example for Swedish:

MediaWiki messages =>  MediaWiki-meddelanden All extension      =>  Alla tillägg

 M. M.  S.  10:12, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't understand who would benefit from it. Most of them are proper names anyway. – Nike 10:36, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Untranslated messages
I've translated a lot of messages for nds-nl. When I go to the translation tool and select the first option (MediaWiki 1.12) 1414 messages appear as untranslated, when I click on the link, they are translated, how do I know what to translate? Servien 17:39, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think I have fixed the bug now. Thanks for repoting. – Nike 19:41, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Where is gone?
Some time ago, there was a question asked here about how to find the names of messages given a page where they appear. The answer was  in the URL, which I could see working. Now it is gone again. What to do? --Purodha Blissenbach 17:44, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Works only in sandwiki. – Nike 19:41, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Using of grammatical cases in MediaWiki:Babel extension for Old Church Slavonic
How can I use Instrumental case in language name? As default it shows "Словѣньскъ" (the language name in Nominative case) but it should be "словѣ́ньскꙑ" (Instrumental case). ОйЛ 14:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid this is not possible due to the way language names are translated. However, if you translate all the Babel messages (specifically the babel-x-n ones) you will be able to use the instrumental case in them. MinuteElectron 19:53, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Message lost?
See this diff, there is one deletion after line 1918, of the line saying: 'widthheight' => '$1Ã—$2', I am 100% sure that only minutes ago, I altered  to " ", I did not delete it. Now, where is it gone? It does not seem to have been moved elsewhere, at least I couldn't find it; and it seems hard to believe that it was deleted from the messages base in general. --Purodha Blissenbach 10:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Messages equal to that in MessagesEn.php and not present as page in Betawiki are removed from source files. In those cases fallback will take care of showing the proper message. If a message is optional, and present as page, it is ignore on export. I think the latter is the case here. Siebrand 12:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This is imho inconsistent with the initial two paragraphs of  above. If a message is not changed from English, and another language being an in-between fallback, later changes it, the translation is possibly broken. This is likely not the case with this special one, since its effectively of language codes  or maybe , since it is only figures and a symbol. But in general, we cannot rely on handing messages along a fallback chain, can we? Or else, am I missing something? --Purodha Blissenbach 19:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Error in Template New portal
Likely, there is an error in the template:New portal. I tried to find it, in vain. The page Portal:Ksh is in category:Languages with a Wiktionary project which is wrong. --Purodha Blissenbach 16:31, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I fixed it; it was missing an }. Jon Harald Søby 19:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you! --Purodha Blissenbach 22:27, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

, should use PLURAL
For $1 revision/revisions. --EugeneZelenko 14:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Added to list. Siebrand 08:48, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

sharedupload messages problems
Currently sentences from, , are split on 2 parts. They include, ,. It's very hard to guess how to translate such broken sentences with correct grammar case.

I think mentioned messages should monolithic sentences and accept only links as parameter. In this case will be more easy to make correct translation and also simplify translators life :-) EugeneZelenko 14:44, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Added to list. Siebrand 08:48, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Plz change this to a full sentence because this in combination with $1 in german the text gets strange

by: DaSch
 * Added to the list. Siebrand 08:48, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Problem in disambiguations-text message
Hi. Can somebody write something about this message (disambiguations-text) specially about changing this link ( MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage ). As I checked this link appears as problematic link.Mostafa 14:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I cannot tell. why the "problematic link" warning appears. Otherwise, I gave it a try, MediaWiki:disambiguations-text/qqq --Purodha Blissenbach 20:16, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I will work on to improve the warnings, just please give me some time. – Nike 20:23, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Niuean (niu)
Hi, I cannot find Niuean (niu) on the My Preferences language list. Could someone add it in please? Thanks. --Jose77 08:55, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

The same problem with Eastern Mari(mhr). Сай 08:05, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Request it at Translating:Tasks. SPQRobin 11:39, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

When undeleting a page, the fieldset around Restore/Reset buttons has a legend that says "View deleted pages" (MediaWiki:Undelete). These buttons have nothing to do with viewing, so the legend should be changed to something like "Restore revisions". - AlexSm 04:09, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Thanks. Siebrand 12:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

'Pages where template include size is exceeded'. What does this mean and where does it occur? Is it the template that's too big or a parameter or the page or what? It's a mystery! Lloffiwr 18:44, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * when templates are expanded, there is a size limit for the number of bytes (or characters?) yielded. Usually that occurs from excessively nested templates, recursive templates, or ones having x-zillion of #if #case or similar contructs in them. When the wikicode parser detects this, it outputs a red warning message to the page. Likely the pages are meant, where the current/last cached version has this error. --Purodha Blissenbach 23:37, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I added the above explanation to the corresponding /qqq. Thanks Purodha. Siebrand 12:50, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

edit previous / next
Many many thanks and big hugs for the "edit next / edit previous / return to list" links! Wow, what a brilliant addition! --Purodha Blissenbach 23:28, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * it took a lot of whining :) Big cheers to Niklas. Siebrand 07:24, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

autodetecting unbalanced html tags?
Is there a chance to include detection of errors like [ the one corrected here] in automated html-sanity checks? --Purodha Blissenbach 23:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll try. – Nike 07:33, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Problem in message
Hi. I don't understand what the problem is in message MediaWiki:Disambiguations-text/vo. Could you guys please tell me? Thanks, Malafaya 11:18, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Support – Nike 11:31, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry for not having seen it :(. I suppose there is no problem. I'll wait on the improved warning. Thanks, Malafaya 12:19, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Localized edit buttons for be-tarask
Thanks to Nike for implementing 11732! Could you please include localized image for be-tarask?
 * commons:Image:Wiki-button-bold-be.png
 * commons:Image:Wiki-button-italic-be.png
 * commons:Image:Wiki-button-link-be.png

However images should be renamed to from be to be-tarask for consistency.

EugeneZelenko 14:52, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Are these only for be-tarask, or can other cyrillic scripts use these? – Nike 16:01, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Only for be-tarask. Other languages will be different. --EugeneZelenko 16:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Added.--Alnokta 21:36, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for help! --EugeneZelenko 15:12, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Parameter deficiency regarding date/time.
There is no way to make MediaWiki:Rcnote/ksh a well formed sentence without separating date and time into two parameters, which are currently aggregated into $3 alone. I tried, but I could not get beyond what is likely seen as "bad computerized style". The same is true for likely almost all similar messages, that have date and time glued together in one parameter. I remember that I occasionally filed bugs in Mediazilla, when detecting one, which were usually honored. Should I continue doing that individually? Alternatively, I could look up how theses splits were made in the past, and just make more of them in the source code, if I can. Yet I am uncertain, whether or not, and if so, which, coordination would be needed for such changes. I do not want to break anything. --Purodha Blissenbach 10:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Fixed for rcnote. – Nike 18:14, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I propose adding  around MediaWiki:Formerror/en. This message says "Error: could not submit form" and it's displayed under page H1 heading (inside "contentSub" in Monobook skin), and by default it has small font and gray color, which makes it hard to notice. The message is displayed e.g. when you try to move the page into invalid title like. - AlexSm 21:02, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This is not an issue with this message, it is (possibly) an issue with the modern skin. I reproduced this in the MonoBook skin and things are much more clear there. The message you are referring to is used as a page subtitle in SpecialMovepage.php. I do not think it is a good idea to modify the behaviour of that method. The css for Modern skin for class error could be changed. Any opinions? Siebrand 12:33, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The subtitle is probably not the best place for an error message. – Nike 18:15, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes made in system texts
If you've made some changes in the text on your local wiki. Does this effect the Betawiki or vice versa? For example I've changed "controleren" > "contreleren"/"naokieken" do I have to change it on both wiki's? Servien 11:36, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Changes done in Betawiki are pushed to other installations trough the version control system. Changes to other wikies do not affect MediaWiki localisation, except for only those wikies itself. – Nike 12:33, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, please remember that if you have already changed something on a local wiki and then you change it on Betawiki, the local wiki will continue to show the new local wiki message - if you want the new Betawiki message to show on the local wiki then you must delete the new message on the local wiki. It is less work altogether to translate on Betawiki only. But, if you want a message for a particular local wiki to be different to the default message on Betawiki, then you definitely need to translate/change the message on both wikis. In that case, you should do a straight translation of the default message on Betawiki but can have a different message on the local wiki. A good example of this is adding special character boxes to the bottom of edit boxes on your local wiki. Lloffiwr 22:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Translate-rc-translation-filter-site
We'd need an explanation on MediaWiki:Translate-rc-translation-filter-site/qqq so as to understand, how to translate it. Thanks. --Purodha Blissenbach 14:39, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That is for changes to MediaWiki-messages without any language code. For example MediaWiki:Sidebar or MediaWiki:Common.css, but not MediaWiki:Common.css/fr or other messages for specific languages. These messages will not be submitted to svn, but will only affect the interface on Betawiki. /Lejonel 21:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Your last statement is incorrect, Lejonel. Bw-* messages will not be committed. Translate-* definitely will be committed. Cheers! Siebrand 08:50, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe I should not have said anything about committing, since I don't really know how that is done. But is there not a difference between for example MediaWiki:Translate-desc/sv and MediaWiki:Translate-desc? If I change the Swedish translation, it will be changed next time commits of messages are done. But I assumed that if I changed the English "site message", it would not be committed at the same time as other translations. At least not without you looking at it more carefully and agreeing it is an improvement. And in the core "site messages" there is MediaWiki:Sidebar, MediaWiki:Recentchangestext, and other Betawiki customisations which should not be committed. /Lejonel 22:44, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That is correct. Messages changed in MediaWiki: without a language suffix will be used in this wiki, and will not be committed. Changes to source messages (/en if you like), should be discussed here and will be changed manually by a developer after a discussion with a 'change' outcome. Cheers! Siebrand 12:36, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Special:Allmessage
Where is Special:Allmessage gone from Betawiki? It was most helpful when searching for specific message texts. --Purodha Blissenbach 22:24, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It has been changed into Special:Translate. However, you can also just use Special:Search. Jon Harald Søby 08:14, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Neither helps. Can we have the standard Special:Allmessages back, please? There is no real reason to delete it from, is there? --Purodha Blissenbach 17:36, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You should use Special:Translate with task=view, task=reviewall or task=review depending on your exact needs. We just do not use Special:Allmessages. Cheers! Siebrand 08:21, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It is my wish to find a message in the MediaWiki name space, given (part(s) of) the current translated text in it. Currently, there is no way to do that on . That is unfortunate. At times, I see something wrong somewhere, and since I cannot easily switch to  mode, and I cannot search for the wrong piece of text in the messages base, I have a hard time finding out, where to alter it, usualy. --Purodha Blissenbach 22:48, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Another note, the trouble is Special:Translate refuses to list English messages (at least, last time I checked) which means it misses functionality of Special:Allmessages. MinuteElectron 11:10, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

✅ Re-added by popular demand Siebrand 15:28, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Sentence formation in Gujarati
Hi, While translating for localisation, I came across few difficulties in messages, for example: I've come across the question already with my own translataions, an quickly forgit it again. In "my" langauages, we can always choose words allowing a word order that fits with current screen layouts. This often gives a bit odd or uncommon or "harsh" expressions, but users are used to that; somewhat unfortunately, I must admit. Imho, it would be great if we had more flexibility to arrange stuff for better taste of language. Same with splitting date and time fields into their components. Same with Grammar around. Yet, this sometimes poses a layout problem. We need to have less fixed screen layouts here and there. Imho not a problem, but more rigid developers, customarily american-ly or anglosaxon-ly minded, may see that differently ;-) Greetings. --Purodha Blissenbach 22:23, 5 July 2008 (UTC) Please advise me regarding these few things, I am in anyways carrying on with translating adn hoping to complete 100% translation for most used messages on mediawiki. Thanks in advance.--Dhaval (ધવલ) 15:34, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) gramatically the sentences in Gujarati are formed in a reverse order of English, to give a typical example of this, "From month (and earlier): _______" in Gujarati will be written as "_____ month from (and earlier) ( મહિનાથી (અને પહેલાનાં))" and similarly "From year (and earlier): _______ " in Gujarati will be written as "_____ year from (and earlier)  ( વર્ષથી (અને પહેલાનાં))", I hope that these kind of sentenses should be taken care of while replacing the lenguage as there is a text box at the end of phrase in English, which should be in the begining in Gujarati.
 * Probably not. This is not localisation but internationalisation. Maybe a coder can comment? Siebrand 15:45, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I am inclined to say: "Of course not!" If I am not completely mistaken, then there is not need to take care of word order, since variables $1 $2 etc. for month, year numbers, etc. can be placed anywhere, and words inside the rest of the sentences can be different for each language. It is just as you type it. So where is the problem? --Purodha Blissenbach 23:20, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Purodha - you have missed the point I think. The question is whether an input box and the text next to the input box can be switched to have the input box first. Lloffiwr 21:45, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, now I gotcha. No. We currently cannot do this, it would indeed need (re)programming. It's not a big deal in and by itself, but quite a task, since there are likely 100's op places, where input boxed would have to be moved inline with translatable texts.
 * You could refrase and construct question. And the textbox will be the answer. I have made so in mhr in some cases. Example. Original variant: "From year (and earlier):____", and variant with question: "From which year to start? ____". Сай 12:52, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) there are few messages which can not be translated in Guajrati, i mean there is no literally meaning of them, and I won't feel to just transliterate them, so would prefer to leave them as they are, e.g. RSS Feed, Atom Feed, etc.
 * Sounds OK. Just put the English text in as translation. That way it will not show up as untranslated. Siebrand 15:45, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Do you want me to translate the !!FUZZY!! as well? as I have translated the rest of message but this, and it still appears in untranslated messages.
 * !!FUZZY!! is used to indicate that the message needs to be updated. So compare it carefully to the English source message. Once that has been done, just remove it. Siebrand 15:45, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ although I could not answer one question. Siebrand 15:45, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks Siebrand for your quick most answers and yes, moving it to this right place as well. Now regarding No.1, how to ask this to a coder?--Dhaval (ધવલ) 16:09, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * We have some problems with different word order in Welsh too, although probably not as difficult to solve as yours. Is it possible for you to construct a different sentence along the lines of "Items before and up to the year of:____" or "Entries up to and for the year number:____" or "Entries up to and for the year shown in the box on the right:______" or "The month from (and earlier) is:____"? For "rows per strip:______" we have to write "number of rows per strip:_____" in Welsh, otherwise the grammar is all wrong. Lloffiwr 22:04, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * In the Ripuarian languages, to a small extent, we do that, too, e.g. "Page title: ____" is much better than "Page: ____" but both are, what we consider "Telegram style" i.e. replacing normal sentences by the bare minimum word list conveying rudimentary meaning. That always bodes like military, inhumane power, and police. We deeply dislike either. "pixels: ___ " is bad, "number of pixels: ___ " is better, yet (inhumane) computerese, but "in the image there are ___ pixels." would be language. Thank you for listening. --Purodha Blissenbach 22:40, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Just want to add that I also support Dhaval's first suggestion - having flexibility over where an input box goes would be useful. My suggestions above for rephrasing were meant as a kind of damage limitation, or medicine whilst we wait for the operation! Thank you to Сай too for your suggestion to turn the text into a question - that might be useful. Lloffiwr 20:57, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

requiring Bureaucrat
Would you mind adding me in Bureaucrat group? ThanksMostafa 20:04, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What do you require this for? MinuteElectron 20:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Translating Spanish
When translating into Spanish (es) it could be useful to also view the translations to Català (ca), Galego (gl) and Português (pt). --Boivie 08:44, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Not certain if that is something to be decided by 'us' (non native Spanish speakers). There is a lot of politics between some of the speakers of these languages, and even though politics have nothing to do with Betawiki and localisation, I do not want to step on toes. If you want to act pro-actively, best approach a few Spanish translators and make them aware of the possibility. Cheers! Siebrand 12:18, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Localized edit buttons for Ukrainian
And for Ukrainian language, please: --Ahonc 12:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * commons:Image:Button bold ukr.png
 * commons:Image:Button italic ukr.png
 * commons:Image:Button internal link ukr.png
 * ✅ Siebrand 14:03, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Messages that should use NaN undefineds
Imho, should use NaN undefineds on the number of list items in $2. --Purodha Blissenbach 10:57, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki:Filetype-unwanted-type and
 * MediaWiki:Filetype-banned-type
 * MediaWiki supports multiple file types by default if uploads are enabled. "$2" in these messages has the form of png, gif, jpg, jpeg, ogg, pdf, svg. Isn't it a bit overkill to implement plural just in case a wiki admin enables uploads, but decreases the allowed number of file types to one? Siebrand 16:23, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅ Plural is now supported on those two. – Nike 18:28, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Maltese Characters
Can you please add the maltese special characters at the bottom of the edit page.

À à Ċ ċ È è Ġ ġ Ħ ħ Għ għ Ì ì Ò ò Ù ù Ż ż

Thanks --Giangian15 17:47, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Most of them were already available. The two missing ones were added. Siebrand 19:07, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Voctrain messages
The messages should be using, and its name is ending with a trailing space, which is likely to cause problems. --Purodha Blissenbach 01:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Voctrain:Voctrain There are questions remaining questions remaining out of a total of questions total
 * Voctrain:Voctrain Answer s
 * These messages are not from code we are maintaining. Best let GerardM know, or Kim Bruning, as stated in the message group description. Siebrand 08:40, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * P.s. If ik click the red links, I think I am not getting to the source message. Please fix the links. Without a proper report, no developer will be able to help you. Siebrand 08:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Oops, I completely missed the "/"s at the end. :-( --Purodha Blissenbach 09:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I added those so that they would work at all. – Nike 11:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Localization
I've been given translator privileges and I'm trying to translate some interface messages into Lombard, but when I go to BetaWiki UI Messages I only get the following options: "view all messages from [lang]" - "view all messages untraslated from [lang]" and "review all messages translated into [lang]"; but I can't view all messages that are "untranslated into" so that I can see what still needs translating into Lombard. Am I missing something? --Dakrismeno 09:38, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. Untranslated messages are the default. Try this link if your language preference has been to 'lmo'. Cheers! Siebrand 21:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Typo in Tog-translate-nonewsletter
e-mailaddress --> e-mail address Please fix this. Thanks. --Meno25 21:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 21:08, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Imageinvalidfilename
If uploading of other file types are allowed, the target file in that message is not necessarily an image. I think the message should say "Target file name is invalid". That should be just as informative for images, and more correct for other file types. /Lejonel 23:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Was reverted. – Nike 07:23, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Typo in
to found --> to find --Meno25 07:19, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It is possible that this is referring to the ability to create a new colony (correct usage of "found") rather than to discover a new colony (usage of "find"), it is impossible to know without being aware of where in the game it is used - perhaps a FreeCol developer could be consulted. MinuteElectron 11:00, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it is safe to assume that "found" is meant, as the message's name contains "foundColony". Jon Harald Søby 15:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Leading hyhpen before the MW extensions/more translatable parts
I would have two feature requests:
 * 1) Put a leading hyphen (or something else) to MW-related extensions to distingush them from other project in the list, it's very similar, and hard to find quickly the end of the list of extensions (currently it's not a very bad problem, but when hopefully more projects join, it will be)
 * 2) More translatable parts, especially the new main page of Special:Translation, and the Translating:Intro, Betawiki:Translator etc. texts should auto switch to the language selected by the user like in the main page. // Dani komolyan? 13:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Enable the nice gadget from your preferences. – Nike 13:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 2) Working on it later this summer.
 * – Nike 13:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, the gadget is very cool :) // Dani komolyan? 16:57, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

You have to correct this message: « NaN Thumbs up givesn » should be « NaN Thumbs up givens ». --ToliñoFala aquí comigo 13:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The message is correct as is. You are mistaken. Siebrand 15:18, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thumb up doesn't sound natural to me and the segmentation is also very awkward. – Nike 18:30, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That does not make it incorrect. The "n" could be added to both parameters of the plural to make it less awkward, I agree. Does not make it wrong, though. Cheers! Siebrand 18:45, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

New optional messages
Please make the following messages optional:, and  --Meno25 04:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 21:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

16 × 16 Pixel / 1 × 1 Pixel
Not a top priority, since we can get along with a "lazy speech" pattern, but to be using the best style posible, we would translate to Kölsch as follows: The optional last form is could be used thoughout, it was correct, but bodes a bit like "using too many unnecessary words". Luckily, the various ways to read " × " as as word(s) do not requiere grammatical differenciation. :-)
 * 16 × 16 Pixelle
 * 1 × 1 Pixel
 * 1 Pixel × 16 Pixelle — (required)
 * 16 × 1 Pixel
 * 16 Pixelle × 1 Pixel — (optional, correct as well)

I am mentioning this here because if I changed MediaWiki:File-info-size accordingly, it would have to be added to the "using PLURAL" class, does it not? --Purodha Blissenbach 07:59, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Btw., we could as well always abbreviate: 1px × 16px, etc. and avoid the hassle. --Purodha Blissenbach 08:02, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I think plural may now work in it, as I made it inline wikitext. – Nike 10:41, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, PLURAL is working, tx! --Purodha Blissenbach 11:42, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Why PLURAL can't be used instead of user(s) construction? --EugeneZelenko 14:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that is a possibility. Added to list. Will only be processed after release of 1.13. Siebrand 18:29, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Fuzzied not shown
Not all of fuzzied messages shown when I selected "View all translated messages from" on the Special:Translate pages. Is it an error? Rex 01:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Please provide more detail. Please provide a sample URL (and if there is not language in the URL, a language code), an observed behaviour and an expected behaviour. Cheers! Siebrand 07:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Four basic questions
Maybe my questions are really basic. Maybe they have been already answered somewhere else. If so, my true apologies as I'm new to BetaWiki (I opened an account in September but just today started doing something):
 * 1) I have translated Nahuatl namespaces here, taking the Quechuan translation as an example. I've noticed namespaces on the Quechuan Wikipidiya are already translated and namespaces serve fine. However, I've checked the Nahuatl WIkipedia and it still have Spanish namespaces (Usuario:, Discusión:, etc.). Do changes need to be done somewhere else or am I just being too desperated? Maybe a few hours?
 * Just add your wish to have the namespace names updated to Translating:Tasks. Greetings. --Purodha Blissenbach 08:38, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, actually, I was wondering if it was there!--Fluence 18:49, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) To translate or modify .php messages one needs to be a developer right? Thanks --Fluence 01:15, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Correct. There is no need for you to be one. We need you to be productive as a translator, and let us do the heavy lifting. Siebrand 21:39, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) What's the "export" button for on "Special:Magic"? --Fluence 01:19, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Developers use it to make copy/paste ready code for in the .php files. Siebrand 21:40, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Sorry... fourth: will the translations I make here automatically replace the ones made before on each project or do I have to request someplace/someone to do it? Thanks--Fluence 01:41, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No. Pages in the MediaWiki: namespace in wikis have priority over messages in the generic product file. You either have to change the local page, or delete it. Siebrand 21:39, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

P.s. Best have one topic per question. Easier archiving, easier threading, better topic names. Cheers! Siebrand 21:40, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Great and thank you so much. Incredible job by the way Siebrand! --Fluence 23:53, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggested message type "seen by admins only"
So as to support understaffed translators to some more exotic languages, we could add a classification of messages as "seen by admins only". This is something which "most used", "standard", and "optional" does not properly reflect. Thus, translating messages for admins would often be less urgent a task for translators. --Purodha Blissenbach 08:48, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * messages for admins are not seen by most wiki users in most installations.
 * those messages contain a lot of computerese, like "IP-address range" or "database query", etc., so the're pretty hard to translate (or only partially tranlated) to some languages.
 * wiki admins are often more computer literate and thus understanding english to a larger degree than average citizens.
 * Personally I do not think that granularising things any further than we already do helps anything, aside from the effort taking time that could otherwise be put into translating... Siebrand 22:43, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Mark how messages are treated technically, i.e. determine their possible contents
As far as I recall, User:Gangleri had been collecting a whole lot of that stuff once, and it should be likely still available somewhere.

For Mediawiki messages, I know that there are ones, distinguished by: Maybe, ther are more cases.
 * 1) html
 * 2) * that message may contain any html markup
 * 3) * that message may contain the html markup permitted by the wiki
 * 4) * that message must not contain html markup (if they do, it is rendered verbatim)
 * 5) inline wiki code (e.g. ''' or [...] )
 * 6) * inline wiki code is accepted
 * 7) * inline wiki code is not permitted (and rendered verbatim, if present)
 * 8) block wiki code (e.g. === ... === or * at a beginning of a line)
 * 9) * block wiki code is accepted
 * 10) * block wiki code is not permitted (and rendered verbatim, if present)
 * 11) placement
 * 12) * this message will show up for a $-placeholder in another message
 * 13) * the message is used as a block element, or to fill one, in the website
 * 14) * the message is used as an inline element, or inside one, rendered as a piece of text, outside a link, in the website
 * 15) * the message is used as a wiki-link target in the website
 * 16) * the message is used as the ancor text of a link in the website
 * 17) * the message is used as value of a title= tag, or similar, in an html element in the website
 * 18) * the message is used as value of an accesskey= tag in an html element in the website
 * 19) * the message is used inside of an e-mail
 * 20) * the message is used in print
 * 21) Special
 * 22) * the message has special content as described in (URL), e.g. MediaWiki:Sidebar.

Can we collect (re-collect and update) this type of info and have them included in the list of hints accompanying each message? It would be more helpful to just have it once, than to try and re-try for each and every case of uncertainty. If so, where and how would the info be collected? Added to the /qqq hint data? I'd rather want to keep most of it separate, since almost all of it is non-textual data. --Purodha Blissenbach 22:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The only way for it be be useful is to put it in /qqq. Feel free to add. You can do it as well as anyone else. Please use templates as little as possible, as the /qqq is also exported into gettext files, and using templates will make it harder to use. Siebrand 22:42, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * These technical propertery data are highly repetitive and schematic, so imho template use would be hardly avoidable. Of course, we can try to get away with a single template eating a list of parameters from a pretty narrow set, see above.
 * I am rather uncertain, whether or not such formalized stuff should be intermingled with human readable text like the /qqq data. Using a template for it will make it easily extractable by various technical means, so I would not mind using the /qqq for the time being.
 * Is the data available somewhere somehow that Gangleri once collected? --Purodha Blissenbach 11:23, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The way Gangleri facilitated localisation was way too technical. That's not the level we want to have in here again. Siebrand 09:32, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Protect-fallback
What is MediaWiki:Protect-fallback being used for, and what can be replacing "$1" in it? --Purodha Blissenbach 11:44, 20 July 2008 (UTC)


 * That is for wikis with more protection levels than 'autoconfirmed' and 'sysop'. For example if your wiki has configured an extra protection level 'superprotect', then the protection form will have one more option. That option will be MediaWiki:Protect-fallback 'Require "superprotect" permission' (unless some admin has created "MediaWiki:Protect-level-superprotect"). /Lejonel 13:38, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

More message requiring PLURAL
--Purodha Blissenbach 15:46, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki:Lag-warn-normal
 * MediaWiki:Lag-warn-high
 * MediaWiki:Quiz_addedPoints
 * MediaWiki:Quiz cutoffPoints
 * ✅ for the core messages; for the quiz messages I have no idea how to fix it. Jon Harald Søby 17:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I've inpected the Quiz Extension at Wikiversity, mewanwhile. There is no way to fix them. They are prompts. You enter figures of 0, 1, … N in front of them, so they are to be ambiguous, as they are. I am sorry that I entered them here before I properly researched them. --Purodha Blissenbach 19:56, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Add link to
I believe it would be better if there was a link to Special:Export in instead of plain text. --Meno25 12:00, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ by Siebrand. --Meno25 02:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

There is a missing "you" in. Current: "Please confirm that really want to recreate this page" Should be: "Please confirm that you really want to recreate this page" --Meno25 12:59, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 10:08, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

"previous message" links to page itself.
http://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=MediaWiki:Breadcrumbs-desc/ksh&loadgroup=ext-breadcrumbs displays a link to the "previous message" pointing to the page itself. --Purodha Blissenbach 09:17, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Dito on page: MediaWiki:Fixedimage-desc/qqq

"next message"
"next message" never links anywhere any more. --Purodha Blissenbach 15:56, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

✅ Fixed indeed. --Purodha Blissenbach 19:25, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Both should be fixed after update. – Nike 17:41, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Why nah babel doesn't show?
I've got English: #babel:en-4 But Nahuatl does not appear #babel:nah-2 I've translated MediaWiki babel, example: MediaWiki:Babel-2/nah But it won't work. What's the problem then? Is it somewhere else? As far as I know Nahuatl is supported by Beta and it's isn't a template either. Is not that important but I'd appreciate if you could answer me :) --Fluence 17:00, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I've checked this, and I do not see why e.g. on the page Portal:nah there are missing templates only but not the Babel extension messages. It may be a bug in the Babel extension. Best talk to MinuteElectron about it. He is the author of the Babel extension. I've dropped him a note already. --Purodha Blissenbach 19:12, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * nah is not a valid ISO 639-3 code and so won't work under the current system, I will see if I can get non ISO codes to work at some point - I've added it to my to do list. MinuteElectron 19:14, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

That'd explain it; [nah] it's an ISO 639-2. The ISO 639-3 for Classical Nahuatl is [nci]. We've been using [nah] instead of [nci] as the MediaWiki extension was given long ago. Don't worry, whenever you can I'd be grateful. --Fluence 00:15, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I had seen that,  is one of the rather rare codes which are in ISO 639-2 and not in ISO 639-3, but since it is present in , I was assuming it to work despite of that. --Purodha Blissenbach 07:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Possibly, it would be good, to translate, and the other variants, as well? I do not know, how distant they are, and how many users will be there to use them, but in the end, it is often more helpful if there is more precision. --Purodha Blissenbach 07:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The only problem ,if moved, is  is already a variant, comprised within  ; all modern variants are comprised within  ;   for example. It wouldn't be accurate to place  within   as   is an evolution of , not a variant. This is some kind of map:
 * - variety of nahuan languages; includes:
 * Sole literary variant with no native speakers:
 * nci (Classical Nahuatl, 1325-1645)
 * Modern spoken and written variants with native speakers:
 * nlv (Orizaba Nahuatl c.17th Century-present, with modern alphabet, 1922-present)
 * nhx (Isthmus c.17th Century-present)
 * Others...

So we've got an oddly used code;  in which Classical Nahuatl. Furthermore, as  was (and continues) to be the first and best referenced and documented variant, it's considered to be the lingua franca of all other variants, as if   really corresponded to it. And that's why variants should be included as subdomains of. It's complex. --Fluence 21:07, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Needs to be adressed by Babel extension dev. Siebrand 19:40, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * This regression has now been fixed, sorry for the delay. MinuteElectron 20:03, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much, no problem on the delay ;)--Fluence 23:35, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Show number of messages in Special:Translate
It would be very useful, if Special:Translate could show the total number of messages and the number of messages yet untranslated for every extension. Would make it easier to see where additional work is needed and where not. --:Slomox:: &gt;&lt; 12:59, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Is typically a usability issue. Will not get a really high priority. Siebrand 16:06, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Needs to be put on a task list. Siebrand 19:34, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Put on a list. Siebrand 10:04, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

How to translate such stuff??
NaN revisionss

When i get across such stuff what should i do.. translate revision and revisions? or just revisions?

and another question.. is it possible to translate namespace titles here.. like Wikipedia:, Help:, etc etc??

Thx --Giangian15 10:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * PLURAL is a function that selects one of the two parts, depending on the value of the parameter. So in this case you should translate both "revision" and "revisions".
 * I think I've read in several help-texts that namespace titles in messages should not be translated.
 * Namespace titles themselves can be translated in Special:AdvancedTranslate. --Boivie 12:50, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually PLURAL could be more complicated. For example Slavic languages have 3 plural forms.
 * You need to look into language textbooks and find out how correctly spell 1 item, 2 items, ... N items and implement convertPlural. See French, Russian, and other languages as example.
 * EugeneZelenko 14:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes man maltese has two plural forms, but what does this got to do with this, i'm confused man :( just tell me what to do when i get across such situations.. at the moment i'm translating everything.. revision and revisions. The question is:

i continue translating it like this?? or i dnt need to translate revision?

Besides one word has only one plural after all.

P.s gonna look at italian what they're doing cause it's the only other language i understand besides maltese and english.

Thanks

--Giangian15 14:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * As EugeneZelenko has already explained: if your langauge has plural forms equal to English (singular and plural), just translate it as is. If your plural grammar is more complex, tell us how it works. Then we can add some code to MediaWiki. If the latter is the case, best skip the messages containing plural until the grammar for your language has been implemented. Cheers! Siebrand 21:12, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok thanks whoever added the italian translation in the edit page. I'm afraid it's complex though... Edit: Just figured that there are some circumstances that required complex grammer form.. spk to you after i finish the rest. bye. Giangian15 21:55, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

According to the articles Maltese language and Dual at the English Wikipedia, it seems like Maltese have two forms of plural; one form for 2, and one form for more than 2. --Boivie 05:26, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes but they don't exist coherently together.. there is the plural miksur (broken plural) and the plural sħiħ (whole plural), a word only has one plural.. practically the sħiħ, just add a small suffix to a word and it becomes plural like:

siġġu (chair) ---> siġġijiet (chairs)

and then we have the plural miksur.. words like:

medja (table) ---> imwejjed (tables)

but that's not the problem.. that i was thinking about.. it's more complex.. difficult to explain cause in maltese:


 * one chair --> siġġu wieħed
 * 2-10 chairs --> żewġ - għaxar siġġijiet

but


 * 11 - 19 chair --> ħdax -il siġġu - dsatax -il siġġu

it goes back to singular and (-il) is added in the middle..

then from 20 chairs ... għoxrin siġġu... etc etc

remains singular till infinity..

infinita ta' siġġijiet (infinity of chairs)

only between 2-9 we use the plural really.. when we're talking about definite numbers.

So what am i gonna do?? Thanks --Giangian15 01:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Edit: it gets more complicated than that.. really.. with the number 2..

1 time --> darba

2 times --> darbtejn not żewġ drabi

another example

1 day --> jum

2 days --> jumejn not żewġ t'ijiem

5 days --> ħames t'ijiem

etċ etċ

--Giangian15 01:24, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I found the algorithm Gettext uses. It's demoed on Sandbox. I don't know any Maltese so I couldn't put real word there. – Nike 07:46, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * yeah that's the algorithm practically..

Listen this problem that we're talking about only arises when we're talking about definite numbers. Indefinite plurals it's normal, a singular and a plural.

So if it's possible can i retain the old plural function (for the indefinite) and this new plural function (definite), just tell me how to use them though.. --Giangian15 12:38, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I think, that the text must be in one row. Because there is different displaying:

One row: Edits will be incorporated into the |stable version once an established user reviews them.The draft is shown below. [ $2 NaN changes awaits] review. Edits will be incorporated into the |stable version once an established user reviews them.The draft is shown below. [ $2 NaN changes awaits] review.

(first two sentences are bold)

Two rows: '''Edits will be incorporated into the |stable version once an established user reviews them. The draft is shown below.''' [ $2 NaN changes awaits] review. '''Edits will be incorporated into the |stable version once an established user reviews them. The draft is shown below.''' [ $2 NaN changes awaits] review.

(first and last sentences are bold) --Ahonc 14:53, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * This could be solved by changing where the bold markers are placed (adding some to the end of the first line and start of the second line), while maintaining the two line split (which is undoubtedly a good thing). I will make this change now. MinuteElectron 11:03, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This has been fixed. MinuteElectron 11:14, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * But why did you not put in one row?--Ahonc 20:55, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Splitting it in to multiple line reduces ambiguity of the bold syntax ensuring that translators do not also make a mistake and anyone modifying the message also does not. It also makes changes more obvious when viewed in the subversion repository. MinuteElectron 19:45, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Too long an confusing topic. If any questions remain, please restate them, and use less confusing formatting with proper indentation! Siebrand 10:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

New LanguageDsb.php and changes in LanguageHsb.php
I made a new LanguageDsb.php because it had Upper Sorbian grammar rules for any reason. Would you be so kind committing it and checking it for any missing braces? Thank you.

Besides: Could you delete the lines with  in the grammar forms for instrumental and lokatiw in LanguageHsb.php and change, if necessary, the number of braces? Those else lines are not correct because they add the prepositions z resp. wo for projects where they are not allowed to be if the project is another one than such that is mentioned in the grammar forms of LanguageHsb.php. So here in Upper Sorbian interface of Betawiki is shown a double preposition "wo" on the bottom of the page in abouttitle message Wo wo Betawiki instead Wo Betawiki. Kind regards, --Michawiki 16:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Not going to update this. Wikimedia specific configuration should not take place in MediaWiki. Request this to be configured on the Wikimedia farm though . Also see 14165. Siebrand 20:20, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Links to mediawiki.org
Hi. Is it possible to add links to mediawiki.org in special:translate. like this.--Alnokta 09:42, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe Niklas can put it on his list, but this is eye candy that will definately get a low priority. Siebrand 10:38, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Needs to be put on a task list. Siebrand 19:40, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Put on feature request list. Siebrand 10:06, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Rephrase
The message should be rephrased to make it more general and not Wikimedia specific i.e. remove the word "Wikimedia". --Meno25 18:45, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Will be taken care of after 1.13 release. Siebrand 08:35, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Same for . --Meno25 11:35, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 19:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Categorytree-mode-pages
In MediaWiki:Categorytree-mode-pages, there is a reference to "images", which, imho, should better be worded "media", if I am not mistaken. --Purodha Blissenbach 19:30, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ ("file"). Siebrand 19:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Intersection-desc
The German and the English text of MediaWiki:Intersection-desc are contraticitve. I cannot tell which is correct. Just in case, the Englisch ("union", not "intersection") was good, I've created a German translation here which you can use. Otherwise leave the German translation as is, delete "my" one from this wiki, and alter the English one. Thank you. --Purodha Blissenbach 15:55, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The English message should be "intersection". /Lejonel 11:41, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The previous German message is correct, then. --Purodha Blissenbach 19:31, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You can mark fixed items with ✅ :) – Nike 10:35, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅, only some messages now need to be fuzzied. - Or does that happen automagically? --Purodha Blissenbach 15:10, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Editbox layout problem with bidi-Gadget
The Gadget "Buttons to force text direction of text area." creates the same problem for me that is described in bug 9902 - there should be a line wrap allowed, between the "bidi=override" button, and the edit box's.

I tried to find the place to fix it but I was unsuccessfull. It is likely hidden in some javascript. A good chance could be imho, to insert just another item - a simple space - at the same plece as the buttons, once the last button has been inserted in MediaWiki:Gadget-bidibuttons.js, but I do not know well enough how that is done to take the risk to experiment. --Purodha Blissenbach 10:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Did brion's recent changes fix this or is this issue still current? – Nike 17:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Please answer, or this topic will be archived after one week from now. Siebrand 19:25, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Not fixed. --Purodha Blissenbach 19:41, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Needs to be adressed by a MediaWiki dev. Should be in buzilla, too, I think, and probably be handled though there. Siebrand 10:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Reported as Bug 15042 „Editbox layout problem with bidi-Gadget“ now. --Purodha Blissenbach 08:16, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

& Default Main Page
The message MediaWiki:Deadendpagestext, like several others, requires to use on  although the use of  inside the message appears somewhat unneccessary to me.

Using with  requires php programming during the installation of Mediawiki which is likely not what we want. On the other hand, for some languages, there is no way to automatically find the correct pre- and postposition(s), article(s), pre- and postfixes, or inflections, especially since  can be anything, such as a proper name, a pure denomination, a noun, a noun with adjective(s), or a compound, up to an entire sentence.

If we do want to avoid the programming during installation, we should provide the new wiki owners a list of message in the MediaWiki namespace which they should check in order to see that they are grammatically correct for their wikis. Independently of this, I think that we should add a list of links to few pages in the MediaWiki namespace to e.g. MediaWiki:mainpagedocfooter which an installation is likely to adopt to their own needs. --Purodha Blissenbach 03:18, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * My suggestion is to gather some people from here and bugzilla or whereever to somewhere and design a new default main page. – Nike 09:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed. My suggestion is to file a bug indeed, mention it at places like meta:We need your help, and let the work start from http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Current_issues
 * I shall proceed doing so in a few days, if noone objects.
 * --Purodha Blissenbach 09:19, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I just found, I had made this related suggestion in bug 14681 already. --Purodha Blissenbach 11:47, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Work for a bot
I've got one request for a bot. Could it replace "secuencia" with "fluxo" in  messages? Thanks a lot. --ToliñoFala aquí comigo 09:38, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I looked to all [ core] and all [ extension] messages, and I found also "consecuencia" and "secuencial". I assume that should not be replaced? SPQRobin 11:46, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Those are different words. You only have to replace "secuencia" and change it with "fluxo". Thanks! --ToliñoFala aquí comigo 12:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I tried it with a bot but I get an error. I hope someone else can do it, otherwise you could do ctrl-F in [ extension messages] (core doesn't contain "secuencia") and edit every page containing "secuencia". SPQRobin 14:51, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll run the bot (only on "MediaWiki:*/gl" (not in other namespaces with translations). Siebrand 19:34, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There is no efficient way to do this with the bot. Very resource intensive. You'll have to do it maually until we think of a way to make it better. Cheers! Siebrand 23:32, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Partially ✅ (but not the plurals). Please explain your problem in more detail next time. As far as I could determine, this term only occurred in extension MetaVid. Please review all translations. Siebrand 09:57, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be wonderful, to have all the sufficiently translated languages listed in MediaWiki:Loginlanguagelinks instead of only a few that most other softwarez have, too? I mean, MediaWiki is among the best i18n'ed pieces of software on the internet, so we should allow ourselves to brag a bit about it. :-) Greetings to all. --Purodha Blissenbach 22:03, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This would probably lead to a puzzle as with the main page of Wikimedia Commons. May look like a good idea, but maybe we should limit it to the 10-15 most spoken languages in the world, ordered by number of speakers? (list) Siebrand 22:17, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Wikimedia Commons has only 84 languages, our list should probably be longer. Compare also with the language list in . There are two easy way how to deal with long lists: Make a pulldown out of them, or give it a structure. Long pulldowns are only visible in part, which is imho counterproductive. We could group languages roughly by continent, or by phylum (language superfamily), or by script. We could even offer three lists, each one having a different sort order, or a table with clickable headers so as to produce various sorts clientside.
 * Many ideas.
 * I am unhappy with the idea of showing only a small selection because it
 * discriminated agains the lesser used languages (again)
 * gives a false impression of completeness,
 * is being done already.
 * Of course, one hopes, that Wikis will localize the list to include their own languages and their own languages vicinity (but reality shows, they don't, even well maintained Wikipedias predominantly don't)
 * So my suggestion remains, let us include all sufficiently translated languages, say 50% and more of MWs most-used, and let Wikis reduce the list if they wish to; you'll see, they won't. ;-)
 * --Purodha Blissenbach 08:19, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * How about some 'geo logic'? Will take some thinking and, but I imagine a map of the world that needs clicking before you get a list of languages, and your registration language being setlang. "See" what I mean? Siebrand 09:32, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I've been thinking in similar directions. E.g. show a "World Map" with some sort of arrows to/from continents, or major cultural areas in Asia, on one side, and blocks having a language list each on the other. --Purodha Blissenbach 11:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Guess we agree on what could be done. Anyone? I for certain do not have the programming skills... Siebrand 19:34, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Todo or Bugzila or whatever. Premade solution that could be integrated would of course be the best. I don't have the data or time. In my opinion the whole login language selector is useless here in Betawiki where we provide other means of selecting the language. – Nike 09:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

What does MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-blocklog mean and where is it used? It seems not to be present in s Special:Logs selection of logs. --Purodha Blissenbach 09:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It is used as a display name for a link to the block log on for example Special:Contributions/Siebrand. Siebrand 09:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

For Siebrand (Talk | block | Block log | Logs | Deleted user contributions)


 * Why doesn't "block" have a capital letter like the other links? Also in RecentChanges "Talk" is with capital letter while "contribs" and "block" are without.

Siebrand (Talk | contribs | block)
 * Wouldn't it look better if all links are capitalized the same way? --Boivie 09:49, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, it would. In my opinion it would look better if none had a capital letter given that they are neither proper nouns nor the start of a sentence. MinuteElectron 20:54, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Needs follow up by a MediaWiki dev. Should probably also be reported in . Siebrand 19:34, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

"Back to List" looses group info and list size info
On the Translate-list screen, when first selecting the group of the "most used Mediawiki messages", then selecting a message, working on it, then following the "Back to List" link, Betawiki has meanwhile lost the precise group info, and shows me "all Mediawiki messages" instead. I don't believe this to be intentional, except maybe, when my last edit had exhausted the previous list, which wasn't so (:yet:). --Purodha Blissenbach 07:31, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The same is true for the previously selected list size. It is lost. --Purodha Blissenbach 09:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Needs to be adressed by Niklas. Siebrand 10:07, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Low priority. – Nike 18:57, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Bug in English version of Freecol
I have updated FreeCol:Model.building.Shipyard.description/en and it needs to get committed to Freecol. There was a mistake there: shipyards allow building ships, not drydecks. Huji 21:37, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Needs to be adressed by FreeCol dev. Siebrand 19:40, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I fixed this some time ago. – Nike 10:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Recentchangeslinked is used: (at least)
 * 1) as a link on individual pages.
 * 2) as a link to a special page in Special:Specialpages
 * 3) as a headline of Special:RecentChangesLinked
 * 4) which can be a page asking for input only,
 * 5) or a page presenting a query result.

These uses may require different translations. Also published as bug 14866 --Purodha Blissenbach 11:06, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) To be translated somehow referencing the page, the link is found on, e.g. "… for this page …" - no way to use this reference for the other cases.
 * 2) To be translated somehow using global wording, e.g. "links going from a page …" - no way to use that for most other cases.
 * 3) To be translated somehow using a left-open wording, e.g. "Select page for which …" - no way to use that in any other case.
 * 4) To be translated somehow after-the-fact-ly, e.g. "… from a selected page …" - cannot be used for other cases. Also should imho include a reference to the page for which the list is.
 * 1) To be translated somehow after-the-fact-ly, e.g. "… from a selected page …" - cannot be used for other cases. Also should imho include a reference to the page for which the list is.


 * 3.2. already use a separate message, MediaWiki:Recentchangeslinked-title.
 * I don't see why the global wording from point 2. would not also work as well in 3.1. In Special:Specialpages the link text is some kind of the title for the special page. The title should be something related to what the page is used for, which is "Show changes on pages linked to from a page". The headline on Special:Recentchangeslinked is also like title for the special page. That headline should also be related to what the special page is used for, and that is still "Show changes on pages linked to from a page". In both cases no specific page has been selected yet. So is it not reasonable that the link text is the same as the headline of the page linked to?
 * I can agree that point 1. is different from the other. /Lejonel 19:44, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Needs to be adressed by a MediaWiki dev. Siebrand 19:40, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Report it on ? As far as I remember, there was a pretty similar issue (e-mail to user?); if so, they should be linked, or grouped. And, by the way, are there other such cases requiring similar treatment? --Purodha Blissenbach 09:26, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I think will be good idea to change definition to     :Hidden categories , since this is service category, not content one. --EugeneZelenko 14:13, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Neutral. Any opinions? Siebrand 20:08, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There is only one type of categories. – Nike 10:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Update
should be updated to reflect the new "Update any redirects that point to the original title" feature added by Tim Starling. I suggest the removal of the phrase "Links to the old page title will not be changed" from this message. --Meno25 21:46, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 10:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Tajik Wikipedia
Please remove 'tojikī' from the interwiki link text, leaving only Тоҷикӣ. - FrancisTyers 18:13, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Why? And you are? Siebrand 10:09, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Spectie from IRC. Latin variant is not officially used. – Nike 10:15, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Then why do we have a localisation for it (is it bogus, and should it thus be removed?) Siebrand 11:16, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Because it is useful to some people? But I really don't know the details of this case. – Nike 18:08, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Then I suggest we add fi-cyrl because it may be useful for non-Latin reading Finnish speaking users for the Russians (or Belarusians?) that speak Finnish in the border regions? Siebrand 10:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Was it requested by the users and editors of the Finnish Wikipedia? - FrancisTyers 21:24, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The Latin variant is not official, it is useful to non-Cyrillic reading Tajik speaking users however, which is why it has been included. - FrancisTyers 18:13, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That's utter bull. Why not remove it? Siebrand 19:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not quite sure what you mean? That it isn't useful for non-Cyrillic reading Tajik speaking users, or that the script is not official? - FrancisTyers 17:40, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Message checker on optional Bable messages
Message sanity checker report problems on optional Babel messages. I think will be good idea to add definitions for English language for these messages. --EugeneZelenko 14:10, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Nope, not needed. Because the non-optionals cover English completely. The optionals were added for languages that have grammar in the language names that cannot be taken from CLDR. Siebrand 10:06, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * But how false positives reports could be avoided? How parameters could be checked? --EugeneZelenko 14:19, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That needs to be sorted in the code. I'll add it to my feature request list. Siebrand 10:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Ipbhidename
Imho MediaWiki:Ipbhidename should link to the mentioned lists. See MediaWiki:Ipbhidename/ksh for a sample. --Purodha Blissenbach 07:54, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I was not able to find a place where this message is being used, so I am unable to confirm that the suggested links are working and useful. Anybody ther, who can provide a link to a page in fact displaying this message? --Purodha Blissenbach 09:15, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It is the text for one of the checkboxes in Special:Blockip. But it is only displayed for users with the 'hideuser' permission. /Lejonel 09:44, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I have a problem. I am having several message texts. They need to be corrected. I cannot find their names. Thus I cannot alter them. I do not find the groups or extensions that the messages belong to. Several guesses remained unsuccessful. With Special:Allmessages, I was used to search for a (translated) string inside the message so as to find it. With s grouping in dozens of rather small groups, and all bigger collections to be scanned in chunks of 2500, searching is tedious, and remained completely unsuccessfull. Now, what can I do? --Purodha Blissenbach 19:51, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You should be able to use the built-in search functionality if the pages were translated in this wiki. If not, you can use the meta groups while I get to work on the import things. – Nike 20:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The built in search hardly ever finds anything useful, and is lagged. I've tried it, though. In vain. --Purodha Blissenbach 23:43, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I was trying to find messages of obsolete extensions MakeBot and MakeSysop, btw., so I should possibly not complain. ;- --Purodha Blissenbach 08:45, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

MakeBot and MakeSysop
The extensions MakeBot and MakeSysop are not translatable here, are they? At least I do not find them. They are used in Wikimedia Wikis. --Purodha Blissenbach 19:51, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * They were supposed to be removed ages ago. I do not know what is taking so long with them. – Nike 20:33, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey, they cannot be removed! I am using the extension MakeBot every other week to set bot flags. --Purodha Blissenbach 23:46, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You should use Special:Userrights instead. Makebot & Makesysop are obsolete. Jon Harald Søby 00:06, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Ack Nike and Jon. The problem is, that disabling these extensions the logs will be broken :-( Raymond 11:14, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What about disabling them partially (remove from special pages, but leave logs)? --EugeneZelenko 14:14, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * MakeBot is more targetted and easier to use than UserRights, for which you need a more sophisticated web browser ;-)
 * Breaking the logs would be a very bad idea indeed. We, and likely many others, archive bot requests, and other status changes, usually with links to their respective log entries, so they should be kept "forever". --Purodha Blissenbach 01:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * There is some progress in logs conversion. See bugzilla:14156. --EugeneZelenko 14:02, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Messages needing PLURAL
--Purodha Blissenbach 23:41, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * (twice) - really usefull? Output are always numbers like Parser_OldPP took 0.199 seconds, Parser took 0.245 seconds. Very unlikely to get 1.000 oder 2.000 seconds. Raymond 07:45, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * (twice) ✅ with r38694. Raymond 08:04, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ with r38621. Raymond 10:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ with r38621. Raymond 10:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * (likely) - really usefull? 99.99% of the exposuretimes are < 1 second. Raymond 07:45, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ with r38621. Raymond 10:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * (likely) - really usefull? 99.99% of the exposuretimes are < 1 second. Raymond 07:45, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Mediawiki:filedelete-intro-old
should not be in the message. – Nike 09:57, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ in R38218 --Purodha Blissenbach 07:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

DMS coordinates translation?
Is there a MediaWiki message to translate cardinal directions letters? For example, instead of 50°12'12N, 12°50'50W, I could write 50°12'12A, 12°50'50C ? It'd be nice if someone is able to get me in the right direction, even though is somewhere else. Thanks.--Fluence 18:46, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No and I'm not aware of any MediaWiki code that would use or produce those. – Nike 10:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, namespace names in Nahuatl
Checking out the commit requests, I realised my request for nah translation of namespaces was deleted, so I supposed it was already commited, but checking source messages here, I found no translations. What happened then? --Fluence 19:02, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Mistake I guess. – Nike 19:08, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * As I wrote "namepace"? My bad. Should I request it again? Or maybe is about the namespaces bug Siebrand mentioned.--Fluence 20:50, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I had been tempted to commit the Nahuatl namespace names already few days ago, but was too cautious to take the risk of maybe breaking something, which I avoided ;-) doing nothing.
 * '''How would I do it?
 * Edit  after having it updated from svn.
 * (1) Add current  to , thereby inverting the   pairs.
 * (1a) if array  does not yet exist, create it.
 * (1b) if array  does not yet exist, look for it along the  chain of language files, take the first ones found. Do NOT take the english , though, because they are added automatically.
 * This is to make sure that existing namespace prefixes in the wiki shall not break.
 * (2) Go to page http://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?language=nah&module=namespace&export=Export&title=Special%3AAdvancedTranslate&uselang=en which yield the new  source code …
 * (2a) to be copied and pasted into  file.
 * (2b) Replace the previous  source code, if any.
 * Save the file and commit it to svn.
 * Anything I have forgotten? (can you see the cold sweat on my forhead, the panic in my eyes?) ;-) --Purodha Blissenbach 02:26, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh. Looks so scary :S Maybe if I was a developer I could do it by hand, but since I'm not... Nike... Siebrand... someone please!!! :O--Fluence 23:40, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 10:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Did you do anything else than described above ? --Purodha Blissenbach 16:18, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Still in Spanish. Oh my... I'm starting to believe I have bad luck. Namespace don't appear yet on the source code either, but what should I do? Wait? Maybe it's too soon or needs refreshment? I'll wait a day or two to see if they do appear. If not... I'm gonna cry!! Well, not so but I hope it works this time--Fluence 22:26, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * After we deliver it to MediaWiki we are done with it. Wikimedia still needs to update its software. Siebrand 22:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Fluence, wait a moment. Changes to svn take a time to be propagated to the life servers. Maybe between few hours and few days, usually. --Purodha Blissenbach 22:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Alrigthy then, I just wanted to make sure. Sorry for my complains :)--Fluence 01:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It's working OK as far it seems now. Thanks!!!--Fluence 11:00, 4 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It is apparently not working at the moment. All, or almost all the Babel-related categories lost their respective links to each other. The previously existing namespacenames seem not to be registered as namespacenamealiases, which breaks e. g. all the  lines in all pages. --Purodha Blissenbach 13:53, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * See my remark labelled "How would I do it?", parts (1), for an explanation, why this is so. --Purodha Blissenbach 13:57, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅, hopefully, with Revision 38740. --Purodha Blissenbach 21:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

fuzzy
what is wrong with this Fuzzy message appearing in some of my translations, is it vandalism? thanks--ramsis1978 16:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No, see User:FuzzyBot. – Nike 16:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * See also unofficial FAQs Lloffiwr 22:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the text "If this user has entered a valid e-mail address..." is outdated, since otherwise we are simply presented with a different message MediaWiki:Noemailtext (try sending an email to any new user). - AlexSm 18:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * An e-mail address can become invalid after the user had been able to confirm it. So I suggest to keep the hint. It could possibly be reworded though, so as to reflect the current situation more acurately. --Purodha Blissenbach 01:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, that's the meaning of this part. Still, I think it's a bit too trivial to mention, on the level with, say, "if this user still uses this email address ..." or "if this user decides to reply, and your email address is still valid, then you will receive a reply". - AlexSm 14:22, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

upload forms on Welsh wikis
In the file upload form for cy.wikipedia, cy.wikibooks, cy.wiktionary, and cy.wikisource the drop-down box for choosing the licence (just under the summary input box) is missing. Can anybody fix this for us? Lloffiwr 21:53, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You (or the administrators of those wikis) have to add the licenses you want to use to MediaWiki:Licenses on the wikis. If no license is in that message, the drop-down box is not shown. The syntax is a bullet list with names of templates and the text to be displayed for each option, something like:


 * name of a license template|text to display in the drop-down box for that license
 * a heading
 * another template name|text to display
 * You can look at Wikipedia:MediaWiki:Licenses for an example of how to do it. /Lejonel 22:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for the advice. Lloffiwr 18:30, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The link to contributions of a user in that message is Special:Contributions/$2. The rest of the message will be in the content language of the wiki, but the int: in the contribution link will make the link in the user preference language of the undoing user. See for example this diff, which has the automatic comment "Undo revision 528409 by Lejonel (Talk | bidrag)". /Lejonel 09:09, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Will fix. Siebrand 19:55, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 20:01, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

and
Those message says to contact a administrator, and links to the list of sysops on the wiki. But is that link useful? If an error occur on the server, I don't think sysops on the wiki can help much; someone with access to the server is needed. /Lejonel 09:27, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Whom the Admins more likely may be able to contact than any other person, to whom an automatic link could be provided (unless we add yet another user group, for the ones having server access. In the case of Wikimedia run wikis, however, there are no such users on almost all of the wikis) --Purodha Blissenbach 19:38, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There used to be a developer group, but that was remove some time ago. My thought when changing it were along the lines of though that Purodha describes, having to choose between linking to a list of admins and a list of bureaucrats. I chose the former... Siebrand 19:54, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Today, we had some changes in svn regarding e-mail addresses used in the wiki. There is an unused $wgEmergencyContact variable holding an e-mail address… --Purodha Blissenbach 21:52, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, that make sense. (And wikis with more specific instruction for reporting such errors still have to customise their local messages.) /Lejonel 12:39, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Undo-summary
The new text in is:

I wonder: --Purodha Blissenbach 21:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) there is the same link twice, only with different anchor texts,
 * 2) should not   better be   ?   afaik only works when there has been a local change made in the wiki, and never uses a translation?
 * Incorrect assumption. See here: . Siebrand 21:56, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed, it does translate (at least, when there is a translation in the Mediawiki Namespace) Maybe, what I had in mind, was the behaviour of Mediawiki some 2+ years ago when I first began translating interface messages, which was a bit quirky at that time. --Purodha Blissenbach 22:24, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It does not translate automatically. So, transcluding from the  namespace is usually wrong. At least, however, messages missing from the   namespace are now taken from the a language file. To be continued… --Purodha Blissenbach 08:26, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅ Dupe contrib link removed with r38551. Message shortened, the summary line is limited to 254 chars. Raymond 10:28, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Mediawiki:Log-search-legend has inconsistencies between several languages. I read: I believe version 1 to be correct, but I am not 100% certain. --Purodha Blissenbach 07:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) "Search inside logs (for entries)" or
 * 2) "Search for entire logs (so as to find one log, or several logs (having lots of entries each), but do not open any of them)"


 * Yeah the logs are all listed there, so it must be searching log items. Should probably be reworded. – Nike 10:08, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

How about making the word "revert" a link in Mediawiki:Filedelete-iscurrent? --Purodha Blissenbach 07:51, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I can't find that message used in current software. It may have been removed in revision 24952. /Lejonel 19:45, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Removed with r38618. Raymond 09:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Contribslink appearing in English
In the fuzzied message MediaWiki:Alreadyrolled/cy the Special:Contributions/$3 part appears in the translated form on the page. However in the fuzzied message MediaWiki:Undo-summary/cy the Special:Contributions/$2 part appears in the original English 'contribs'. Does the second message need amending again? Lloffiwr 18:44, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * See the section higher up on this page. /Lejonel 19:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Rename qqq to documentation
I think will be good idea to rename qqq pseudo-language to documentation. --EugeneZelenko 02:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Or simply doc?--Fluence 02:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * doc is registered for Dong, Northern which is a language of China. --Meno25 02:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * If it has to be a 3-letter code, it must be chosen from the ones reserved for local use in both ISO 639-3 and ISO 639-2, i.e. to . --Purodha Blissenbach 06:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think info is the best abbreviation for this. But I also think it would be much work to rename qqq. SPQRobin 10:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * But it's definitely could be done by bot(s). And I think better to do this as early as possible, otherwise scale of problem will only increase. --EugeneZelenko 13:55, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * And what was the reason we need to rename it and be incompatible with language code standards? – Nike 16:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not language and info is much more descriptive then qqq. --EugeneZelenko 03:00, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

in German
MediaWiki:Logdelete-selected/de shows the count $1 at the end of the message: „ “ — this does not really make sense, imho. --Purodha Blissenbach 16:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Translations of individual languages should be discussed on the language portal's talk page, not here. Please use Portal talk:De. Cheers! Siebrand 19:39, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅: Moved. --Purodha Blissenbach 20:26, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Blockme
What is the context of MediaWiki:Blockme? --Purodha Blissenbach 16:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Its the pagename of Special:Blockme. From defaultSettings.php:

/** * If you enable this, every editor's IP address will be scanned for open HTTP * proxies. * * Don't enable this. Many sysops will report "hostile TCP port scans" to your * ISP and ask for your server to be shut down. * * You have been warned. */ $wgBlockOpenProxies = false;


 * Related messages: MediaWiki:Proxyblocker-disabled, MediaWiki:Proxyblocker, MediaWiki:Proxyblockreason and MediaWiki:Proxyblocksuccess. Raymond 09:45, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

✅ translates. Thank you. --Purodha Blissenbach 11:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

should be optional. There is nothing to translate. --Meno25 03:13, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ by Siebrand. --Meno25 17:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

History-search
Wat is the context of MediaWiki:History-search? --Purodha Blissenbach 20:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It is used on the page history tab (e.g. history of this page) as a heading for the selection of year and month. /Lejonel 23:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Thank you. Translated. --Purodha Blissenbach 09:17, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Back to the list
The link "Back to the list" after an edit now always displays the list in Afar, not the previously selected language, or the user preference language. --Purodha Blissenbach 19:09, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Aliases for FlaggedRevisions
As discussed a few days ago on IRC I tried to change the special page alias system of the FlaggedRevision to the new system. But I failed. The localised special page names seem not to be loaded :-( I have for the next 2 days no time. Maybe someone want to have a look at my patch? Thanks. Raymond 07:12, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You need to use case sensitive identifiers. Siebrand 07:49, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

+$aliases['en'] = array( +	'QualityOversight'    => array( 'QualityOversight' ),


 * ✅ with r38863. Thanks for help :) Raymond 08:59, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Request to modify of FuzzyBot
I request to modify of User:FuzzyBot. In the Japanese language, the plural function is unnecessary. The bot doesn't detect if there is not NaN undefineds in ja subpages. Please modify. Thanks, --Broad-Sky [note] 17:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The messages will always be fuzzied. If there is no need to change it in your language, simply remove the !!FUZZY!!. Cheers! Siebrand 19:45, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * All right. Thank you for your answer. --Broad-Sky [note] 04:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Precautionsly add initial colons in links to pages.
To some extent at least, category pages, and media pages, can now be subjects, or targets, of redirects, protections, and renames. Messages that potentially link to one of those with wikicode  ought to be altered to now use , which unlike the other, always correctly links to all pages in all namespaces. Some messages have been adapted recently. Here are the, imho, remaining candidates in MediaWiki core:
 * alter $1
 * alter $1, and $2
 * alter $1, and $2
 * alter $1, and $2
 * alter $1, and $2
 * alter $1, and $2
 * alter $1, and $2
 * alter $1, and $2
 * alter $1, and $2

Purodha 8 Aug 2008 11:58
 * ✅ Great for SieBot's edit count :) Siebrand 15:10, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * And most of them were reverted; changed back. Siebrand 08:53, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

,
I think messages should be reworded to avoid abbreviations. As far as I understand, Y means yellow, C means cyan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMYK). Currently Y and C is not translated (at least in Polish, Russian, Ukrainian), so translations seems cryptic. --EugeneZelenko 14:05, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it is not CMYK, but YCbCr (YCbCr). So Y and C is luma and chroma . /Lejonel 20:41, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Request for Username Change
Hello, I request to rename my account User:តឹក ប៊ុនលី To User:Kiensvay. Because my account on The Khmer Wikipedia and other wikimedia project had been all changed to User:Kiensvay. Thanks! --តឹក ប៊ុនលី 07:11, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You've got me confused here. The user page of តឹក ប៊ុនលី was deleted by User:Bunly. Are User:Bunly, User:Kiensvay, and User:តឹក ប៊ុនលី the same person? Siebrand 08:52, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, First I created User:Bunly but don't want to use it because my account on the Khmer wiki at that time was User:តឹក ប៊ុនលី. --តឹក ប៊ុនលី 09:07, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * We wiil rename តឹក ប៊ុនលី to User:Kiensvay, and merge all contributions by User:Bunly to User:Kiensvay. User:Bunly will be deletd. Cheers! Siebrand 11:09, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 23:06, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Equal credits for qqq
I saw the documentation (qqq) is also committed. People were credited, except those who are hidden by default (who do maintenance etc.). So, I think, or we should credit everyone (whitelist people who are hidden as author) or credit nobody. Greetings, SPQRobin 00:59, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, my bad. I'll add those meta maintainers to the whitelist for qqq. Siebrand 19:33, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 19:36, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

dpc in Exif-xyresolution-c
How is "dpc" of MediaWiki:Exif-xyresolution-c spelt out? Dots per capture? --Purodha Blissenbach 20:20, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There is hardly any documentation on EXIF 2 that is understandable anywhere. If you find it, you may want to add documentation for almost every EXIF field. Siebrand 21:11, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The only info I could find so far is a bit indirect, and may, or may not, be related to the "dpc" of this exif data field. It was a list of possible dpc values, which were (in this instance) 1M×1M, 2×2M, ... 16×16M. --Purodha Blissenbach 21:41, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it is dots per centimeter (see for example this page). /Lejonel 22:54, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅, OK, translated so, for the time being. --Purodha Blissenbach 12:03, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

translate-tag-fuzzy-comment and translate-tag-fuzzy-reason
and inconsistently seem to include/exclude "version" in/from the string substituted for $2. Is that really true? --Purodha Blissenbach 11:01, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * In the latter it is a link. – Nike 09:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

refers to an administrator. One of the local wiki? Should there be a link to Special:Userlist/sysop? --Purodha Blissenbach 17:49, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 17:09, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

should use PLURAL
This message should use PLURAL. --EugeneZelenko 14:16, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * See also: section , above. --Purodha Blissenbach 17:52, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think will be good idea to reflect in documentation fact that message will be used with non-integers. --EugeneZelenko 14:35, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Added to the documentation. --Purodha Blissenbach 20:23, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

More PLURAL stuff

 * should or could use PLURAL. --Purodha Blissenbach 09:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * needs to use PLURAL. --Purodha Blissenbach 07:37, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * must use PLURAL, at least in, and most likely $1 has decimal places, too. --Purodha Blissenbach 08:41, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * This message has decimals, indeed. Siebrand 17:25, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * needs PLURAL.
 * needs PLURAL. --Purodha Blissenbach 22:23, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * needs PLURAL. --ajvol 16:28, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Added to TODO. Siebrand 17:25, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Protect-text
The message MediaWiki:Protect-text contains a …. Do I miss a point or it the escape of $1 senseless?. Can it be safely removed? Raymond 15:10, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Remeber that,  will be evaluated after the substitution of $i has occurred. So it may make sense then. --Purodha Blissenbach 19:16, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

PLURAL ignore
In some languages (to example Swedish) some words use plural and some don't use, I think an box with the text "Ignore PLURAL" should be an good idea!  M. M.  S.  17:55, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Please provide a patch. Thanks. Siebrand 23:36, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

New User Message - browing messages
When I select "New User Message" in Special:Translate, I get: This is inconsistent and a bit bewildering. --Purodha Blissenbach 17:38, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * 2 messages listed for "Show all messages"
 * none listed for "Show optional messages"
 * 4 messages, when I browse every message from start to end using "show next message" or "show previous message"
 * Known issue. Siebrand 16:42, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

– again calls for  to be positioned by $x placeholdes.
In for "Display categories starting at: …" we best should translate „Zeich Saachjroppe fun … af.“ – No colon, just a sentence. Similar messages are not really frequent in our language, but they are there. Recently, we had an Indic language, the grammar or word order of which suggested to use placeholders so as to position input fields inside messages, too. It appears more and more natural to me, to follow this path. --Purodha Blissenbach 18:40, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You have to create bugzillas per message and a tracker bug, or fix this yourself. I don't think we should keep this here. Siebrand 18:10, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

That message says "be sure to check for double or broken redirects". It is of course good to check that no such reidrects are created. But I don't think it is possible that redirects are broken by a page move. So it should be enough to say "be sure to check for double redirects". /Lejonel 19:27, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Seconded. --Purodha Blissenbach 16:09, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Page redirects *can* be broken by a page move, if the redirect is deleted. It is however outside of standard behaviour. I do not see a reason to change the current text. Cheers! Siebrand 18:11, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Do we have an explanation of ? I don't have the faintest idea, how this could potentially be translated. --Purodha Blissenbach 21:38, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Good question. Reading the exif2 specifications, I find this entity as a "tag relating to image data characteristics": "The chromacity of the three primary colours of the image. Normally this tag is not necessary, since colour space is specified in the colour space information tag." The tag is 6 characters long, so I think that it wold contain HEX, allowing for an 8 bit chromacity value for each of the primary colours. If you know very little about colours in digiral images, this will mean nothing to you. You should probably translate it as "Chromacity of primary colours". Siebrand 17:20, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I have an idea about what chromacity is, but I am not very certain that I could explain it well, or even correctly :-) Unfortunately, Wikipedias that I can read, do not yet have an article on chromacity :-( Thanks anyway, I've found a translation. Thank you. ✅ --Purodha Blissenbach 22:50, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Categories of messages
Likely, we all have more or less of such needs once in a while.
 * The section entitled "" above suggests to complile a list, e.g. of messages using, and use it for a certain purpose.
 * Reading "" above, one might be tempted to inspect a samle set of messages having non-integer numeric inputs in their $n's for comparison.
 * Following up on section "", a developer may want to find all occurrences of messages having date+time in a single variable so as to fix them all in one go.

How can we classify messages by their properties, so as to find specific ones, or all specific ones, quickly and easily when needed?

Generally, the Category namespace of could be used for purposes like this, but looking a bit more closely, we find several inconviences: Greetings --Purodha Blissenbach 08:48, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * We likely do not want to tack  tags on every message in every language.
 * We certainly do not want such tags exported.
 * There is no place to insert something in an untranslated (optional) message, which is represented by a nonexisting Wiki page.
 * We need to distinguish between general message properties (e.g. takes a $n parameter), and individual ones, possibly depending on localization (e.g. uses italics, or uses an untranslated foreign term like "scalable vector graphics")
 * Which message(s) to refer to, when a general property is considered? Only the one having no language suffix? All the messages, with all suffixes? Long lists. Excluding ?
 * We do not want to burden translators with technical stuff. So things have to function almost invisibly in the background for those, who do not need, or do not want, to care.
 * Some informations are too complex to be handled by categories easily. For instance, having a category of pages taking date+time parameters as a $n, subdivided in categories for $1, $2, $3, $4, … being the parameter in question, is likely complicated for both humans and automated processes to deal with.
 * A system based on categories can easily only reflect one (current) state of afairs. We want to deal with several revisions, or a least the newer stable releases, so we need to have older data available for some time, too.

* We likely do not want to tack  tags on every message in every language. Why on earth would you do that? /qqq is for documentation.

** There is no place to insert something in an untranslated (optional) message, which is represented by a nonexisting Wiki page. Again, /qqq is for documentation and optional messages can have it too.

* We need to distinguish between general message properties (e.g. takes a $n parameter), and individual ones, possibly depending on localization (e.g. uses italics, or uses an untranslated foreign term like "scalable vector graphics") Why?

** Which message(s) to refer to, when a general property is considered? Only the one having no language suffix? All the messages, with all suffixes? Long lists. Excluding ? I don't understand this either. If /qqq is used for categorisation only it shows up in there.

* A system based on categories can easily only reflect one (current) state of afairs. We want to deal with several revisions, or a least the newer stable releases, so we need to have older data available for some time, too. Incompatible messages in different branches will always have a different name. – Nike 12:09, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * We likely do not want to tack  tags on every message in every language.
 * Why on earth would you do that? /qqq is for documentation.
 * if we want a category that lists certain messages, we need to put  in the message.
 * I was not referring to /qqq, but rather to the messages themselves.


 * There is no place to insert something in an untranslated (optional) message, which is represented by a nonexisting Wiki page.
 * Again, /qqq is for documentation and optional messages can have it too.
 * I was not referring to /qqq
 * An untranslated message does not exist as a wikipage. There is nothing, we could insert  into. If we did, we had created an empty message, which is something else than no mesage at all.


 * We need to distinguish between general message properties (e.g. takes a $n parameter), and individual ones, possibly depending on localization (e.g. uses italics, or uses an untranslated foreign term like "scalable vector graphics")
 * Why?
 * Because they are having different properties, as detailed above, and thus would have to go into different categories (if we made it so)
 * A general message (indepentendly of its translations) cannot have specifics which are only applicable to translations. Wether or not a message has some technical terms untranslated is a function of the tranlation, and the target language, and usually varies. It is not a property of that message in general.


 * Which message(s) to refer to, when a general property is considered? Only the one having no language suffix? All the messages, with all suffixes? Long lists. Excluding ?
 * I don't understand this either. If /qqq is used for categorisation only it shows up in there.
 * If. That is exactly true. You understood, :-) without understanding that you understood. Forgive me the pun. Yes, if we use nothing but /qqq for categorizing, then it is pretty easy, and then we loose the translation specific stuff. Maybe that is not a problem.


 * A system based on categories can easily only reflect one (current) state of afairs. We want to deal with several revisions, or a least the newer stable releases, so we need to have older data available for some time, too.
 * Incompatible messages in different branches will always have a different name.
 * That is good to know, and may make life easier, but it might be not enough, since some smaller changes aparently do not always invalidate names but may change properties. I hope that, if such cases are rare enough, we could just tolerate them, and maybe get along with a few remarks (before/after R12345) in some category pages.

The worst of using only /qqq for categorizing, should we want it at all, is that we open a category page, follow a link to a message page, and end up on the /qqq page. But what we likely rather want to have is links to /es for Spanish translators, links to /ru for Russian tanslators, etc.: so, we likely need something more flexible than usual categories, don't we`? --Purodha Blissenbach 22:45, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Categories should not be entry points for translators. Special:Translate is. – Nike 08:07, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe, in, the parameter $2 is something like "opt-in" or "opt-out" - can somebody easily confirm that? --Purodha Blissenbach 07:40, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * can you please start using the template when you refer to messages? It is starting to get annoying. Siebrand 08:21, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I didn't know of it. Thx for pointing me to it. --Purodha Blissenbach 17:42, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

return wfMsgReal( "centralauth-rightslog-entry-{$action}", array_merge( array( $link ), $args ), true, !$skin );
 * So $2 is true. Hmm. Non comprende. :( "opt-in" and "opt-out" does seem highly likely, though. meta:Special:Log/gblrights contains the event. Example:


 * 11:27, 1 August 2008 Dungodung (Talk | contribs) created opt-in based wiki set Test test with following wikis: srwiki, hrwiki ‎ (no reason)
 * Cheers! Siebrand 17:42, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Moving the unofficial FAQ page
I intend to move the FAQ page which is currently sitting in a 'draft' sub-page of my user page onto the main namespace with the title 'FAQ' in a few days' time. If there any objections to the move please let me know before I move it and change all the links from other pages to it. If preferred the page could go to the 'translating' namespace. Lloffiwr 12:27, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Please go ahead. It will improve exposure, and add (even) more quality, I think. Siebrand 12:35, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * On the basis of Siebrand's encouraging remarks have moved the FAQ page to the main namespace and fixed the linked pages, I think. Lloffiwr 21:06, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hear, hear. Siebrand 22:28, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

New message for Checkuser
I cannot commit into SVN for the next week so I ask to add the following new message to CheckUser.i18n.php (per r39519):

'right-checkuser-log'           => "View the checkuser log",

Thanks. Raymond 11:12, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 11:22, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

In MediaWiki:Showingresultstotal we currently have: " ". I believe that is likely erroneous. Why does  refer to   here? This does not make any sense to me. If there are  search results total, instead of , we would have to ask   or   so as to make the distinction between one and more result lines. The current code is correct if, and only if, there is exactly one search result, but wrong when paging occurrs. --Purodha Blissenbach 20:49, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * From the code:

$top = wfMsgExt('showingresultstotal', array( 'parseinline' ), $this->offset+1, $this->offset+$num, $totalNum );
 * $1 is offset+1
 * $2 is offset+$num
 * $totalNum
 * Looks like the plural is based on the total results, not on "$1-$2" (which should introduce a $4, which the plural should be based on). Best create a for this. Should be easily fixed by someone who can actually write code ;) Siebrand 17:06, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

✅ Fixed in r39629 --Purodha Blissenbach 02:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * See bugzilla:15240 Special:Search uses wrong data in PLURAL with MediaWiki:Showingresultstotal.

WMF specific stuff
R39077 shuffles some Wikimedia Foundation specific stuff together. Since the commit comment does not mention the  localisation: With R38740, I introduced two hardcoded references to "wikipedia"-namespacenames. I had no idea how to better fix broken wikilinks using the old (Spanish) namespacenames quickly, without having shell access to the server configuration. Doubtlessly, the two names should be better taken care of in Localsettings.php. I did not take the time (yet) to count uses of the old namespacenames, probably simply replacing the instances of those two names might be cheap. --Purodha Blissenbach 12:00, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * r38070 does not appear to be the commit you are referring to. Siebrand 23:16, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Typo corrected. I meant R38740. --Purodha Blissenbach 09:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Best create a shell request to get this resolved. This stuff should *not* be added to MessagesXx.php files. Siebrand 09:30, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I am uncertain which set of names you are referring to:
 * the two wikipedia-related namespacenames only,
 * the Spanisch namespacenamealiases?
 * Ignoring the fact that, beyond Wikipedia, we may be talking about the empty set ;-) likely each wiki using the  localization is having to deal with case 2 when upgrading.
 * I am going to take care of the two names in case 1 soon. If avoidable, let us get along without a shell request. --Purodha Blissenbach 19:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I was talking about the Wikipedia references. Having the Spanish namespace aliases is unfortunately unavoidable, as we changed the namespace names, and we should provide backward compatibility. Please provide a for case 1, so this issue can be closed here. Siebrand 17:24, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅, see bug 15237. --Purodha Blissenbach 23:38, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

contains a hardcoded reference to  which is of couse an example only. Yet, I believe, we can make it exact for most installations by inserting a dereferenced version of " " for it. Is that desirable? --Purodha Blissenbach 07:49, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I do not think so. There is no way to know where someone has installed his wiki. The message also states "For example, on a unix-like OS:". Someone who does not understand this, should probably not have shell access. Siebrand 17:29, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Of course, there is a way to know, to which directory on a server the wiki software has been installed. The wiki software itself knows it. The question is rather, whether or not we want the path displayed in an error message. Security by obscurity (usually not a eeal safety measure anyways) is likely not to be valued too high, since most php installations reveal the same paths anyways in their error mesages. It may help less experienced *nix users to have real paths in a message, and the chance of copy&pasting it may save time and spare typing errors, too. --Purodha Blissenbach 22:58, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you may be overestimating the usage of ExtensionDistributor. It was tailor made for www.mediawiki.org, and I would be surprised if there were other use cases. I do not think it is useful to put time in making is more versatile, because it is not meant to be :) Siebrand 23:08, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes indeed, this is an issue to be followed up on bugzilla, if at all. Currently, I tend to rather not to. --Purodha Blissenbach 13:25, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Redirect fixer issues:, and name localization
I fell into a trap, thinking that I am translating the /bg message.... when I discovered that I was not alone : seemingly, this colleague tried to reach the /id message. I suppose there should be a way, when you open for instance a local message like MediaWiki:Double-redirect-fixed-move/bg and you are hinted (in the darker blue box) See also MediaWiki:Fix-double-redirects. that it sends you to the local message with language code as inherited from the page which you're currently reading, and not to the generic (English) one. Otherwise it's confusing. :-)

By the way, is it really needed to have the Redirect fixer's account name translated locally? Should be more useful to have these accounts handy in the same place, cross-wiki consistent and comparable via tools like SUL util and Global user contributions. My apologies, if this issue has already been discussed... → Spiritia  13:36, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that unifying this account name is good idea. Same as existing MediaWiki default account for cleaning local translations identical to translations in PHP files. --EugeneZelenko 14:34, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * i18n should aim to facilitating the localisation of a product in all its facets. I think it is great that this is possible for an account name like the redirect fixer. Obviously it was developed by a developer that is very aware that MediaWiki is available in over 300 languages.


 * That a toolwriter on toolserver is not able to provide a tool that can work with localisation, does not mean that product he is trying to report on should be changed. Cheers! Siebrand 16:57, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Redirect fixer accounts can at least always be interwiki-linked to one another. --Purodha Blissenbach 23:01, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That's something that local editors and interwiki bots have to take care of... Siebrand 23:06, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

mediawiki:makebot &&
These messages (which shows up only to bureaucrats) are not supposed to be translated there? mediawiki:makebot/lv, mediawiki:makebot-change/lv, mediawiki:makebot-comment/lv, etc. When trying to edit any of these, it looks like, there is no default message (in english). -yyy 11:50, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * MakeBot and MakeSysop are obsolete. It appears that Wikimedia insists on using the obsolete functionality that is in core now. Hence we do no longer support these extensions. Also see 14156. Cheers! Siebrand 11:54, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That means,these will be eliminated (along with bot status log) and this functionality will remain solely in special:userrights? -yyy 12:12, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. Logs have to be converted somehow. This is the reason that things are stuck, I think. Siebrand 12:38, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

help:editing, help:contents, etc
Can these (mediawiki:helppage, mediawiki:edithelppage), be translated at all? . If namespace names cannot be translated (without breaking functionality on a wiki with different default language), then in the same context, helppage names also cannot be translated. Am i wrong? (These messages currently are tagged as problematic) -yyy 13:28, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Wiki messages can be used in two contexts: that of the wiki (set in $wgContLang, a.k.a. content language) and that of the user (as set in the preferences). The messages to refer to above, are (or at least should be) always used in the content language. Siebrand 16:29, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

($3) showing up on live installation
Hello everyone, I have just noticed a mistake in the localisation of the Global blocking feature. If you have a look at the log in English, everything looks fine, but if you use any other language, like German, French, Dutch etc., a ($3) appears after the duration. I have no idea why this is, all translations include the ($3), like it is on the English message which is to be translated. Could it be that they changed the English message without changing it on the translation wiki? Or is there anything I'm missing here? Greetings, -- ChrisiPK 19:21, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Andrew, creator of the extension, changed the message locally pending a fix in SVN. Please *do not deviate from the current English message here*. Once the code is changed, the message will be fuzzied. Cheers! Siebrand 19:31, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Alright then. One more thing, that I came across: says ...has renamed User to $2. - Is that a software bug or yet another localisation issue? --ChrisiPK 02:27, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That appears to be another i18n issue... Needs fixing, and is wrong in English too. Please report at . Siebrand 07:53, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * 15269. --ChrisiPK 16:08, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Resolved by Aaron. Siebrand 18:08, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Extension:GlobalBlocking
Extension:GlobalBlocking should be added to the list of extensions used by Wikimedia. --Meno25 21:31, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 10:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Contains poor non-standard English imho. – Nike 10:13, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 10:25, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Click here is not very good target for a link, poor for blind and assumes people use a mouse device. – Nike 10:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 10:31, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

PLURAL with non-integers
As to these messages having fractions of something, I doubt a bit that,  implementations properly detect 1.000 as equal to 1. Yet again, languages have vaying grammars, which may, or may not, treat 1 and 1.000 grammatically equivalent; which may, or may not, treat the unit following a figure with decimal part accoding to the last digit mentioned in the decimal part, etc. Most likely, also current  implementations do not deal with fractions and decimals, and there might be some programming needed in general, in order to treat decimal places at all inside these functions.

If we really want to make it best for the languages that I know of, I don't see a way to avoid using a grammatical function with figures having decimals, too.

Just for the records: There can be quite some complexities, such as figures starting with "0." maybe using the zero-related grammar; or figures "close to one (in the eye of a speaker)", e.g 0.99 or 1.001, can be used with 1-based grammar, or singular, implying a "rounded 1", while others cannot; etc.

Imortant for programmers (though I am not yet 100% sure that this really applies to a language that we support now) There may be a need to split figures and decimals in the manner of "this picture was taken with a second plus 50 milliseconds exposure time" since some indigenous languages e.g. may not use decimals at all. This suggests that, an extended  dealing with decimal places, should possibly be fed two figures, i.e. integer part $1 and fraction part $2 separated, like. Note that the fraction part may need to have leading zeroes when passed to the function. --Purodha Blissenbach 10:21, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Niklas on IRC a few mins. ago: "well, I think floating point numbers are a presentation format that doesn't need such fancy stuff" Siebrand 11:13, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

New core diff messages
I had impression Based on SVN changes that complete messages will be glued from several ones. For Slavic languages it'll be definitely cause problems because verbs should be in different forms (male, female, neutral) based on noun gender.

Could any developer comment on this? If I'm correct is it possible to create monolithic messages instead?

EugeneZelenko 13:52, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * We're looking int that. Until we have a proper solution, we are not freeing these messages to translators, and they have been set to ignored locally. Siebrand 16:07, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I have 'freed' the message. IMO no proper solution has been found, and I suggest you start whining about this bad i18n support for a feature that adds some 80 messages to core in . Siebrand 10:49, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * 15299 --ajvol 06:54, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Extension:WikimediaMessages
In Special:Version there should be a link to mw:Extension:WikimediaMessages. --Meno25 21:36, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * But this page does not exist :P Raymond 21:16, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Not an i18n issue... So this should go to . Siebrand 10:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Some messages listed as problematic while they shouldn't
The following messages are listed as problematic while they shouldn't:, and  They should be reworded/changed to avoid this. --Meno25 21:48, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Known issue. Have not found a way yet. Siebrand 10:31, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

PLURAL for some messages
The following messages:

need plural support. --Meno25 09:37, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Done in r39944 and r39945. ^demon 14:27, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Changeauthor-invalidform
A link to Special:ChangeAuthor should be added in --Meno25 10:26, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Siebrand 19:46, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Page for linguistic coordination?
In my user page I have made a list of words and phrases used in the Interlingua translation, in order to assure consistency. Now another translator has joined the Interlingua team and it's no longer really desirable to have this on my personal user page. Would it be OK for me to make a separate page for this and link it from the Interlingua translation of the main page? If so, could I use any title for it or is there some kind of criterion I need to follow? If not, is there another way in which this should be handled? Thanks — McDutchie 11:21, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Please use the portal every language has, see Portal:Ia and Portal talk:Ia. Thanks, SPQRobin 11:24, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, will do. I didn't find a link to it before, so I didn't know it exists. My fault for not RTFM, but since a portal is something rather essential, would it be an idea to link to it from the Navigation menu at the left hand side of every page? – McDutchie 14:26, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Good idea, I will add such a link to the sidebar. SPQRobin 15:35, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ (by Robin) Siebrand 10:29, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Which helped me to get a long wanted link [ added] to Localization checks . Thank you! :-) --Purodha Blissenbach 13:07, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

languagename
I see local language names on User:FuzzyBot and there is inconsistent in Czech translation. Whereas most of names is noun in first case, translation of (cs) "Czech" use wikimedia-interwiki-style adverb "Česky" (meaning "in Czech"). Proper form (as other names) should be "čeština" (first letter lower-case, which is btw. wrong in lb "Lucemburština"). --Li-sung 16:39, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That is because the local "mediawiki" name overrules the data from cldr currently. If there is an error in cldr data, please take it to them. – !Nike 17:13, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

A caching problem?
I am modifying MediaWiki:Diff-dt/ksh, an I recognize that in the fallback language, there is a mistake in MediaWiki:Diff-dt/de, it reads: „ “, which has two grammatical erros and should be „ “.

I alter it, and safe my edit. I go back to the edit page of MediaWiki:Diff-dt/ksh, I see the old  message. I reload the page with my browser, and get the same. I go to the page MediaWiki:Diff-dt/de, reload it with. Back to the edit page of MediaWiki:Diff-dt/ksh, I still see the old  Version. I reload the page with  instead of , again no change. I look at the MediaWiki:Diff-dt/de, and it has the altered version. Now I am lost. --Purodha Blissenbach 17:07, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think fallbacks are loaded from the MessagesXx file and doesn't include local translations or modifications. SPQRobin 17:09, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It is most probably a caching issue. Fallbacks are taken 'from database', and when not available from file. Siebrand 19:40, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually it is the other way around. – Nike 06:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The other way around, as in "file" has priority above "database"? Siebrand 06:21, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. – Nike 06:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay. That explains what I experienced. Since I found it bewildering, I'd likely expected it to be the other way round ;-) . Yet I did not think it over, it may be still better, as it is now. --Purodha Blissenbach 09:59, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Laz language - lzz
Regarding the Laz language (ISO: lzz), this language may use both Latin and Georgian script. Shouldn't it be split in two variants? Thanks, Malafaya 11:27, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I do not think I agree with your conclusion on what the page you refer to states. I read that the Latin script is the only script that is being used. Once we do get users that actually want to work on lzz-cyrl, we will deal with it. So far there has hardly been any traffic at the language, if any at all. Cheers! Siebrand 12:35, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I had a Georgian user asking me how to proceed because he has this doubt: should he use Latin or Georgian? Needless to say he feels more comfortable with Georgian script. I will tell him to start translating using Latin. I believe it's possible to derive a conversion algorithm between the two scripts in the future if needed. Cheers, Malafaya 13:58, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Problematic links
Hi. What's problematic about the  text  as compared to the "right"  text ? Yury Tarasievich 07:14, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, links in general are marked as problematic in translated text, if there were no such links in original text. Yury Tarasievich 07:53, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Two things problematic here: "     " is not equal to "Special", and "Userlogin" is not equal to "UserLogin". These are two hits on semantics, and no functionality is disturbed. Using "      " gives no advantages, and is slightly slower than just using "Special". As special page names are case insensitive, there is no impact of incorrect casing: Special:aLLpaGeS works just fine, for example. It is only inconsistent. Cheers! Siebrand 10:03, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm also to blame for using     instead of the English namespace. This is because I had problems in the past while typing, for instance, "User:Malafaya". If the fallback language for the Wiki was not English, that wouldn't work (the namespace "User" wouldn't be recognized as      ). By what you say, I believe that does not happen anymore. Malafaya 14:26, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello, this message seems to be erroneous, I found out when I looked at a renamelog at de.wikt, the first link only linked to the username but in main namespace, not in the usernamespace and thus was broken (now fixed in de.wikt locally, because I updated the local message too like here

It seems " has renamed $1 to "$2" " is wrong everywhere and should be " has renamed $1 to "$2" "

Maybe a bot can replace that in all language versions, thanks, best regards, --Spacebirdy 13:27, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ (changed message, changed pages here that could be changed with bot, others were already fuzzied). Siebrand 13:58, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot Siebrand, please don't forget to update the message definition (if not done already), best regards, --Spacebirdy 14:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Unused log messages
Please remove and. They were introduced in mwr:20746 and reverted a few weeks later in mwr:21380, and currently not present in SpecialLog.php (they are probably not used elsewhere, should perhaps be checked if possible). Thank you, SPQRobin 15:59, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ mwr:40241. Siebrand 19:19, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

and
These two messages have been fuzzied last week but there isn't English text. Are these messages no more used? --Darth Kule - Comlink 21:02, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Changed and renamed. Siebrand 23:32, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

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