Documentation review (2014)
One of Wikimedia Sverige's (WMSE) projects is aimed at increasing the participation in, and use of, translatewiki.net. As part of this we have made an inventory of the existing documentation on translatewiki.net. The reason for doing this, and for bringing it up here, is that we believe an overview will make it easier to focus efforts on improving the documentation and making it easier for new translators to join.
As part of this we have tried to give each page a weight. Based on the weight we will then start the work of improving the page in different ways. E.g. with more detailed descriptions, with images and videos etc. and with translations into Swedish. We will start with the page with the highest weight and work down the list. The community is of course invited to give feedback and/or make changes during this process.
The weighting reflects how important WMSE believes a page is to enable someone, with no prior knowledge of how translatewiki.net functions, to start translating and become an active member of the community. We welcome others to add their own weightings according to the same criteria.
The comments in the "comment" column reflect the initial thoughts when we read through the page and identifying the topic. They are in no way absolute so if you disagree or have other suggestions for improvement these are very welcome, although it's probably easiest to bring these up as a thread on the talk page instead.
General thoughts
- All of the documentation pages would probably benefit from having something like the template "In a nutshell" which gives a short and concise explanation of what the page is about and whom it is aimed at.
- Similarly decommissioned pages could get a template making this status clear so as to avoid confusion.
- I'd rather have users not get lost where they didn't mean to go. Probably a clearer separation of namespaces and paths would help. Most of the work was already done, by moving MediaWiki-specific stuff under Translating:MediaWiki and Translate-specific stuff to mw:Help:Extension:Translate.
- Needs clarification: the distinction between Project, Translating and Main namespaces. It was already decided to drop one (by making "Translating" the "Project" namespace, probably), but would that work?
- A hub for discussions related to the site, separate from error/enhancement reporting which fills up Support, might be useful. It could additionally serve as a natural place for beginners to ask questions, especially if the portal for their language is not very active. Alternatively a hub specifically aimed at helping new users (similar to w:en:Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user).
- A step-by-step guide for some common tasks might be useful. WMSE are already going to create some videos for this and there may also be suggestions in File:Translate-workflow-spec.pdf.
List of documentation pages
| # | Page | Topic | Comment | Translatable (Y/N) | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Support | Equivalent to Village Pump | 1) Intro is not translatable. 2) A bit more about what the page is for would be good. |
N |
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| 3 | Translating:How_to_start | Intro to new translators | 1) Very short, does not explain new Sandboxing approach. 2) Mixture of guidance since it both looks at new translators in general and the first translators for MediaWiki in a specific language. Could the latter be moved elsewhere? 3) Contains links to decommissioned translation group. 4) Each bullet should have more explanations to make it easier to grasp for a beginner. | Y |
|
| 4 | Explains what is translatable in Mediawiki | English page is a redirect to Localisation guidelines. Some of the language subpages are still live. | See comment |
| |
| 5 | 1) Might be better to break up/regroup. Adding a new language is similar to adding a new project, some of the “How to start” information about MediaWiki in a new language could also be moved to such a page. 2) An intro is needed, explaining the purpose and structure of the page. Page removed, now a redirect/disambig | N |
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| 8 | - | Dead/redirect | - |
| |
| 9 | Translating:Localisation_for_developers | General information about L10n for devs | N |
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| 10 | Translating:Index | Documentation hub | Only includes some of the existing documentation. Made translatable but not activated. | See comment |
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| 11 | Translating:New_project | General information about adding a new project. | Y |
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| 12 | Translating:Offline | Instructions for how to translate offline | See comment |
| |
| 15 | Project:Translator | Page for requesting Translator rights | Lots of subpages exist in parallel with /top which uses translatable interface messages. Is documentation updated to deal with new sandboxing? Does templated header still make sense? | See comment |
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| 16 | Project:About | About TWN | Y |
| |
| 17 | Alternative introduction? | N |
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| 29 | Has previously been recommended for deletion since it is outdated här. Also move/delete translatiweiki:Project list/Khw Redirected | Y |
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| 30 | Localisation_guidelines | Guidelines for translators | Exists in parallel with Localisation guidelines/en (now changed to a redirect) and other language subpages. 2) It says "TODO: write open" | See comment |
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| 31 | Gender | Explains GENDER magic word | Entirely aimed at MediaWiki (if supported by other projects then a short section should be added). (note there is a translator section in the FAQ) | N |
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| 32 | Plural | Explains PLURAL magic word | Might be good with an intro specifying whether the page is aimed at translators or devs (alternatively a section for each). (note there is a translator section in the FAQ). | N |
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| 33 | Plural/Comparison_of_plural_rules_in_various_databases | Plurals table | Unclear what columns mean (on the other hand page doesn't look maintained) | N |
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| 34 | Plural/Mediawiki_plural_rules | Mw plural table | N |
| |
| 35 | Grammar | Explains GRAMMAR magic word | Might be good with an intro specifying whether the page is aimed at translators or devs (alternatively a section for each). (note there is a translator section in the FAQ) | N |
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| 41 | FAQ | FAQ | If quickly reviewed by someone in the know to see that no outdated answers are left then this could be prepared for translation. | N |
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| 42 | Technology | Explains some underlying technologies | Y |
| |
| 43 | - | N |
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| 44 | Quick_guide_to_editing_translatewiki.net | Cheat-sheet | If quickly reviewed by someone in the know to see that no outdated bits are left then this could be prepared for translation. | N |
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| 52 | Help_us | Entry point for volunteer developers | Does this in part overlap with other pages? 2) Perhaps change the name to make it clearer whom the page is for? | N |
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| 62 | Translatewiki.net_languages | On the languages supported by TWN | Partially overlaps the “add a new language instructions” | N |
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| 63 | CLDR | CLDR, definition and how TWN/MW use it | N |
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Generic communication
Pages with a specific audience (past or current), but not part of the translators' or project contacts' workflow.
| # | Page | Topic | Comment | Translatable (Y/N) | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Translating:Intro | About i18n in general and TWN approach to i18n in particular. | 1) Could be updated in sub-sections to make it more attractive. 2) Add an illustration. | Y |
|
| 6 | Translating:Statistics | Various TWN statistics | It's a disambiguation page. 1) Unclear structure. 2) Some central links seem to be missing. 3) There is not really any numbers on the page or explanations about them. Would be valuable to keep in order so that it is easier to get numbers for presentations, external communication etc. | Y |
|
| 7 | Translating:Group_statistics | Automatically updated translation statistics for various groups | 1) Intro is not translatable. 2) |
N |
|
| 13 | Some group statistics over time | N |
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| 18 | Project:General_disclaimer | Legal | Y |
| |
| 19 | Project:Financials | Link to Drive | Still kept updated? If not then mark as such. | N |
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| 20 | Project:Privacy_policy | Legal | Y |
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| 36 | Languages_by_language_family | Overview of all languages | N |
| |
| 37 | Map_of_translators | Users pinned on map based on User page settings | No information on what the page shows or how you can add yourself | N |
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| 45 | ? | N |
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| 54 | Rakkaus | Explains irc bot | N |
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| 55 | Roadmap | - | Outdated | N |
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| 59 | Using Translate for KDE | Still live? | N |
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| 60 | IOSApp | Landing page for TWN iOS app | - | N |
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| 61 | AndroidApp | Landing page for TWN Android app | - | N |
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| 65 | Most_often_used_messages_in_MediaWiki | Explains the now decommissioned core-0 group | N |
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Internal pages
Not really meant to be read by anyone other than authors/collaborators, staff and insanely curious users. Often related to specific projects, past or future.
| # | Page | Topic | Comment | Translatable (Y/N) | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | Up to date? | N |
| ||
| 21 | Explains user group named | Replace this and other groups by one translatable page, or section in Project:Translator, or expansion of Project:About. | N |
| |
| 22 | Project:Autoconfirmed_users | Explains user group named | See note on Project:Import |
| |
| 23 | Project:Users | Explains user group named | See note on Project:Import |
| |
| 24 | Project:Administrators | Explains user group named | See note on Project:Import |
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| 25 | Project:Bots | Explains user group named | See note on Project:Import |
| |
| 26 | Project:Staff | Explains user group named | See note on Project:Import |
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| 27 | Project:Bureaucrats | Explains user group named | See note on Project:Import |
| |
| 28 | N |
| |||
| 38 | Terminology | Front page for terminology project | Is this still active? | N (but has language subpages) |
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| 39 | Terminology/mediawiki | Some terms used by MediaWiki and their definitions | N |
| |
| 40 | Terminology/computer_terms | Short list of computer related terms with explanations | Is this still needed? Not active since 2011 and will never be exhaustive (and only in English) | N |
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| 46 | Configuration | TWN config files | internal/dev | N |
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| 47 | WebFonts | N |
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| 48 | Assamese_Windows_7_InScript_keyboard | ? | N |
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| 49 | Translate_Roll | Recruiting translators for other projects? | N |
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| 50 | Statistics_Project | - | Outdated | N |
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| 51 | Group_management_proposal | - | Outdated | N |
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| 56 | Roadmap/Documentation | - | Outdated | N |
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| 57 | Roadmap/Gettext | - | Outdated | N |
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| 58 | Known issues and features | Internal/dev | N |
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| 64 | LocalTime | Proposal for L10n time expressions in MediaWiki | N |
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