Mediawiki core erroneous messages

Mediawiki core erroneous messages

Edited by author.
Last edit: 14:45, 8 December 2020

In the FAQ it says "If you spot a spelling or grammar error in the original English message, or you would like to suggest a better way of expressing the message, then please do not change the English message but instead put a message on the talk page of the project concerned." There is indeed a problem with six Mediawiki Core messages, but I'll be damned if I can find "the talk page of the project". Starting from the "Category:Supported projects" through "Category:Open support requests for MediaWiki", I end up here. So here it goes.

The six messages MediaWiki:Size-kilobytes/qqq, MediaWiki:Size-megabytes/qqq, MediaWiki:Size-gigabytes/qqq, MediaWiki:Size-terabytes/qqq, MediaWiki:Size-petabytes/qqq, and MediaWiki:Size-exabytes/qqq all describe the "Size (of a file, typically)" using the decimal (SI) prefix convention (e.g. exa = 1000×1000×1000×1000×1000×1000). However, in practice, the sizes displayed on various pages by all Wikimedia instances (such as Special:ListFiles in here) are all computed using binary prefixes (e.g. exbi = 1024×1024×1024×1024×1024×1024). It has been suggested a Phabricator ticket be created (how?) to get the developers to change the size-computing code; however, it would be much, much simpler to change the message names and qqq descriptions to match reality. Thus:

  • MediaWiki:Size-kilobytes should become MediaWiki:Size-kibibytes and its qqq be amended accordingly
  • MediaWiki:Size-megabytes should become MediaWiki:Size-mebibytes and its qqq be amended accordingly
  • MediaWiki:Size-gigabytes should become MediaWiki:Size-gibibytes and its qqq be amended accordingly
  • MediaWiki:Size-terabytes should become MediaWiki:Size-tebibytes and its qqq be amended accordingly
  • MediaWiki:Size-petabytes should become MediaWiki:Size-pebibytes and its qqq be amended accordingly
  • MediaWiki:Size-exabytes should become MediaWiki:Size-exbibytes and its qqq be amended accordingly

Addendum: More erroneous messages.

  • MediaWiki:Size-zetabytes should become MediaWiki:Size-zebibytes and its qqq be amended accordingly (note the misspelling; it should have been zettabytes)
  • MediaWiki:Size-yottabytes should become MediaWiki:Size-yobibytes and its qqq be amended accordingly

I strongly suspect the *pixel suite of messages also suffers from the above problem. I was unable to find example pages that use those messages. Any help would be appreciated. Note that the *pixel messages should be made plural for consistency's sake.

Urhixidur (talk)14:34, 5 December 2020
Edited by author.
Last edit: 14:42, 8 December 2020

I hope this problem will be resolved once https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T54687 goes in.

Urhixidur (talk)15:10, 5 December 2020

I hope this problem will be resolved once https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T54687 goes in.

Urhixidur (talk)15:05, 6 December 2020

Bump. (To see if the previous edit will take once a further edit is made.) Edit: I think this a browser problem local to myself. Then again, maybe not.

Urhixidur (talk)14:38, 8 December 2020

There’s currently a cache problem with threads, you need to ?action=purge to see the updated thread.

Thibaut (talk)14:47, 8 December 2020