New stuff to check
"Missing message documentation" isn't technically correct, as many things are documented (see, for example, mw:Extension:Comments#Internationalization, mw:Extension:NewSignupPage#Interface messages, mw:Nimbus skin#Internationalization...), they just aren't documented in the format preferred by TWN.
Just like in the past, I still disagree with the location and the format of message documentation; obviously having documentation is useful, and that's something I've never been denying. Internationalization files can get pretty large for an extension that has many (say, over 50) messages. I feel that we should keep only linguistic content in i18n files and not make 'em a strange mess of translations and documentation. You also can't include images on the i18n file in the same way you can include them on wiki pages. (Well, you could base64-encode them as data: URIs, like how the ResourceLoader does for images...but you get the idea. When you have something like [[File:Foo.jpg|something goes here]] without any more specific context in an i18n file, you don't really know what Foo.jpg is, where it is stored, etc.)
Just what do you mean by "major i18n issues" and can you provide specific links to these? I'm not aware of any such issues. In fact, I've gone to great lenghts in making these extensions translatable, at least if you compare them to their original state, in which many of them had hard-coded English and/or misleading UI messages, etc.
Also, what is the "problem" with Phalanx? Like I wrote earlier, it is already supported as a Wikia extension, so why cannot it be supported as a normal MediaWiki extension? Or are the standards different for Wikia extensions?
I would like to invite you to compare the files SpecialPhalanx.body.php and SpecialPhalanxStats.php between upstream and Wikia; upstream SpecialPhalanx.body.php, Wikia SpecialPhalanx.body.php, upstream SpecialPhalanxStats.php and Wikia SpecialPhalanxStats.php.
Please pay specific attention to the functions PhalanxPager::formatRow (in SpecialPhalanx.body.php), PhalanxStats::block_stats/PhalanxStats::blockStats and PhalanxStats::showForms() (in SpecialPhalanxStats.body.php).
Finally, it's worth noting that supporting an extension in TWN — whether it has the documentation or not and whether said docs are in the format preferred and accepted by TWN or not — is useful for everyone. I'm not going to lose my night's sleep over these kind of things, but it does make life harder for the average end-user who would like to have i18n available on their site. History has shown that people will find a way around this political limitation — but the question is should they focus on that or something more productive.
I don't see message documentation as a major deal-breaker, and I don't understand why it would be for someone. For years, things worked just fine without. Sure, having it is a nice additional bonus, but it shouldn't be the main focus.
If you're ok with managing message documentation and submission of translations by yourself in your own way that's fine, it just won't be thrown on TWN translators who are used to higher standards. This is not worth discussing, I think.
Our translators need good message documentation to make good translations. Often it is unclear - because out of context - if a message is a noun or a verb, if it is a label or a button text etc etc.
I know that you do not like the qqq section inside the i18n file, but they do not really hurt. Really big extensions like FlaggedRevs withs hundreds of messages works on WMF without any problems with the qqq section. You are free to do your own message documentions on mediawiki.org. Thats great. But TWN needs the message documetation shown up in the translation process directy, not on mw.org.
Images/screenshots can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and included in the message doc. TWN is using InstantCommons for this.
As the one - besides Siebrand - who adds (new) extension I say clearly: I will not add an extension without proper message doc.
Oh I forgot one option: Feel free to invent a complete new message doc system which is better, for you and us :-)
Thanks for adding the message doc, looks offhand OK. But I wonder why I don't see these commits on Gerrit? These are Gitweb links only. It's impossible for me to track changes in those files if they are not going through Gerrit. Is bypassing Gerrit still possible for extensions not used by WMF?
Progress:
Done LinkFilter- Done SiteMetrics
- Done Phalanx
- Done VoteNY
- Done Comments
Not done yet:
- NewSignupPage: 2 messages are prefixed with 'shout-', 1 w/o any prefix. Please change them to 'newsignuppage-'-