{{msg-mw|ago}} cannot work
In r97962, the ago ("$1 ago") message has been added, noting Introduce an 'ago' message for '$1 ago'. Not currently used in core, but I want to use it in an extension and it seemed stupid not to have such a thing in core. But this cannot use the basic messages (e.g. seconds ("{{PLURAL:$1|$1 second|$1 seconds}}")) in flective languages. E.g. in Czech, something takes “10 sekund”, but something happened “před 10 sekundami”, because the “před $1” corresponding to “$1 ago” uses the instrumental case.
Either drop the ago message until somebody needs it, or introduce specialized submessages for it.
How would you suggest this be implemented, exactly? Remember that $1 is something like '2 days 3 hours' or '10 minutes 5 seconds'.
As I have said, you cannot use the basic (nominative-case) seconds, minutes etc., you have to introduce separate (instrumental-case) variants for the ago message. Then, its $1 parameter should be filled using these new variants. E.g.:
- MediaWiki:Seconds/en =
{{PLURAL:$1|$1 second|$1 seconds}} - MediaWiki:Seconds-ago/en =
{{PLURAL:$1|$1 second|$1 seconds}} - MediaWiki:Seconds/cs =
{{PLURAL:$1|$1 sekunda|$1 sekundy|$1 sekund}} - MediaWiki:Seconds-ago/cs =
{{PLURAL:$1|$1 sekundou|$1 sekundami}}
and:
- MediaWiki:Ago/en =
$1 ago- ⇒ “5 seconds ago”
- MediaWiki:Ago/cs =
před $1- ⇒ “před 5 sekundami” (not “před 5 sekund”)
Cf. also Special:Translate/wikia-timeagomessaging (https://svn.wikia-code.com/wikia/trunk/extensions/wikia/TimeAgoMessaging/).
Swahili is another example where the current arrangement of these messages cannot work. The word "ago" is translated using a verb form "-li-pita" which has a prefix and an infix which both change according to the class of the preceding noun and whether it is singular or plural. The noun for "hour" has a different class to the other three.
To make these messages work you need to combine them all in one message. You also need to have a separate message for each combination of the times. for Swahili you could have two groups of messages, one for messages where the last time is hours and the other for all others.
- The first group would contain "2 hours ago", "5 days 2 hours ago".
- The second group would contain "10 minutes 5 seconds ago", 2 hours 10 minutes ago", "5 days ago", "10 minutes ago", "5 seconds ago", "5 days 2 hours 10 minutes ago", "2 hours 10 minutes 5 seconds ago", "5 days 2 hours 10 minutes 5 seconds ago".
This grouping is bound to clash with the requirements of other languages:-}
In Colognian, the best way to combine the various durations would be to make it a list - in English that is "A, B, C and D" - examples:
- För eine Menutt
- För 7 Stunde un 2 Menutte
- För 3 Dääch, 2 Stunde, un 4 Sekunde
- För eine Woch, einem Daach, un eine Sekund
This is not good, but likely the best, we can get with current software. But inside sentences or similar structures, we should not write figures up to 12 using digits, but rather should spell them out like "twelve".
Also, we need to have an eye on declensions depending on wording:
- 1 day ago
- för einem Daach
- 1 day long
- för eine Daach
although these may be mutually embedded in sentence contexts making them effectively mean the same.
This is being overhauled by Andrew in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/15746 . I linked him to this thread when he was working on it.