I would also recommend that we optimize for option 2 and use canonical (English) namespace name for all files hosted on Commons, which is the primary use case.

In the current implementation of the Embed feature, we almost always link to the file on Commons, where it can be read easily with the ‘File:’ prefix, even if you have set preferences to a different language ( https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pair_of_Merops_apiaster_feeding.jpg?setlang=fr ).

But in the less frequent cases when a file is not hosted on Commons (or another multilingual site), but is hosted on a local language-specific site, I agree with Erik that it would be best if we could use the commonly-used prefix on that site. 

Is such a hybrid approach feasible in the near-term, given all that’s on our plate? If it’s too complex to implement with current resources, then I would optimize for the first use case above.


Fabrice


On May 5, 2014, at 12:13 PM, Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org> wrote:

Quick gut feel answer - IMO it should be localized in local, monolingual project invocations of media viewer (dewiki, frwiki, etc.) and canonical on multilingual wikis (Meta, Commons). If you're in dewiki and frwiki and copy wikitext, you'll most likely want to use it on that wiki, and the common expectation is to use the localized namespace prefix. If you're doing cross-wiki work, you can either go to Commons or adapt the namespace prefix. Optimize for the common case.


-- 
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
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On May 5, 2014, at 12:08 PM, Gergo Tisza <gtisza@wikimedia.org> wrote:

Hi all,

it has been requested [1] that we localize "File:" in the wikitext that MediaViewer suggests for embedding the image on a wiki page, so that for example in the French Wikipedia the text would be [[Fichier:...]] instead of [[File:...]].

Turns out this is problematic, since users might want to use the text on a different wiki which has a different content language, and the namespace name would not be recognized, while File works everywhere.

I can see three options:

1. use localized namespace name, accept that it will break when users try to use it cross-wiki
2. use canonical (English) namespace  name
3. use [[{{subst:ns:File}}:...]] which will translate into the local namespace name when the page is saved.

1 seems like a bad option overall; 2 might go against community standards; 3 feels like a hack and makes newbies' first meeting with wikitext more traumatic than it has to be. We are hesitating between option 2 and 3; we would welcome comments on which one would be preferred by editors.


[1] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=64710
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Fabrice Florin
Product Manager
Wikimedia Foundation