Dear translators, MediaWiki administrators,
Today Andrew has committed a rewrite of the MediaWiki preferences system
that will be part of MediaWiki 1.15. In it 19 messages were introduced or
changed that need to be translated or updated in every supported language.
Of course translatewiki.net can be used to take a first peek at the new
functionality.
Please join the MediaWiki localisation projects at http://translatewiki.net
and keep your language's localisation updated.
Thank you for your efforts!
Siebrand Mazeland
translatewiki.net staff
Hi,
I think this event will be of great interest and relevance to a number
of MediaWiki developers. I hope we can have a significant presence at
this year's event, as compared to the first one in 2007
(<http://www.aspirationtech.org/events/opentranslation>).
cheers
Brianna
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Allen Gunn <gunner(a)aspirationtech.org>
Date: 2009/4/23
Subject: [opentranslation] OTT09: Call for Participants!
To: Open Translation Tools Discussion List
<opentranslation(a)lists.aspirationtech.org>
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Hey friends,
We'll be doing broader announcements later this week, but I just wanted
to let folks know that we're ready to know who's coming to Amsterdam in
June!
Please spread the word on all fronts! Blog it, tweet it, etc!
http://aspirationtech.org/events/opentranslation/2009
peace,
gunner
- --
Allen Gunn
Executive Director, Aspiration
+1.415.216.7252
www.aspirationtech.org
Aspiration: "Better Tools for a Better World"
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--
They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment:
http://modernthings.org/
On 31 December 2007 I sent an e-mail, to which this is a follow up[1].
First things first, because not everyone reads e-mails completely:
* MediaWiki localisation (that is the translation of English source messages
to
other languages) depends on you! If you speak a language other than
English,
care about this and like translating, go to http://translatewiki.net,
register
a user and start contributing translations for MediaWiki messages and
extension messages. When your localisation is complete, keep coming back
regularly to re-complete it and do quality control. Thank you in advance
for
all your contributions and effort.
* The i18n and L10n area of MediaWiki requires continuous efforts. If this
area
of FOSS has your interest, please do not hesitate and offer your
development
skills to further MediaWiki's i18n and L10n capabilities[5,6].
All statistics are based on MediaWiki 1.14 alpha, SVN version r45277
(1 January 2009). Comparisons are to MediaWiki 1.12 alpha, SVN version
r29106
(31 December 2007).
==Introduction==
* Localisation or l10n - the process of adapting the software to be as
familiar
as possible to a specific locale (in scope)
* Internationalisation or i18n - the process of ensuring that an application
is
capable of adapting to local requirements (out of scope)
MediaWiki has a user interface (UI) definition for 348 languages (up from
319).
Of those languages at least 26 language codes are duplicates and/or serve a
purpose for usability[2]. Reporting on them, however, is not relevant. So
MediaWiki in its current state supports 322 languages (up from 302). To be
able to generate statistics on localisation, a MessagesXx.php file should be
present in languages/messages. There currently are 326 such files (up from
262), of which 27 are redirects from the duplicates/usability group or just
empty[3]. So MediaWiki has an active in-product localisation for 299
languages
(up from 236).
The MediaWiki core product recognises several collections of localisable
content (three of which are defined in messageTypes.inc):
* 'normal' messages that can be localised (2168 - up 26% from 1726)
* optional messages that can be localised, which usually only happens for
languages not using a Latin script (173 - up 7% from 161)
* ignored messages that should not be localised (149 - up 49% from 100)
* namespace names and namespace aliases (17 - no change)
* magic words (132 - up 10% from 120)
* special page names (86 - up 13% from 76)
* other (directionality, date formats, separators, book store lists, link
trail, and others)
Localisation of MediaWiki revolves around all of the above. Reporting is
done
on the normal messages only.
MediaWiki is more than just the core product. On
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:All_extensions some 1200 extensions
(up
60% from 750) have some kind of documentation. This analysis will scope only
to the code currently present in svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk.
The source code repository contains give or take 370 extensions (up 61% from
230). Of those 370 extensions, about 300 contain messages that can be
visible
in the UI in some use case (debugging excluded). Out of those 300, about 35
have an exotic implementation for localisation support, no localisation at
all
(just English text in the code), or are outdated, broken or obsolete.
Compared to last year, when there were about 5 different 'standard'
implementations of i18n in extensions, the situation has changed a lot. The
vast majority of extensions now make use of $wgExtensionMessagesFiles and
wfLoadExtensionMessages. Currently some 6,000 messages for extensions can be
localised in a consistent way (up 200% from 2,000).
==MediaWiki localisation in practice==
Ways to to MediaWiki localisation have not changed a lot in the past year.
Still, the changes that have taken place have a profound impact on the
quality
and volume of localisation for MediaWiki.
* in local wikis: we have scavenged all Wikimedia wikis for existing
translations, imported those in the base product and tried to recruit
translators to audit and extend the centralised localisation. This project
has been very succesful, and aside from a few exceptions, local wikis now
customise and no longer do base localisation.
* through bugzilla/svn: A user of MediaWiki submits patches for core
messages
and/or extensions. These users are mostly part of a wiki community that is
part of Wikimedia. Compared to last year, this group of localisation
contributors has decreased. The maintainer for German for example started
working in Betawiki, because he stated that he was no longer able to keep
up with the workload. Languages that remain getting (very) frequent
updates
through subversion are Danish, Hebrew, and Chinese (4 variants). The
number
of localisations maintained this way has dropped from more than 10 to
about
6. Localisation updates submitted through Bugzilla are virtually
non-existent.
* through Betawiki: In the past year Betawiki has about doubled in size
(translators, translations, supported products, traffic, etc.). 95% or
more
of the localisation volume for MediaWiki goes through this wiki, and a lot
of development has been done on the Translate extension in the past year.
Betawiki staff remains committed to MediaWiki i18n and L10n, and still has
a
strong belief in collaborative localisation.
==The professional amateur approach==
2008 was also the year in which MediaWiki localisation got outside stimuli.
A
grant given to Stichting Open Progress[8] by Hivos[9] enabled us to provide
bounties for less resources languages[10], and enabled us to have an end of
year
translation rally[11]. Niklas Laxström[12] participated in the Finnish
Summer
Coding Project[13], which led to a more feature rich and usable Translate
extension, allowing translators to be more productive. We (Betawiki staff
and
Stichting Open Progress) intend to continue trying to get funding to improve
language support for MediaWiki and FOSS in general. If you think you can
help
in any way to achieve this goal, please do no hesitate to contact any of us.
Multiple developers contribute on i18n and L10n features. Most, if not all
features that are added to subversion these days are audited for i18n or
L10n omissions. These are usually corrected quickly after being discovered.
Core messages and extension messages have been made more consistent. These
are ongoing processes, that we need your help and awareness for[5,7].
==MediaWiki localisation statistics==
Per end of 2007 MediaWiki localisation has no longer only focused on a
complete
translation of core messages, but also on messages used in the most often
use
cases. This resulted in a set of about 25% of the MediaWiki core messages
that
really have to be translated before a language is really usable with
MediaWiki.
Because software like MediaWiki is ever changing, an updated of this list
will
be released in the coming week[4].
Daily statistics for MediaWiki and extension localisation are created at
http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Group_statistics. Last year, some
(arbitrary) milestones have been set for four collections of MediaWiki
related messages. For the usability of MediaWiki in a particular language,
the group 'core most used' is the most important. A language must qualify
for
MediaWiki to have 'minimal support' for that language in the first group.
Reaching further milestones indicates the maturity of a localisation:
* core most used (485 messages): 98%
* core (2,168 messages): 90%
* wikimedia extensions (1,067 messages): 90%
* extensions (6,013 messages): 65%
Currently the following numbers of languages have passed the above
milestones:
* core most used: 109 (33.9% of supported languages - up 132% from 47)
* core: 68 (21.1% of supported languages - up 39% from 49)
* Wikimedia extensions: 36 (11.2% of supported languages - up 260% from 10)
* extensions: 21 (6.5% of supported languages - up 200% from 7)
As you can see, the changes in the past year are gigantic. And these changes
have been accomplished even though many messages have disappeared from and
have and been added to all the message groups. Currently MediaWiki core
contains 303,863 messages (up 77% from 171,261 ultimo 2007).
==Conclusion==
So... Is MediaWiki doing well on localisation? Just like last year, my
personal
opinion is that we do a proper job, but can still do a lot better. Observing
that there are more than 250 Wikipedias that all use the Wikimedia Commons
media repository, and that 109 languages have a minimal localisation, there
is
a lot of room for improvement. With the Wikimedia Foundation using Single
User
Login, MediaWiki must do better.
Last year I mentioned a few example cases of languages that did very well,
and
also a few language that didn't do well. So what happened there? Well, Hindi
got a boost, but sank away as messages were added without an active
maintainer.
Asturian and Extremaduran have no active maintainers. Bikol Central is not
doing to bad, and Lower Sorbian and Galician are doing great. Languages from
Asia have heavily improved their MediaWiki localisation last year. But where
are the languages from Africa? In the past year we have seen steady
contributions for Amharic and Afrikaans, some for Swahili, Wolof and Yoruba,
but all in all, just not enough to provide (native) speakers with a user
interface in their own language.
With the Wikimedia Foundation aiming to put MediaWiki to good use in
developing
countries and products like NGO-in-a-box that include MediaWiki, the
potential
of MediaWiki as a tool in creating and preserving knowledge in the languages
of
the world is huge. We have to tap into that potential and *you* (yes, I am
glad
you read this far and are now reading my appeal) can help. If you know
people
that are proficient in a language and like contributing to localisation,
please
point them in the right direction. If you know of organisations that can
help
localise MediaWiki: please approach them and ask them to help.
We have all the tools to successfully localise MediaWiki into any of the
7000
or so languages that have been classified in ISO 639-3. We only need one
person
per language to make and effort and make it happen. Reaching the first
milestone (core most used) takes about six hours of work. Using Betawiki or
the
gettext file, little to no technical knowledge is required.
This was the pitch, basically the same as in 2007, but with more experience
and
data. Three of the four goals I set in last years' e-mail have not been
reached. I did not take into account how rapidly MediaWiki would grow, or
how
quickly we could standardise i18n implementation for extensions. Goals for
MediaWiki localisation per end of 2009 remain largely the same as for 2008:
* core most used: 130 languages with 98% or more localised
* core: 90 languages with 90% or more localised
* wikimedia extensions: 50 languages with 90% or more localised
* extensions: 30 languages with 65% or more localised
I would like to wish everyone involved in any aspect of MediaWiki a
wonderful 2009.
Cheers!
Siebrand Mazeland
[1]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2007-December/000571.html
[2]
als,be-x-old,crh,de-formal,dk,en-gb,hif,kk,kk-cn,iu,kk-kz,kk-tr,ku,nb,ruq,
simple,sr,tg,tp,tt,zh,zh-cn,zh-sg,zh-hk,zh-min-nan,zh-mo,zh-yue
[3]
als,be-x-old,crh,dk,hif,ii,iu,kk-cn,kk-kz,kk-tr,ks,ku,lld,nb,ruq-grek,ruq,
simple,tg,tp,tt,ydd,zh-cn,zh-min-nan,zh-mo,zh-my,zh-sg,zh-yue
[4] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Most_often_used_messages_in_MediaWiki
[5] i18n Bugzilla issues:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&component=I
nternationalization&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNE
D&bug_status=REOPENED
[6] Translate extension bugs and feature requests:
http://translatewiki.net/wiki/User:Siebrand#Bugs
[7] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Support
[8] http://www.openprogress.org/Stichting_Open_Progress
[9] http://www.hivos.nl/eng
[10] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Language_project
[11] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Betawiki:News/Newsletter_2008-12-2
[12] http://nike.fixme.fi/blag/
[13] http://www.coss.fi
Dear translators, developers, and other subscribers,
As Betawiki staff we would like to thank you very much for your continued
support making MediaWiki projects succeed, and hope on good health for you
and your loved ones, and your continued contributions for 2009.
End of December 2007 Siebrand formulated localisation goals for MediaWiki
For 2008[1]. They were ambitious. Really ambitious, and it looks like the
four goals that were set are not going to be met. However, us Betawiki staff
do not give up without a fight. There is still one more week left before the
year ends, and because of that we would like to give you an incentive.
== 1,000 Euro bounty ==
Together with Stichting Open Progress[2] we are able to make available 1,000
Euro, to be divided between all translators that will make 500 or more new
translations for MediaWiki or its extensions before the end of the year. In
the past week there have been 5 users that made more than 500 translations,
so that is quite an incentive, we think! If you are eligible to claim your
share of the bounty, please do that at the designated page[3]. Please note
if you would like to receive your cut, have us donate it to the Wikimedia
Foundation on your behalf, or if you do not claim it, in which case
Stichting Open Progress will repurpose it.
We wish you happy and productive holidays and hope to see you (re)visit
Betawiki often!
Betawiki Staff[4]
[1]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2007-December/000571.html
[2] http://openprogress.org/Stichting_Open_Progress
[3] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Language_project/500claim
[4] http://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:ListUsers&group=staff
(cc'd to mediawiki-i18n mailing list too)
In r30349, Raymond fixed bug 10365 (
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10365), allowing
Special:Version to be localized. However, I am not sure how smart an idea
that was, since nowadays almost every extension has a description message.
Why so?
Firstly, let's have a look at WikiTextLoggedInOut extension (
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/WikiTextLoggedIn…).
It is a simple parser hook extension from Wikia I added on 30th of June to
the SVN repository. It adds two parser hooks that show different output to
the user depending on his/her login status. How simple is that? Well, it has
a description message too. It is a simple parser hook tag that does not need
i18n at all, unlike special page extensions and such do.
Secondly, some extensions, such as the above-mentioned WikiTextLoggedInOut
have only one message... the description message. Now, with the i18n file
being added, the extension's i18n gets loaded on every pageload if the page
has the extension tag. I am relatively sure that it slows things down. Maybe
only a few milliseconds, but the point is that it can be avoided.
Thirdly, what if the original developer wants or needs to change the
extension description, upon adding or removing some features? That's right,
some languages would see old messages with incorrect information while some
other languages might have correct info. And users might end up trying to
use a removed feature, which would obviously cause them frustration. After
all, you cannot demand that volunteer translators do translations 24 hours
per day. In fact, we already have several developers continuously working on
i18n, desperately trying to keep them in sync - resources that would be much
better spent on developing new functionality and fixing bugs.
I have heard an interesting argument in favor of description messages: that
they allow the wiki users to know what features are installed and what they
can use. Now, I don't think that's true. The local help pages are for
documentation and so are the extension pages on MediaWiki.org. If something
should be done, the local admins/sysadmins should create a help page about
the feature or announce it and maybe point the users to MediaWiki.org for
more information if they don't create a help page or such.
I have spoken to several fellow MediaWiki / extension developers, some
native English speakers and some are not, but most of them seem to agree
that the localization of Special:Version is "i18n gone bad". I have to agree
with them, as description messages do not provide anything useful for users
or developers - having, for example, the words "MWSearch plugin" in 39
different languages (
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/MWSearch/MWSearc…)
is probably one of the most pathological examples. These extension
description messages just cause extra stress for MediaWiki and the servers
running MediaWiki. In the past, you could always find at least one English
page on the wiki, no matter what its content language was - Special:Version.
Now you have to add ?uselang=en to see the 'correct' version of the page.
Another interesting and related point is the addition of core 'blank' page
in r36856 (http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki?view=rev&revision=36856)
by Domas. He added the blank special page as a baseline to profile startup
times. He used to use Special:Version for profiling, but since it's
overloaded with useless i18n crap now, it is no longer effective.
If there is something that should be translated in Special:Version, it most
certainly is not extension descriptions. It is the license text. And to
avoid legal issues, it should have a hardcoded English string, for example,
"The English version of the license can be found here" or something. As a
user, I would like to know my legal rights rather than of what parts the
software is made of.
I believe that the description message / localization of Special:Version
does more harm than it does good, plus it is pointless (as Rob Church
correctly pointed out in his initial reaction:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10365#c1). I would request
that this would be removed from core.
--
Jack Phoenix
It's time to remember one of those English proverbs I leaned in high school: "Good things come in threes!"
1. After being enabled on the German language Wikipedia a few weeks ago[1], Flagged revisions is a hit. Over 255.000 content pages have been reviewed (a third of all content pages) by almost 3.000 users[2]. The in my humble opinion Wikipedia with the highest quality content, now ensures that anonymous readers get to read checked versions of content, reducing chances of innocent bystanders being confronted with all kinds of pranks and filth. Great stuff.
2. Three days ago a shell user created a large number (15) of new MediaWiki wikis (Thanks Tim!)[3]. Many of those in languages that did not have a Wikimedia project yet (9). Thanks to everyone who has taken and is taking the time to make Wikimedia projects even more omnipresent. Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.
3. Last Tuesday, the illustrious "Bug 57" was finally closed[4]. Using multiple Wikimedia projects has never been this easy before. Yay! for meta projects like Wikimedia Commons. Now where's that WYSIWYG editor so that the learning curve does not have to be this steep[5]? I am putting a EUR 1000,00 bounty on the first to get one working properly and approved by Brion before the end of 2008. Contact me for details if you are serious about working on this. I am certain there are more people that would chip in for this[6] - and MediaWiki needs it to stay an interesting wiki engine outside of the WMF projects.
4. As you may not know (who am I anyway), I am heavily involved in the MediaWiki localisation project, which tries to make MediaWiki available in as many languages as possible. In the end of 2007 I formulated four ambitious goals for the project[7]. By the end of the year, 120 languages should have a minimal localisation (proper localisation for 'read only', back then 48 languages), 90 languages should have a localisation for at least 90% of all MediaWiki messages (then 50), 50 should have a 90% localisation of extension messages used by Wikimedia (then 11) and 20 should have a 65% localisation of all extension messages supposed in the MediaWiki localisation project (then 7)[8]. In December 2007, I thought all of those goals would be just or well beyond reach. Well, impossible really. Today the first of the forementioned four goals was reached: 20 languages now have a 65% or more localisation of the 3,700 messages of the extensions supported by Betawiki. Translators for Esperanto and Vietnamese completed the 20 languages. MediaWiki now has minimal localisation for 112 languages, an excellent localisation exists for 65 languages, and 16 languages have excellent support for the extensions that the WMF uses[9,10]. Brilliant if you ask me. And still we need more. There are Wikimedia projects in over 270 languages (counting Incubator projects) and MediaWiki supports about 313 languages. The least we should do is offer language communities a user interface in the language their parents taught them - nothing better to feel at home.
Ouch. I have to learn how to count… And I was not even done yet. Just wanted to share my happiness :).
Siebrand
[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-May/042705.html
[2] http://toolserver.org/~aka/cgi-bin/reviewcnt.cgi?lang=english
[3] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2008-May/038008.html
[4] http://leuksman.com/log/2008/05/28/bug-57-laid-to-rest/
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve
[6] The bounty is made available through the 'MediaWiki accessibility project' of Stichting Open Progress (http://www.openprogress.org), subsidised by HIVOS (http://www.hivos.nl/). Acceptance criteria include a proper 'back and forth' conversion of 2,000 English language Wikipedia main namespace pages.
[7] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2007-December/000571.html
[8] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Group_statistics_in_time
[9] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Group_statistics
[10] the relatively low rise in localisation completeness for WMF extension is mainly due to the large increase in messages for CentralAuth and FlaggedRevs; translators need some time to catch up.
As I had to update the config files for pywikipediabot for CommonsDelinker, I thought I might as well inform you of the 15 new Wikimedia wikis that were created today[1,2].
* ['wikinews']['cs']
* ['wikinews']['hu']
* ['wikipedia']['ext']
* ['wikipedia']['gan']
* ['wikipedia']['hif']
* ['wikipedia']['kaa']
* ['wikipedia']['mdf']
* ['wikipedia']['myv']
* ['wikipedia']['sah']
* ['wikipedia']['srn']
* ['wikipedia']['szl']
* ['wikisource']['ln']
* ['wikiversity']['cs']
* ['wikiversity']['ja']
* ['wikiversity']['pt']
Thanks go to Tim[3] for creating them. In general all the languages for which wikis have been created have a fair to excellent localisation status. Your continued efforts on this are appreciated. Please visit http://translatewiki.net and get those languages to 100% across the board[4].
Cheers! Siebrand
[1] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13264
[2] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14252
[3] https://wikitech.leuksman.com/view/Server_admin_log
[4] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Group_statistics