https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/67233/ remotes the old-style login and create account forms from core. The new forms have different messages, e.g. no more colons in English labels and there's no more use of the combined "Log in / create account". So I removed the old messages from MessagesEn.php, MessagesQqq.php and messages.inc.
Raimond pointed out that the
'userlogin' message is still used by the OpenID extension.
Maybe more of these very old messages are used by other extensions.Needs investigation, partly revert recommended in the meantime.
Good point, it's also used by MobileFrontEnd (!), I'll submit a patch restoring this message and ask on the i18n mailing list for guidance.
FWIW mw.org's I18n page and Manual:System_message#Creating_new_messages don't say anything about extensions reusing core messages. I think they should caution extension writers about relying on messages in core, and instead define their own messages with a {{same}} template in Qqq. Or we need to somehow identify "reliable" or "deprecated" messages in core.
(Premature clicking)
https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/67233/ remotes the old-style login and create account forms from core. The new forms have different messages, e.g. no more colons in English labels and there's no more use of the combined "Log in / create account". So I removed the old messages from MessagesEn.php, MessagesQqq.php and messages.inc.
Raimond Spekking pointed out
'userlogin' message is still used by the OpenID extension.
Maybe more of these very old messages are used by other extensions.Needs investigation, partly revert recommended in the meantime.
Good point, 'userlogin' is also used by MobileFrontEnd and some unmaintained signup extensions. I will prepare a patch that restores it.
I searched for message keys in single quotes and it seems the other messages I removed (yourname yourpasswordagain userlogin userloginnocreate nologin nologinlink gotaccount gotaccountlink userlogin-resetlink createaccountreason ) are unused by the the extensions in 1.22wmf7.
* Should I restore those other messages as well? * Is there a process for deprecated or obsoleting a message in core? * Should I put something in MessagesQqq.php saying "Unused in core but some extensions still use it"
FWIW mediawiki.org's I18n page and Manual:System_message# Creating_new_messages don't say anything about extensions reusing core messages.
* Should extension writers be cautioned about relying on messages in core? * Perhaps instead they should define their own messages and use the {{same}} template in Qqq to point out the same message is in core.
Thanks as always!
S Page, 20/06/2013 02:35:
- Should extension writers be cautioned about relying on messages in core?
- Perhaps instead they should define their own messages and use the
{{same}} template in Qqq to point out the same message is in core.
I'd say this is already covered by https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Localisation#Avoid_message_reuse: even core shouldn't reuse a core message for different uses. The big exception is «"{{int:<key>}}"» literal quotation in another message. For instance, core reused "createaccount" for the top right link, when it was the title for a special page. This led to very weird results e.g. in Italian.
Nemo
On 20 June 2013 03:35, S Page spage@wikimedia.org wrote:
(Premature clicking)
https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/67233/ remotes the old-style login and create account forms from core. The new forms have different messages, e.g. no more colons in English labels and there's no more use of the combined "Log in / create account". So I removed the old messages from MessagesEn.php, MessagesQqq.php and messages.inc.
Raimond Spekking pointed out
'userlogin' message is still used by the OpenID extension.
Maybe more of these very old messages are used by other extensions.Needs investigation, partly revert recommended in the meantime.
Good point, 'userlogin' is also used by MobileFrontEnd and some unmaintained signup extensions. I will prepare a patch that restores it.
I searched for message keys in single quotes and it seems the other messages I removed (yourname yourpasswordagain userlogin userloginnocreate nologin nologinlink gotaccount gotaccountlink userlogin-resetlink createaccountreason ) are unused by the the extensions in 1.22wmf7.
- Should I restore those other messages as well?
- Is there a process for deprecated or obsoleting a message in core?
- Should I put something in MessagesQqq.php saying "Unused in core but some
extensions still use it"
I'd only restore messages that are known to be used and mark them clearly, for example introducing new deprecated section in MessagesEn.php (or maybe one section for each version of mw where messages have been deprecated) so that we wont forget to remove them in few releases or so. qqq is mostly for translators, so it is not the best place to put this info.
In addition, depending how much time you have, I'd submit fixes to the affected extensions to change them to use their own message. Or just file bugs, though that is not very effective for most extensions. There seems to be some disagreement on the community whether it is okay to break unmaintained extensions even if they are to blame.
-Niklas
-- Niklas Laxström
mediawiki-i18n@lists.wikimedia.org