http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phare_de_la_Vieille&diff=13049...
Is there any consensus for this? Seems like a massive blow to readable wikitext for not much benefit.
Steve
On 5/14/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phare_de_la_Vieille&diff=13049...
Is there any consensus for this? Seems like a massive blow to readable wikitext for not much benefit.
People have been doing this to Japanese for a while - see {{nihongo}}. That is arguably useful in that Japanese-language names need to be transliterated in order to be readable, let alone comprehensible, to most English readers, and a standard format for putting the different forms is nice.
The point of this template is that it marks up the language used so that it can be displayed or spoken correctly. It encloses it in <span lang="language"></span> tags.
It's important to note that Unicode does not encode the language, just the characters. Read up on [[Han unification]] to understand the problems this gives with characters deemed the same across multiple Asian languages even if the characters are actually written quite differently when used to write Japanese vs. Chinese, for instance. There are less glaring examples stylistically in a number of European languages (exact positioning and style of diacritics, for instance).
As well as display/typography issues not handled in Unicode, this also allows screen readers and the like to have a better chance of understanding words in different languages.
It's certainly neater than using the HTML, but it's not exactly 100% intuitive either. I'm torn on this one; the more complicated Wiki markup becomes, the less friendly it is, but on the other hand, it's not good to lose information either.
-Matt
On 5/15/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/14/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phare_de_la_Vieille&diff=13049...
Is there any consensus for this? Seems like a massive blow to readable wikitext for not much benefit.
People have been doing this to Japanese for a while - see {{nihongo}}. That is arguably useful in that Japanese-language names need to be transliterated in order to be readable, let alone comprehensible, to most English readers, and a standard format for putting the different forms is nice.
The point of this template is that it marks up the language used so that it can be displayed or spoken correctly. It encloses it in <span lang="language"></span> tags.
It's important to note that Unicode does not encode the language, just the characters. Read up on [[Han unification]] to understand the problems this gives with characters deemed the same across multiple Asian languages even if the characters are actually written quite differently when used to write Japanese vs. Chinese, for instance. There are less glaring examples stylistically in a number of European languages (exact positioning and style of diacritics, for instance).
As well as display/typography issues not handled in Unicode, this also allows screen readers and the like to have a better chance of understanding words in different languages.
It's certainly neater than using the HTML, but it's not exactly 100% intuitive either. I'm torn on this one; the more complicated Wiki markup becomes, the less friendly it is, but on the other hand, it's not good to lose information either.
-Matt
I can see how this could be useful for Japanese words and such, but what is the advantage for French words? They're not any less readable or pronouncable without that tag.
Mgm
Matthew Brown wrote:
On 5/14/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phare_de_la_Vieille&diff=13049...
Is there any consensus for this? Seems like a massive blow to readable wikitext for not much benefit.
People have been doing this to Japanese for a while - see {{nihongo}}. That is arguably useful in that Japanese-language names need to be transliterated in order to be readable, let alone comprehensible, to most English readers,
So transliterate them unless there is already an established English form. The purpose of original script is for people to be able to follow the matter up in that language. An interwiki link to the WP in that language or to Wiktionary would at least have some usefulness.
and a standard format for putting the different forms is nice.
Why?
The point of this template is that it marks up the language used so that it can be displayed or spoken correctly. It encloses it in <span lang="language"></span> tags.
It just puts tags around it. How is that going to get things pronounced "correctly". Is that even needed? Do we tag mathematical or musical expressions for proper pronunciation?
It's important to note that Unicode does not encode the language, just the characters.
That's as it should be.
Read up on [[Han unification]] to understand the problems this gives with characters deemed the same across multiple Asian languages even if the characters are actually written quite differently when used to write Japanese vs. Chinese, for instance.
In situations where this matters the people involved already have a reasonable knowledge of the language(s) involved.
There are less glaring examples stylistically in a number of European languages (exact positioning and style of diacritics, for instance).
As well as display/typography issues not handled in Unicode, this also allows screen readers and the like to have a better chance of understanding words in different languages.
Wikipedia is not a dictionary.
It's certainly neater than using the HTML, but it's not exactly 100% intuitive either. I'm torn on this one; the more complicated Wiki markup becomes, the less friendly it is, but on the other hand, it's not good to lose information either.
Our markups are already overcomplicated. The last thing we need is more geekish imperialism. Omitting this does not lose any notable information at all. If all details in an article would go to this level of minutiae all of them would be much longer and much more boring.
Ec
If we ever get an integrated spellcheck, it will need these tags; they are also valuable during automatic translation if the translator is sufficiently sophisticated to recognize them (and not try to translate into the target language). But there should be a visually less prominent way of doing it. For one thing, they shouldn't be recognized as links--that's really worthless when they just link to the language. I have my skin set for blue, but for those using red or underlining it must be really awful. DGG
On 5/15/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Matthew Brown wrote:
On 5/14/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phare_de_la_Vieille&diff=13049...
Is there any consensus for this? Seems like a massive blow to readable wikitext for not much benefit.
People have been doing this to Japanese for a while - see {{nihongo}}. That is arguably useful in that Japanese-language names need to be transliterated in order to be readable, let alone comprehensible, to most English readers,
So transliterate them unless there is already an established English form. The purpose of original script is for people to be able to follow the matter up in that language. An interwiki link to the WP in that language or to Wiktionary would at least have some usefulness.
and a standard format for putting the different forms is nice.
Why?
The point of this template is that it marks up the language used so that it can be displayed or spoken correctly. It encloses it in <span lang="language"></span> tags.
It just puts tags around it. How is that going to get things pronounced "correctly". Is that even needed? Do we tag mathematical or musical expressions for proper pronunciation?
It's important to note that Unicode does not encode the language, just the characters.
That's as it should be.
Read up on [[Han unification]] to understand the problems this gives with characters deemed the same across multiple Asian languages even if the characters are actually written quite differently when used to write Japanese vs. Chinese, for instance.
In situations where this matters the people involved already have a reasonable knowledge of the language(s) involved.
There are less glaring examples stylistically in a number of European languages (exact positioning and style of diacritics, for instance).
As well as display/typography issues not handled in Unicode, this also allows screen readers and the like to have a better chance of understanding words in different languages.
Wikipedia is not a dictionary.
It's certainly neater than using the HTML, but it's not exactly 100% intuitive either. I'm torn on this one; the more complicated Wiki markup becomes, the less friendly it is, but on the other hand, it's not good to lose information either.
Our markups are already overcomplicated. The last thing we need is more geekish imperialism. Omitting this does not lose any notable information at all. If all details in an article would go to this level of minutiae all of them would be much longer and much more boring.
Ec
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On 5/15/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
But there should be a visually less prominent way of doing it. For one thing, they shouldn't be recognized as links--that's really worthless when they just link to the language. I have my skin set for blue, but for those using red or underlining it must be really awful. DGG
{{lang|<language>|<text>}} doesn't make anything a link that wasn't a link already.
-Matt
On 5/15/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Matthew Brown wrote:
People have been doing this to Japanese for a while - see {{nihongo}}. [...]
So transliterate them unless there is already an established English form. The purpose of original script is for people to be able to follow the matter up in that language. An interwiki link to the WP in that language or to Wiktionary would at least have some usefulness.
Did you even look at what that template does? It simply enforces a standard format of "<English translation> (<Japanese script> <transliterated Japanese>)" for such things.
and a standard format for putting the different forms is nice.
Why?
For the same reason that we use templates in general: to improve consistency.
The point of this template is that it marks up the language used so that it can be displayed or spoken correctly. It encloses it in <span lang="language"></span> tags.
It just puts tags around it. How is that going to get things pronounced "correctly". Is that even needed? Do we tag mathematical or musical expressions for proper pronunciation?
It puts <span lang="language"></span> tags around it. This enables browsers to display it correctly for the language in question, enables screen readers for the blind to read it correctly instead of attempting to pronounce it as an English word, gives useful hints for translation software, etc etc.
It's important to note that Unicode does not encode the language, just the characters.
That's as it should be.
Arguably yes, but it means that some things can't be done in Unicode (e.g. displaying Chinese-origin characters correctly for the language they are written in). Notation outside of Unicode is needed to specify those things.
Read up on [[Han unification]] to understand the problems this gives with characters deemed the same across multiple Asian languages even if the characters are actually written quite differently when used to write Japanese vs. Chinese, for instance.
In situations where this matters the people involved already have a reasonable knowledge of the language(s) involved.
Are you talking about Wikipedia's writers or readers here? Displaying things correctly for our readers is important, I'd have thought.
As well as display/typography issues not handled in Unicode, this also allows screen readers and the like to have a better chance of understanding words in different languages.
Wikipedia is not a dictionary.
Um, where does this follow from what I wrote? We're not talking about dictionary definitions. We're talking about e.g. screen readers (talking web-browsers for the sight-impaired) getting foreign words right, or at least having a chance of so doing.
It's certainly neater than using the HTML, but it's not exactly 100% intuitive either. I'm torn on this one; the more complicated Wiki markup becomes, the less friendly it is, but on the other hand, it's not good to lose information either.
Our markups are already overcomplicated. The last thing we need is more geekish imperialism. Omitting this does not lose any notable information at all. If all details in an article would go to this level of minutiae all of them would be much longer and much more boring.
It loses the correct markup in HTML for text that's not written in the default language for the rest of the page. This at least has some level of importance, as I've detailed above.
I agree with you that the harder our markup gets the harder it is to write Wikipedia articles. On the other hand, nobody is mandating that people MUST use these templates to include foreign-language text or words. Gnomish editors will fix things later, as always happens, and if someone comes across one of these elements it seems fairly obvious to me.
-Matt