OK, so something amazing just happened: A Hebrew Wikipedia editor told me that he uses the translated API Sandbox.
This probably sounds cryptic, so let me explain why is this significant.
The "API Sandbox" is a technical part of the MediaWiki software that shows all the actions that are available for developers of extensions, bots, scripts, etc. There are hundreds of such actions, and there are thousands of English strings that document each action. You can see the API Sandbox in English here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox
In the past these documentation strings could only be written in English, but in 2014 it became possible to translate them. So now it's possible to see the API Sandbox in French, for example: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox
I do my best to keep the translation of MediaWiki into Hebrew at 100%, so I translated them all for the sake of completeness, but I was sure that nobody will ever use it, because programmers usually know English.
So now I have proof that it's _usually_, but not _always_. A developer of gadgets in the Hebrew Wikipedia found it more comfortable to use the API Sandbox in Hebrew than in English. And he's probably not alone. There are probably a lot of people who would be good programmers if they had more documentation in their language.
And this makes me happy because: 1. This translation actually enables more people to develop more useful technical tools for Wikimedia projects. 2. More philosophically, this makes the gap between people who know English and people who don't a little bit smaller. This gap is huge, but hard to notice for people who know English (even for me). 3. More personally, now I know that the time I invested in translating these strings was not wasted :)
Moral of the story: Localization is awesome, nobody should assume that everyone knows English, and everything should be translatable.
Thanks to Brad Jorsch (User:Anomie) for making the API documentation translatable!
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-05-08 9:06 GMT+03:00 Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com:
I was happy to see the final WMF list of GSoC 2017 and Outreachy Round 14 projects.
What's making you happy this week?
Pine
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Hello,
Please join me in welcoming Wikimedia's accepted candidates for Google Summer of Code 2017 and Outreachy Round 14!
Google Summer of Code 2017
Alexander Jones, Texas, United States, Implement Thanks support in Pywikibot https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161426 - John Mark Vandenberg 2.
Amrit Sreekumar, Kerela, India, Improvements to ProofreadPage Extension and Wikisource https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161111 - Yann Forget, Tpt 3.
Feroz Ahmad, New Delhi, India, Add a "hierarchy" type to the Cargo extension https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161609 - Yaron Koren, Nischayn22 4.
Harjot Singh Bhatia, New Delhi, India, Adding Data storage feature and upgrading Quiz extension https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T160257 - Marielle Volz, Sam Reed 5.
Harsh Shah, India, Build a similar to @NYPLEmoji bot for Commons images
- Dereckson, Ariel
Keerthana S, India, Automatic editing suggestions and feedbacks for articles in Wiki Ed Dashboard https://phabricator. wikimedia.org/T160840
- Sage Ross, Jonathan Morgan
Sejal Khatri, India, Provide enhanced usability for Wikimedia Programs & Events Dashboard managed by Wiki Education foundation < https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161929%3E - Sage Ross, Jonathan Morgan 8.
Siddhartha Sarkar, India, Single Image Batch Upload < https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161670%3E - Basvb
Outreachy Round 14
Ela Opper, Tel Aviv, Israel, "Remind me of this article in X days" MediaWiki notification https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161823 - Matthew Flaschen and Moriel Schottlender 2.
Medha Bansal, New Delhi, India, WikiEduDashboard: Allow Programs & Events Dashboard to make automatic edits on connected wikis < https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161568%3E- Jonathan Morgan, Sage Ross 3.
Sonali Gupta, Rajasthan, India, Document process for creating new Zotero translator and getting it live in production < https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161191%3E - Marielle Volz
We would like to encourage accepted candidates to introduce themselves on this thread, share with us where they are coming from and give a brief overview of the project they will be working on.
We’re so proud of the contributions they have made so far to our community, and we look forward to having a wonderful time working with them over the summer! Also, a huge shout-out to the project mentors for their enthusiasm and commitment!
Thank you to Sumit and Anna for coordinating this round along with me! Best, Srishti
-- Srishti Sethi Developer Advocate Technical Collaboration team Wikimedia Foundation
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:SSethi_(WMF) javascript:void(0) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Cool. It sounds like you invested a lot of effort into the translation, and I'm glad that it paid off.
Pine
On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 1:55 AM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
OK, so something amazing just happened: A Hebrew Wikipedia editor told me that he uses the translated API Sandbox.
This probably sounds cryptic, so let me explain why is this significant.
The "API Sandbox" is a technical part of the MediaWiki software that shows all the actions that are available for developers of extensions, bots, scripts, etc. There are hundreds of such actions, and there are thousands of English strings that document each action. You can see the API Sandbox in English here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox
In the past these documentation strings could only be written in English, but in 2014 it became possible to translate them. So now it's possible to see the API Sandbox in French, for example: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox
I do my best to keep the translation of MediaWiki into Hebrew at 100%, so I translated them all for the sake of completeness, but I was sure that nobody will ever use it, because programmers usually know English.
So now I have proof that it's _usually_, but not _always_. A developer of gadgets in the Hebrew Wikipedia found it more comfortable to use the API Sandbox in Hebrew than in English. And he's probably not alone. There are probably a lot of people who would be good programmers if they had more documentation in their language.
And this makes me happy because:
- This translation actually enables more people to develop more useful
technical tools for Wikimedia projects. 2. More philosophically, this makes the gap between people who know English and people who don't a little bit smaller. This gap is huge, but hard to notice for people who know English (even for me). 3. More personally, now I know that the time I invested in translating these strings was not wasted :)
Moral of the story: Localization is awesome, nobody should assume that everyone knows English, and everything should be translatable.
Thanks to Brad Jorsch (User:Anomie) for making the API documentation translatable!
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2017-05-08 9:06 GMT+03:00 Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com:
I was happy to see the final WMF list of GSoC 2017 and Outreachy Round 14 projects.
What's making you happy this week?
Pine
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Hello,
Please join me in welcoming Wikimedia's accepted candidates for Google Summer of Code 2017 and Outreachy Round 14!
Google Summer of Code 2017
Alexander Jones, Texas, United States, Implement Thanks support in Pywikibot https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161426 - John Mark Vandenberg 2.
Amrit Sreekumar, Kerela, India, Improvements to ProofreadPage
Extension
and Wikisource https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161111 - Yann Forget, Tpt 3.
Feroz Ahmad, New Delhi, India, Add a "hierarchy" type to the Cargo extension https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161609 - Yaron Koren, Nischayn22 4.
Harjot Singh Bhatia, New Delhi, India, Adding Data storage feature and upgrading Quiz extension https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T160257
Marielle Volz, Sam Reed 5.
Harsh Shah, India, Build a similar to @NYPLEmoji bot for Commons
images
- Dereckson, Ariel
Keerthana S, India, Automatic editing suggestions and feedbacks for articles in Wiki Ed Dashboard https://phabricator. wikimedia.org/T160840
- Sage Ross, Jonathan Morgan
Sejal Khatri, India, Provide enhanced usability for Wikimedia
Programs &
Events Dashboard managed by Wiki Education foundation < https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161929%3E - Sage Ross, Jonathan
Morgan
Siddhartha Sarkar, India, Single Image Batch Upload < https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161670%3E - Basvb
Outreachy Round 14
Ela Opper, Tel Aviv, Israel, "Remind me of this article in X days" MediaWiki notification https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161823 - Matthew Flaschen and Moriel Schottlender 2.
Medha Bansal, New Delhi, India, WikiEduDashboard: Allow Programs & Events Dashboard to make automatic edits on connected wikis < https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161568%3E- Jonathan Morgan, Sage
Ross
Sonali Gupta, Rajasthan, India, Document process for creating new
Zotero
translator and getting it live in production < https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161191%3E - Marielle Volz
We would like to encourage accepted candidates to introduce themselves on this thread, share with us where they are coming from and give a brief overview of the project they will be working on.
We’re so proud of the contributions they have made so far to our
community,
and we look forward to having a wonderful time working with them over the summer! Also, a huge shout-out to the project mentors for their
enthusiasm
and commitment!
Thank you to Sumit and Anna for coordinating this round along with me! Best, Srishti
-- Srishti Sethi Developer Advocate Technical Collaboration team Wikimedia Foundation
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:SSethi_(WMF) javascript:void(0) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org