To anyone who's interested... on a request to close a Wiki on meta, we were just debating the problems that exist with Incubator, when one of the bureaucrats from Incubator asked something along the lines of "wait, there's a problem with Incubator?" So I went on a little quest to prove how difficult it is for users, particularly those inexperienced with Wikimedia projects (or even with computers and the internet, as the case may be), to even *find* the test-Wiki in their language.
So if you'll indulge me briefly, and follow along at the site if you'd like, I'd like to go on a brief journey through just how many clicks it takes to find a particular test Wiki (in this case I chose Central Morocco Tamazight Wikipedia because it has quite a few speakers). Also I'd like to note that this is just my commentary and perspective, maybe you'll actually find it quite easy and disagree with me. So let's begin step by step:
1. You go to http://incubator.wikimedia.org/ (what are the chances a person would even know to go to the incubator site in the first place? we don't exactly advertise it; it's not linked to from any high-visibility page)
2. You scroll down. You look for awhile. Unless you're looking for Kichwa, Ingush, Yucatec Maya or Tashelhit Wikipedias, you get confused and you look some more. Then you _finally_ notice that there is a link to "incubating Wikis" (what does that even mean? yuck. poorest choice of link label ever!)
3. You scroll through walls of text looking for your language. We're on at least the 3rd click by now. You must look through a long list of languages you probably don't even know are languages... how do you know you're even in the right place? Also, rather than sorting by project popularity, or putting the projects on separate pages, Wikibooks is first. THEN Wikinews. Then finally, our most popular project (by FAR), Wikipedia.
4. It's probably been about 5 minutes already (if you're a novice user, that is), you're getting bored of this searching. OK, whatever. Then you ''finally'' find your language. Let's pick the Central Morocco Tamazight test-WP, which has lots of speakers but is near the bottom of a VERY long list of test-Wikipedias.
5. What's this? There are 5 different links to click. Chances are, you either didn't notice or you no longer remember what the column labels said, so you have no idea why there are 5, or what the difference is. So at this point, your chance of clicking the right link rather than just giving up is 1/5. Also, the most intuitive link to click, the language name + Wikipedia ("Central Morocco Tamazight Wikipedia"), leads to the PROPOSAL on meta, *NOT* the test wiki!
6. Let's say somehow, you figure out which link is the right one to click. Even for the tech-savvy, this takes 6 clicks already and is somewhat of a usability nightmare. Then, once you click it, where do you land? Is it the main page of the test wiki? Please? NOPE! It is a stupid, pointless, totally useless "splash page" that serves no purpose to users, only to incubator admins and nobody else.
7: If you made it to this point as a casual user without this guide, you've probably used Incubator before when it was _slightly_ more user friendly (they recently redesigned it to be even LESS usable, I didn't think that was possible but they surprised me!), or you're just very determined. Anyhow, thanks to certain editors (like one that creates nonsense or poor-quality pages in many Mexican indigenous languages he doesn't speak at all), there's a good chance that the page you do end up at if you find your language will be totally useless and worthless, possibly filled with fake writing that isn't actually in your language, or is supposedly in your language but makes no sense at all. So even if you made it to this point, there's still a good chance you'll get discouraged and leave!
Now add to this the confusing process for starting a new test-wiki, the confusing and non-transparent process of adding new pages successfully, etc., and it becomes clear the system is broken. Not that this means much, but I'd like to note that I was the one who originally suggested the idea of "test Wikis" way back in Febuary 2005, and have closely watched developments since then with great disappointment.
-m.
8. All the "test wikis" share one single Recent Changes page.
No, they don't share the same Recent Changes. It is separated now.
Regards,Hydrizhttp://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hydriz
From: faigos@gmail.com Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2011 02:48:43 -0300 To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] The problem with Incubator: An interactive journey
- All the "test wikis" share one single Recent Changes page.
-- Fajro
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On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 2:52 AM, Hydriz Wikipedia admin@wikisorg.tk wrote:
No, they don't share the same Recent Changes. It is separated now.
Where? http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 2:56 AM, Fajro faigos@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 2:52 AM, Hydriz Wikipedia admin@wikisorg.tk wrote:
No, they don't share the same Recent Changes. It is separated now.
Found it!
Still too complicated. Four clicks and writing the iso code. The link from the test-wiki should direct to the proper recent changes.
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 4:03 PM, Fajro faigos@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 2:56 AM, Fajro faigos@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 2:52 AM, Hydriz Wikipedia admin@wikisorg.tk wrote:
No, they don't share the same Recent Changes. It is separated now.
Found it!
Still too complicated. Four clicks and writing the iso code. The link from the test-wiki should direct to the proper recent changes.
This might help:
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incubator:Community_Portal#lang_code_pag...
Maybe a new system of "incubation" would be helpful. For example, one could start the requested wikis on their future domain (xxx.wikipedia.org / xxx.wiktionary.org etc.pp.) right from the request, with at least two voluntary experienced supervisors on each (one can supervise more than one of these of course) who get sysop and crat rights and stay there as long as it takes to get the approval of LangCom for an independent wiki (that is, after translating the most important parts of the MW software and that stuff). With email notification, the community of the test project can easily reach the supervisors and they of course should be in the wiki on a daily basis to look that everything is ok there. In the best case, they could try to attract more native speakers of the language to work there. Then a closing request for a wiki that became inactive would just be a request for supervision of that wiki. That means, the wiki stays where it is, but gets two supervisors who take on the administrative tasks and start some promotion maybe. Well, it's just an idea.
BR Th.
This is of course essentially what we did in the Good Old Days, but somebody (or somebodies?) decided we needed More Rules, so now we have them, and as is often the case with too many rules, they've constricted what was once a free-flowing process and limited almost all new wikis to a very small geographical area: Europe, Russian Federation and Indonesia with only a couple of outliers, and for little observable benefit, as far as I can tell.
2011/8/8 Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.com
Maybe a new system of "incubation" would be helpful. For example, one could start the requested wikis on their future domain (xxx.wikipedia.org / xxx.wiktionary.org etc.pp.) right from the request, with at least two voluntary experienced supervisors on each (one can supervise more than one of these of course) who get sysop and crat rights and stay there as long as it takes to get the approval of LangCom for an independent wiki (that is, after translating the most important parts of the MW software and that stuff). With email notification, the community of the test project can easily reach the supervisors and they of course should be in the wiki on a daily basis to look that everything is ok there. In the best case, they could try to attract more native speakers of the language to work there. Then a closing request for a wiki that became inactive would just be a request for supervision of that wiki. That means, the wiki stays where it is, but gets two supervisors who take on the administrative tasks and start some promotion maybe. Well, it's just an idea.
BR Th.
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SPQRobin is already working on a extension that will point xxx.wikipedia.org to the right place on Incubator. The first version is already deployed and he showed me the new version on WikiMania.
I'm not sure how long it will take, when wmf staff will help him out it will take less time. But a beter version is being worked on.
2011/8/8, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.com:
Maybe a new system of "incubation" would be helpful. For example, one could start the requested wikis on their future domain (xxx.wikipedia.org / xxx.wiktionary.org etc.pp.) right from the request, with at least two voluntary experienced supervisors on each (one can supervise more than one of these of course) who get sysop and crat rights and stay there as long as it takes to get the approval of LangCom for an independent wiki (that is, after translating the most important parts of the MW software and that stuff). With email notification, the community of the test project can easily reach the supervisors and they of course should be in the wiki on a daily basis to look that everything is ok there. In the best case, they could try to attract more native speakers of the language to work there. Then a closing request for a wiki that became inactive would just be a request for supervision of that wiki. That means, the wiki stays where it is, but gets two supervisors who take on the administrative tasks and start some promotion maybe. Well, it's just an idea.
BR Th.
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Well, that idea also came to my mind (I didn't know that someone is already working on it), but then interwikis wouldn't be possible, would they? I think interwiki links are not unimportant to get native or fluent speakers of a language to a wiki who are currently working on other wikis. If they are working on enwiki already, for example, and discover that there is an article about their topics in their own language (or a language they are fluent in), they might go there and maybe improve the article and stay for more work. (I mean I did react like this when I discovered some articles about my topics on enwiki, maybe others wouldn't... ^^)
But for starters, the redirect thing will work, too. One had to make sure that these wikis are properly listed and linked to in as many places as possible so that the wiki-finding problems M. Williamson has pointed out are solved.
BR Th.
2011/8/8 Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com:
SPQRobin is already working on a extension that will point xxx.wikipedia.org to the right place on Incubator. The first version is already deployed and he showed me the new version on WikiMania.
I'm not sure how long it will take, when wmf staff will help him out it will take less time. But a beter version is being worked on.
I'm not sure about interwiki's
if the project xxx.wikipedia.org/wiki/article will point to incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/wp/xxx/article I guess it would be possible to use the [[:xxx:]] interwiki? Cuz it wouldn't directly point the incubator. So I guess it would be possible... But some changes need to be done in the interwiki.py maybe? It doesn't sounds really impossible to me...
2011/8/8 Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.com
Well, that idea also came to my mind (I didn't know that someone is already working on it), but then interwikis wouldn't be possible, would they? I think interwiki links are not unimportant to get native or fluent speakers of a language to a wiki who are currently working on other wikis. If they are working on enwiki already, for example, and discover that there is an article about their topics in their own language (or a language they are fluent in), they might go there and maybe improve the article and stay for more work. (I mean I did react like this when I discovered some articles about my topics on enwiki, maybe others wouldn't... ^^)
But for starters, the redirect thing will work, too. One had to make sure that these wikis are properly listed and linked to in as many places as possible so that the wiki-finding problems M. Williamson has pointed out are solved.
BR Th.
2011/8/8 Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com:
SPQRobin is already working on a extension that will point xxx.wikipedia.org to the right place on Incubator. The first version is already deployed and he showed me the new version on WikiMania.
I'm not sure how long it will take, when wmf staff will help him out it will take less time. But a beter version is being worked on.
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This is an improvement in many ways, but how does it help the average user? How are people supposed to know that XYZ code points to XYZ language? Right now we don't have any high-traffic pages pointing to incubator; it seems less likely that say, en.wp main page will link to every single test wiki.
2011/8/8 Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com
SPQRobin is already working on a extension that will point xxx.wikipedia.org to the right place on Incubator. The first version is already deployed and he showed me the new version on WikiMania.
I'm not sure how long it will take, when wmf staff will help him out it will take less time. But a beter version is being worked on.
2011/8/8, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.com:
Maybe a new system of "incubation" would be helpful. For example, one could start the requested wikis on their future domain (xxx.wikipedia.org / xxx.wiktionary.org etc.pp.) right from the request, with at least two voluntary experienced supervisors on each (one can supervise more than one of these of course) who get sysop and crat rights and stay there as long as it takes to get the approval of LangCom for an independent wiki (that is, after translating the most important parts of the MW software and that stuff). With email notification, the community of the test project can easily reach the supervisors and they of course should be in the wiki on a daily basis to look that everything is ok there. In the best case, they could try to attract more native speakers of the language to work there. Then a closing request for a wiki that became inactive would just be a request for supervision of that wiki. That means, the wiki stays where it is, but gets two supervisors who take on the administrative tasks and start some promotion maybe. Well, it's just an idea.
BR Th.
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Kind regards,
Huib Laurens WickedWay.nl
Webhosting the wicked way.
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There should be a general overview page where all projects are listed with a very short description in the respective languages and a status ("open", "under supervision", "closed", "in preparation" or what else you get), could be hosted on Meta. And this "Wikimedia projects summary" or such can be prominently linked from the main pages, like "there are Wikipedias in xxx languages, find out more HERE" or something accordingly in the other projects.
BR Th.
2011/8/8 M. Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
This is an improvement in many ways, but how does it help the average user? How are people supposed to know that XYZ code points to XYZ language? Right now we don't have any high-traffic pages pointing to incubator; it seems less likely that say, en.wp main page will link to every single test wiki.
There is a complete list here: http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incubator:Wikis I guess it would be easy to add a status to it... And link the meta pages back to the list.
2011/8/8 Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.com
There should be a general overview page where all projects are listed with a very short description in the respective languages and a status ("open", "under supervision", "closed", "in preparation" or what else you get), could be hosted on Meta. And this "Wikimedia projects summary" or such can be prominently linked from the main pages, like "there are Wikipedias in xxx languages, find out more HERE" or something accordingly in the other projects.
BR Th.
2011/8/8 M. Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
This is an improvement in many ways, but how does it help the average
user?
How are people supposed to know that XYZ code points to XYZ language?
Right
now we don't have any high-traffic pages pointing to incubator; it seems less likely that say, en.wp main page will link to every single test
wiki.
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But that only includes wikis hosted on the incubator wiki, right? What about the wikis that already exist?
BR Th.
2011/8/8 Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com:
There is a complete list here: http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incubator:Wikis I guess it would be easy to add a status to it... And link the meta pages back to the list.
People probably won't know the ISO codes, but a redirect is the obvious first step. The second might be, if you do a search for "Central Morocco Tamazight" a pointer comes up saying "Are you looking for the projects in this language?"
That'd be great, indeed. But if there is an article in enwiki about that language, there is always also a link to the project(s), even if it is in the incubator, example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afar_language (it's near the bottom and on the right edge, though, so one might not see it easily). Maybe one could convince the communities to have such a link in other wikipediae, too...
BR Th.
2011/8/8 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
People probably won't know the ISO codes, Â but a redirect is the obvious first step. The second might be, if you do a search for "Central Morocco Tamazight" a pointer comes up saying "Are you looking for the projects in this language?"
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.com wrote:
That'd be great, indeed. But if there is an article in enwiki about that language, there is always also a link to the project(s), even if it is in the incubator, example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afar_language (it's near the bottom and on the right edge, though, so one might not see it easily). Maybe one could convince the communities to have such a link in other wikipediae, too...
I was just going to bring that up too. :-)
It's obviously not a perfect solution, but it's likely that if someone were looking for a Wikipedia in their language, they'd probably type it into Google. So if we type in "Central Morocco Tamazight wikipedia", we get a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Atlas_Tamazight in the first result. They read more about what the article has to say, and then they see the link at the bottom and click on it. Much fewer steps, and at least a bit clearer/more logical.
(This is actually what we do with many of the languages, at least on enwiki. See French for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language#External_links.)
I have a feeling very, very, very few French speakers find the French Wikipedia through that route. Most people probably find a Wikipedia in their language at http://www.wikipedia.org/ if they don't already know the URL. I doubt many speakers will google "Central Atlas Tamazight Wikipedia" in English like that. I think there are probably also some who find it on a main page of a larger wiki, or notice it in the interwiki links of an article they're reading (however, as the number of interwiki links at each article grows, this option becomes less likely).
So of course none of these mechanisms allows for someone to find Incubator. http://www.wikipedia.org/ should have a prominently-placed link for people whose language is not listed (not sure how to do that language-neutrally though), allowing them to look for it at incubator, and if it's not there, direct them to a USER FRIENDLY request system (our current one is not) so they can request a new wiki in their language and start working on a testwiki.
Main pages of projects should also link to incubator just like they link to Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikispecies, etc., if not placing the link even more prominently than that.
2011/8/8 Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.com wrote:
That'd be great, indeed. But if there is an article in enwiki about that language, there is always also a link to the project(s), even if it is in the incubator, example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afar_language (it's near the bottom and on the right edge, though, so one might not see it easily). Maybe one could convince the communities to have such a link in other wikipediae, too...
I was just going to bring that up too. :-)
It's obviously not a perfect solution, but it's likely that if someone were looking for a Wikipedia in their language, they'd probably type it into Google. So if we type in "Central Morocco Tamazight wikipedia", we get a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Atlas_Tamazight in the first result. They read more about what the article has to say, and then they see the link at the bottom and click on it. Much fewer steps, and at least a bit clearer/more logical.
(This is actually what we do with many of the languages, at least on enwiki. See French for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language#External_links.)
-- Casey Brown Cbrown1023
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On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 20:08, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.com wrote:
That'd be great, indeed. But if there is an article in enwiki about that language, there is always also a link to the project(s), even if it is in the incubator, example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afar_language (it's near the bottom and on the right edge, though, so one might not see it easily). Maybe one could convince the communities to have such a link in other wikipediae, too...
I was just going to bring that up too. :-)
It's obviously not a perfect solution, but it's likely that if someone were looking for a Wikipedia in their language, they'd probably type it into Google. So if we type in "Central Morocco Tamazight wikipedia", we get a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Atlas_Tamazight in the first result. They read more about what the article has to say, and then they see the link at the bottom and click on it. Much fewer steps, and at least a bit clearer/more logical.
(This is actually what we do with many of the languages, at least on enwiki. See French for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language#External_links.)
Yep. All those ideas are inside of the project on which Robins works: * xyz.wikipedia.org will be redirect for incubator.../wiki/wp/xyz * All existing ISO 639-3 codes will get their pages "If you know this language, please start to write Wikipedia." Although there would be some limitations. For example, just if we are sure that the content is written in particular language, it will get *full* redirects (http://xyz.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_Page => http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/wp/xyz/Some_Page). Without that, there will be just redirect to the main page. * I was thinking to ask en.wp (and other Wikipedian) communities to add a template similar to Incubator with note "If you know this language you can start Wikipedia by following this link."
There are some problems with that; Robin told me that during Wikimania. But, AFAIK, that's going to be changed during the next months; likely up to the end of the year or so.
BTW, I repeated the first two points a couple of times on this list since LangCom meeting in Berlin. And I am a bit surprised that we are passing it again. (It wouldn't be an issue if there are newcomers who wonders about it :P )
During the next week or so I'll present here what's happened on Wikimania in relation to the languages.
Yes but again as I said, most people will be looking for their languages on http://www.wikipedia.org/ or in places where interwiki links are usually found. How many out of the 5 million speakers of Central Atlas Tamazight do you think are aware that the ISO code for their language is TZM? Probably only 3 or 4 people, less than one one-millionth of the total population. So maybe it makes it easier for people who already know the test wiki exists, but what about people who doesn't? This doesn't help them.
2011/8/8 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 20:08, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.com
wrote:
That'd be great, indeed. But if there is an article in enwiki about that language, there is always also a link to the project(s), even if it is in the incubator, example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afar_language (it's near the bottom and on the right edge, though, so one might not see it easily). Maybe one could convince the communities to have such a link in other wikipediae, too...
I was just going to bring that up too. :-)
It's obviously not a perfect solution, but it's likely that if someone were looking for a Wikipedia in their language, they'd probably type it into Google. So if we type in "Central Morocco Tamazight wikipedia", we get a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Atlas_Tamazight in the first result. They read more about what the article has to say, and then they see the link at the bottom and click on it. Much fewer steps, and at least a bit clearer/more logical.
(This is actually what we do with many of the languages, at least on enwiki. See French for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language#External_links.)
Yep. All those ideas are inside of the project on which Robins works:
- xyz.wikipedia.org will be redirect for incubator.../wiki/wp/xyz
- All existing ISO 639-3 codes will get their pages "If you know this
language, please start to write Wikipedia." Although there would be some limitations. For example, just if we are sure that the content is written in particular language, it will get *full* redirects (http://xyz.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_Page => http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/wp/xyz/Some_Page). Without that, there will be just redirect to the main page.
- I was thinking to ask en.wp (and other Wikipedian) communities to
add a template similar to Incubator with note "If you know this language you can start Wikipedia by following this link."
There are some problems with that; Robin told me that during Wikimania. But, AFAIK, that's going to be changed during the next months; likely up to the end of the year or so.
BTW, I repeated the first two points a couple of times on this list since LangCom meeting in Berlin. And I am a bit surprised that we are passing it again. (It wouldn't be an issue if there are newcomers who wonders about it :P )
During the next week or so I'll present here what's happened on Wikimania in relation to the languages.
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On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 11:13 AM, M. Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Yes but again as I said, most people will be looking for their languages on http://www.wikipedia.org/ or in places where interwiki links are usually found.
fwiw, the Wikisource portal lists all languages, inc. the languages in the Wikisource incubator.
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 03:13, M. Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Yes but again as I said, most people will be looking for their languages on http://www.wikipedia.org/ or in places where interwiki links are usually found. How many out of the 5 million speakers of Central Atlas Tamazight do you think are aware that the ISO code for their language is TZM? Probably only 3 or 4 people, less than one one-millionth of the total population. So maybe it makes it easier for people who already know the test wiki exists, but what about people who doesn't? This doesn't help them.
"If you know Central Atlas Tamazight language you can start Wikipedia <by doing that or this>." will stay on publicly searchable pages: * http://tzm.wikipedia.org * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Atlas_Tamazight_language
-- and it is likely that it will be the first result on Google [and other] search engines.
Besides that: * Interwiki links are planned to exist. * It shouldn't be so hard to add the ~100kb more on www.wikipedia.org with proper "continue" links, similar to microblogging engines.
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 03:25, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
-- and it is likely that it will be the first result on Google [and other] search engines.
... for the search "Wikpedia Central Atlas Tamazight"
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 9:13 PM, M. Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Yes but again as I said, most people will be looking for their languages on http://www.wikipedia.org/ or in places where interwiki links are usually found.
Mark,
Could you please propose a specific solution that would make incubated languages more findable om www.wikipedia.org and other places where it seems appropriate to you?
SJ
Well the problem is that http://www.wikipedia.org/ should remain "language neutral" IMHO. Otherwise, I would propose a link that says "Is your language not listed here?".
Unless anyone has any better ideas, perhaps we could work around this by having such a message (which is relatively short), but written in the browser accept language of the reader? Alternatively, we could translate it into languages that are most commonly used as Languages of Wider Communication by speakers of minority languages worldwide: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Chinese, Swahili, Hindi, Indonesian. In the case of places like http://en.wikipedia.org/ main page, it should not be an issue to have the notice in English (or the appropriate other language, eg Spanish for es.wp) only, although perhaps it would be better to be less wordy and go with something like "Other" after a list of languages.
Mark
2011/8/10 Samuel Klein sjklein@hcs.harvard.edu
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 9:13 PM, M. Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Yes but again as I said, most people will be looking for their languages
on
http://www.wikipedia.org/ or in places where interwiki links are usually found.
Mark,
Could you please propose a specific solution that would make incubated languages more findable om www.wikipedia.org and other places where it seems appropriate to you?
SJ
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Hi,
@Mark: although I do not like your tone in your original post, you provide some good feedback (and started a thread with more feedback), which is more than welcome. 2. Do you have a suggestion as an alternative for the term "incubating wikis"? Is the more often used "test wiki" better? 5. I improved the Incubator:Wikis list so it is more intuitive, I hope. As for the order, it is alphabetically.
@Fajro "The link from the test-wiki should direct to the proper recent changes." The links on Wx/xyz pages do, or are you referring to links somewhere else?
@Thomas: Info pages like http://robinpepermans.be/mw-dev/index.php?title=Wn/shi will be coming soon, and the redirects will hopefully be implemented this year or early next year. As far as I can see, this will allow interwiki links from any project to an incubator test wiki, which is a very good thing (will not work for languages unknown to Wikimedia, with current setup)
@Nathan: A kind of "language searcher" to more easily find test wikis, is on my to-do list.
And I added one more thing to the to-do list: improving http://www.wikipedia.org/ and similar portals. Thanks for that idea.
In general, we are moving from the "request a new wiki (and oh, we need to make some pages at Incubator)" way to "start your own wiki at Incubator, and if it is big, we can request to move to an own subdomain". This way, we can put starting wikis back in the hands of volunteers without needing to create separate (inactive) wikis for each of them.
I should communicate better about my work. Anyway, I plan to propose a presentation at Wikimania next year about these things.
Regards, SPQRobin
Hi Robin,
that sounds great, I hope these things will solve some of the problems. Thanks for your efforts.
Th.
2011/8/12 Robin Pepermans robinp.1273@gmail.com:
Hi,
@Mark: although I do not like your tone in your original post, you provide some good feedback (and started a thread with more feedback), which is more than welcome. 2. Do you have a suggestion as an alternative for the term "incubating wikis"? Is the more often used "test wiki" better? 5. I improved the Incubator:Wikis list so it is more intuitive, I hope. As for the order, it is alphabetically.
@Fajro "The link from the test-wiki should direct to the proper recent changes." The links on Wx/xyz pages do, or are you referring to links somewhere else?
@Thomas: Info pages like http://robinpepermans.be/mw-dev/index.php?title=Wn/shi will be coming soon, and the redirects will hopefully be implemented this year or early next year. As far as I can see, this will allow interwiki links from any project to an incubator test wiki, which is a very good thing (will not work for languages unknown to Wikimedia, with current setup)
@Nathan: A kind of "language searcher" to more easily find test wikis, is on my to-do list.
And I added one more thing to the to-do list: improving http://www.wikipedia.org/ and similar portals. Thanks for that idea.
In general, we are moving from the "request a new wiki (and oh, we need to make some pages at Incubator)" way to "start your own wiki at Incubator, and if it is big, we can request to move to an own subdomain". This way, we can put starting wikis back in the hands of volunteers without needing to create separate (inactive) wikis for each of them.
I should communicate better about my work. Anyway, I plan to propose a presentation at Wikimania next year about these things.
Regards, SPQRobin
"2. Do you have a suggestion as an alternative for the term "incubating wikis"? Is the more often used "test wiki" better?"
"Test wikis" is much better. It has been used since before incubator even existed, it is easy to understand, and I don't see a downside.
The term "test wikis" has been agreed by some of the community to be ambiguous in the sense that it attracts comparison between test.wikipedia.org and the incubating wikis in the Wikimedia Incubator. We already had a list of names we can use, but is awaiting consensus and would be changed in the next update of the WikimediaIncubator extension.
Regards, Hydriz http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hydriz
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 22:26:06 -0700 From: node.ue@gmail.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] The problem with Incubator: An interactive journey
"2. Do you have a suggestion as an alternative for the term "incubating wikis"? Is the more often used "test wiki" better?"
"Test wikis" is much better. It has been used since before incubator even existed, it is easy to understand, and I don't see a downside. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I just realized that we will be able to add languages to http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/langlist without having any existing wiki in that language. Instead, they will point to Incubator when the redirects are implemented. For example, all redlinks on Special:SiteMatrix will point to the Incubator wikis, and if we add e.g. 'inh' to the langlist, [[inh:Page]] will point to incubator:Wp/inh/Page, without having any real subdomain for that language. I do wonder how the interwiki bots would handle this...
2011/8/12 Robin Pepermans robinp.1273@gmail.com:
Hi,
@Mark: although I do not like your tone in your original post, you provide some good feedback (and started a thread with more feedback), which is more than welcome. 2. Do you have a suggestion as an alternative for the term "incubating wikis"? Is the more often used "test wiki" better? 5. I improved the Incubator:Wikis list so it is more intuitive, I hope. As for the order, it is alphabetically.
@Fajro "The link from the test-wiki should direct to the proper recent changes." The links on Wx/xyz pages do, or are you referring to links somewhere else?
@Thomas: Info pages like http://robinpepermans.be/mw-dev/index.php?title=Wn/shi will be coming soon, and the redirects will hopefully be implemented this year or early next year. As far as I can see, this will allow interwiki links from any project to an incubator test wiki, which is a very good thing (will not work for languages unknown to Wikimedia, with current setup)
@Nathan: A kind of "language searcher" to more easily find test wikis, is on my to-do list.
And I added one more thing to the to-do list: improving http://www.wikipedia.org/ and similar portals. Thanks for that idea.
In general, we are moving from the "request a new wiki (and oh, we need to make some pages at Incubator)" way to "start your own wiki at Incubator, and if it is big, we can request to move to an own subdomain". This way, we can put starting wikis back in the hands of volunteers without needing to create separate (inactive) wikis for each of them.
I should communicate better about my work. Anyway, I plan to propose a presentation at Wikimania next year about these things.
Regards, SPQRobin
On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 6:53 PM, Robin Pepermans robinp.1273@gmail.com wrote:
I just realized that we will be able to add languages to http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/langlist without having any existing wiki in that language. Instead, they will point to Incubator when the redirects are implemented. For example, all redlinks on Special:SiteMatrix will point to the Incubator wikis, and if we add e.g. 'inh' to the langlist, [[inh:Page]] will point to incubator:Wp/inh/Page, without having any real subdomain for that language.
That's awesome. :-)
I do wonder how the interwiki bots would handle this...
Let's just hope we get the Interlanguage extension up and running, and it'll be a moot point. ;-)
Hoi, There is nothing wrong with the term incubating; it indicates forcefully that we want full projects in those languages. A test wiki is even more ambiguous because we have things like test.wikis for new software.
Having a landing page with texts in languages that are likely to be understood is a good thing. I will support that. When these pages are supported in a similar way as is done for new translators on translatewiki.net, I would be really happy; the point is that you make things easy and, the time spend by our community is our most valuable asset.
Having projects go to the incubator is a good thing when there is an incubating project. When there are technical issues like we have them for languages like sign languages we can have specific information. We can have specific information when projects have been denied in the past as well. Particularly when they have been denied by the board; these exceptions are the exceptions to the policy and deserve better information.
Let one thing be clear; having a project in the incubator for a longer time is not a desired state. Making improvements to the visibility only serves to speed up the process towards a full project. Thanks, GerardM
On 12 August 2011 02:08, Robin Pepermans robinp.1273@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
@Mark: although I do not like your tone in your original post, you provide some good feedback (and started a thread with more feedback), which is more than welcome. 2. Do you have a suggestion as an alternative for the term "incubating wikis"? Is the more often used "test wiki" better? 5. I improved the Incubator:Wikis list so it is more intuitive, I hope. As for the order, it is alphabetically.
@Fajro "The link from the test-wiki should direct to the proper recent changes." The links on Wx/xyz pages do, or are you referring to links somewhere else?
@Thomas: Info pages like http://robinpepermans.be/mw-dev/index.php?title=Wn/shi will be coming soon, and the redirects will hopefully be implemented this year or early next year. As far as I can see, this will allow interwiki links from any project to an incubator test wiki, which is a very good thing (will not work for languages unknown to Wikimedia, with current setup)
@Nathan: A kind of "language searcher" to more easily find test wikis, is on my to-do list.
And I added one more thing to the to-do list: improving http://www.wikipedia.org/ and similar portals. Thanks for that idea.
In general, we are moving from the "request a new wiki (and oh, we need to make some pages at Incubator)" way to "start your own wiki at Incubator, and if it is big, we can request to move to an own subdomain". This way, we can put starting wikis back in the hands of volunteers without needing to create separate (inactive) wikis for each of them.
I should communicate better about my work. Anyway, I plan to propose a presentation at Wikimania next year about these things.
Regards, SPQRobin
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Gerard, the term "incubating wikis" is confusing for reasons I already explained. Users with little experience are very unlikely to know about http://test.wikipedia.org/ so I see little potential for actual confusion. We have been calling Wikis on incubator "test wikis" for ages (since BEFORE incubator existed), I see no reason to ditch that straightforward, useful term just to replace it with the confusing "incubating Wikis".
2011/8/13 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
Hoi, There is nothing wrong with the term incubating; it indicates forcefully that we want full projects in those languages. A test wiki is even more ambiguous because we have things like test.wikis for new software.
Having a landing page with texts in languages that are likely to be understood is a good thing. I will support that. When these pages are supported in a similar way as is done for new translators on translatewiki.net, I would be really happy; the point is that you make things easy and, the time spend by our community is our most valuable asset.
Having projects go to the incubator is a good thing when there is an incubating project. When there are technical issues like we have them for languages like sign languages we can have specific information. We can have specific information when projects have been denied in the past as well. Particularly when they have been denied by the board; these exceptions are the exceptions to the policy and deserve better information.
Let one thing be clear; having a project in the incubator for a longer time is not a desired state. Making improvements to the visibility only serves to speed up the process towards a full project. Thanks, GerardM
On 12 August 2011 02:08, Robin Pepermans robinp.1273@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
@Mark: although I do not like your tone in your original post, you provide some good feedback (and started a thread with more feedback), which is more than welcome. 2. Do you have a suggestion as an alternative for the term "incubating wikis"? Is the more often used "test wiki" better? 5. I improved the Incubator:Wikis list so it is more intuitive, I hope. As for the order, it is alphabetically.
@Fajro "The link from the test-wiki should direct to the proper recent changes." The links on Wx/xyz pages do, or are you referring to links somewhere
else?
@Thomas: Info pages like http://robinpepermans.be/mw-dev/index.php?title=Wn/shi will be coming soon, and the redirects will hopefully be implemented this year or early next year. As far as I can see, this will allow interwiki links from any project to an incubator test wiki, which is a very good thing (will not work for languages unknown to Wikimedia, with current setup)
@Nathan: A kind of "language searcher" to more easily find test wikis, is on my to-do list.
And I added one more thing to the to-do list: improving http://www.wikipedia.org/ and similar portals. Thanks for that idea.
In general, we are moving from the "request a new wiki (and oh, we need to make some pages at Incubator)" way to "start your own wiki at Incubator, and if it is big, we can request to move to an own subdomain". This way, we can put starting wikis back in the hands of volunteers without needing to create separate (inactive) wikis for each of them.
I should communicate better about my work. Anyway, I plan to propose a presentation at Wikimania next year about these things.
Regards, SPQRobin
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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