Hoi,
India is a big country populated by many people speaking many languages. It
is no surprise that there are many wikipedias in languages spoken in India.
As you are active in organising a chapter for the Wikimedia Foundation, I
want to ask your collaboration on the localisation for the Indian languages
in MediaWiki. When you look at the statistics for the localisation of
MediaWiki and its extensions, you will find that the Indian languages are
not really supported. This in marked contrast with the experience when you
visit for instance the
hi.wikipedia.org.
I want to ask you to collaborate on the central localisation of MediaWiki in
the "BetaWiki". Central localisation has big advantages, a user interface
will be properly supported in all Wikimedia Foundation projects and the
language will also be supported in Wikis outside of the Wikimedia
Foundation. At the moment more then hundred MediaWiki extensions are
supported in MediaWiki. Some are of specific importance for projects or
languages. As BetaWiki is appreciated more and more as the place to be for
MediaWiki localisation, this number grows and with it the potential for
collaboration.
The first step is to import the existing localisation from your active
projects in to BetaWiki. The next step is to make sure that all the messages
do not contain information that is specific to Wikipedia so that it is
indeed useful in other projects. Localisation of MediaWiki is important and
this makes it a requirement for new projects in a language. What is of more
relevance is that it is easier to edit a Wiki when the user interface is
consistent from one project to the next.
When we make it easier for people to read and edit MediaWiki, we will grow
the community of people that make our projects a success.
Thanks,
GerardM
http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Main_Page BetaWiki
http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Group_statistics Statistics