Hello,
A user on no: (I don't know whether he is active here on wikipedia-l or
not, since he is only known through his pseudonym) has pointed out two main
problems with starting to use nb: rather than no: for the mainly nb (i.e.,
Norsk Bokmål/Riksmål(/samnorsk)) wikipedia:
1) The interwiki links to articles on no: might not work anymore.
2) The search engine hits through Google and Yahoo might not work anymore.
Both Andre's and Mark's suggestions seem to take care of this problem.
I have another question, though:
Is it -- as yet -- possible to configure a Wiipedia in such a way that one
can use the general search box so search in more than one language version?
In other words: Could the parameters for the Scandinavian wikipedias
(no-nn-sv-da) be set so that hits from all four wikipedias show up when
clicking the "search" link? And, even better, can this be done for the
"Search" function only, thus giving only a local hit when searching for a
term using the "Go" button IF there is a local page with that name?
Hypothetical examples:
1) In da:, you enter "København" and click "Gå til" (Go). You get the
Danish page "København".
2) In da:, you enter "København" and click "Søg" (Search). You get a
list
of hits, with the da: and no: articles and the Swedish København redirect
to Köpenhamn. You do not yet get a nn: hit, since that article is not yet
created. Alternatively (or additionally), you get the Swedish "Köpenhamn"
page directly because of the interwiki links to "da:København" and
"no:København".
3) In da:, you enter "Gamvik" in the search box and hit "Søg"
(Search). You
get, hypothetically, the no: and the nn: hit, since there is no da: page
with this name.
4) In nn: you enter "København" and click "Gå" (Go). Since there is no
page
with that name yet in this still quite new Wikipedia, it defaults to a
Scandinavian search and comes up with the no:, da: and sv: pages on top of
the search result page. You also, obviously, get the usual question whether
you want to create a "København" page in Nynorsk.
This option should probably be set as default. It should also be possible
for logged-in users to unselect this option.
This would be a great enhancement; it would be a way of for all four (as
yet) Scandinavian-language wikipedias to effectively provide more
comprehensive contents, for the benefit of all its users; — and it
would be a great incitement for each of the four groups to write lots of
articles to make sure that there is an article for a direct hit in their
own language as often as possible.
Other similar language clusters, like Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian (with some
tweaking of the Alphabet issue), Czech/Slovak,
Bulgarian/Macedonian(/Serbian), Finnish/Estonian, German/Plattdüütsch/etc.,
and maybe Faeroese/Icelandic (or the latter could join the Scandinavian
cluster for this purpose if they so desire), may also benefit from such a
solution.
Regardless of whether no: stays or moves to / gets joined by nb:, I think
this would be a solution to consider for the best of all four Scandinavian
language groups.
Best regards,
Olve
___________________
Olve Utne
http://utne.nvg.org