"Magnus Manske" Magnus.Manske@epost.de writes:
before you waste lots of energy on discussion, be aware that the upcoming wikipedia software, which is currently in beta phase, supports variables in the text. For example, the date on the homepage is automatically adjusted when you view it, with things like "{{{CURRENTYEAR}}}" being replaced with 2001 (this year).
We must be vigilant, though, that people won't misuse them. I.e.
Currently (in {{{CURRENTYEAR}}}) ...
and
Currently (in 2001) ...
can't be distinguished by looking at the HTML output, only at the source; and the first usage is probably always in error -- we /don't/ want articles to change behind our backs.
Which reminds me, which articles (except the homepage) do we actually want to contain a moving date?
That system could be expanded with things like
- {{{CATEGORY:Biology}}} in an article that could be seen as belonging to
biology
Am I right with my guess that this is for easy back-linking from a "Biology" page? If not, what is it for, as opposed to a simple [[Biology]] link.
- {{{GERMAN:Haus}}} in the "house" article
These "variables" could be replaced for display with, say, a little German flag linked to the German version of the "house" article, named "Haus".
I like the idea to tie different languages together. But (you know this was coming, eh?) I have two beefs:
Putting links to all other versions into the English (main?) Wikipedia, or even into every instance, does not scale well. Why not let the international Wikipedians do this work in *one* place, and let programs do the rest? And this one place should be where these Wikipedians are anyway, that is their "home" Wikipedia. So, the author of the "Haus" article can put {{{ENGLISH:house}}} in there; some other contributor inserts the same tag into the "maison" page, etc. This is enough to convey the relation to a program, so that links from any version to any other version are possible.
Flags are *evil*. They are symbols representing nations, not languages. I for one, would not feel compelled to click on a German flag, and I imagine a USian <g> would be even less comfortable with a Union Jack, either. Flags are sometimes misused in this way by web sites who are concerned that their visitors would not take the time to read the corresponding "[German]", but I think we can assume that our average visitor has no problem with reading an additional word.
So my proposal is:
The same topic in the [Spanish] [German] [French] Wikipedia.
The order of languages should be constant, but of course only those languages where an article exist should show up.
These things don't have to be displayed inside the article, either;
In the footer would be fine, I think.
Furthermore, all international wikipedias could be checked once a day (or once a week), crosslinking languages. If the English article links to the German one, the German one will automatically link back to the English version. Also, if the German article links to the Swedish, but the English does not, both English and Swedish will be automatically updated.
Yeah exactly, only that I'd say that this process would not change the article itself, but some metadata. I don't think it is much use to French speakers to see all translations of "maison" on that page. They'd not be able to check or make use of most of them. The one that they'd most likely be able to evaluate would be the English one.