But... my aim is to attract as much traffic and active users as I can. Now, the main problema I see with using commons are:
- you need to open an account on it, if you want the interface to start
with your language. I.e: you must be able to cope with an english interface.
(Universal login: we at Commons await it more than anyone else, possibly. ;)) As for English login, not quite. We have managed to internationalise the login as much as possible: see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Userlogin . And I saw a note in this week's Signpost ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-06-26/Technol... ) that it is now possible to have "Optional language selector for user login/registration forms". So I certainly hope Commons will be the first place to implement that.
- there is no way for a local edition to use commons as an "included"
service (that is, one page as another, inside the edition).
? Not sure what you mean by this. Are you referring to image pages? The Commons images create "fake" image pages which copy all the content to your wiki, and there is a link back to the Commons page for the full information.
If you are referring to regular Commons articles I can't imagine why you'd want to do this...
- file categorisation is 100% :en. (let alone file description)
Yes, this is true. Technical limitation until category RDRs are properly implemented. File descriptions are NOT required to be in English at all. But if SCN were to turn off local uploads it would be extremely nice to have some Sicilian speakers volunteer as Commons admins. We are extremely welcoming to admin candidates of lesser-spoken languages.
- file descriptions should have a sort of "fallback language", so that once
they are uploaded on a language any number of tranlations maybe added without loosing the original version. Failure to do so would really mean the risk of me publishing an image from Thailand in an article on a chinese emperor (how on earth can I read that?) and the chinese publishing a Rotterdam pic in an article about the Alps.
Not sure what you mean by this. We encourage people to translate the descriptions on image pages.
I don't think publishing the wrong picture is much of a danger (when in doubt, why would you put it?), but interwiki links & Check-Usage tend to be very handy in such situations. (Check-Usage is a tool that tells you where a Commons image is being used in all of Wikimedia. Like global "what links here".) As long as the interwiki link is correct you can safely copy any images the interwiki links use.
- commons interface is quite out of wiki standards, and the localisations
distributed by Betawiki do not seem to cover the whole UI, part of which remains in english anyway.
Hm, I am not sure about the technical points with Languages.php and all that. We have changed our navigation menu which most language files can't cope with, I know... I will just say we really encourage translators and are very responsive to updating translations. I personally promise that if you put translations on my talk page, I will update them within 24 hours of reading my talk page.
If you are interested, and maybe you are since your English is great, we can work together and over the next week update the language(s) you speak so they're all up to date. I agree that having the interface translated is important. (and policy pages, and warnings :) but most important of all is to have admins who can act as a bridge.)
Besides, I have all my trouble in explaining users how to use wiki pms, I doubt that I will end up in reducing my workload, if I have to teach them how to use commons, too.
Short term vs long term...I know there is a huge workload for up-and-coming wikipedias. So it's your call. I do understand that the default option of allowing local uploads is a lot less initial work.
Using Commons means less work, but it certainly doesn't mean NO work. It is necessary that some admins from that Wikipedia/language take on extra responsibility and become Commons admins. It is necessary that bilingual people from that language make up to date translations. Now as much as I want to support other languages using Commons, I simply cannot do those things. It's just a fact. So some people do have to step up, because throwing your users in the deep end with no Commons contact will not work at all.
We have a page http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Help_page_maintenance which has a rough heirarchy of which pages should be translated first.
I was asked to translate my questions in italian because he had trouble in using english (see what I mean? Not the whole planet has an EN-3, even among the admins). I translated them and... never got back any answer. It's a couple of months now. As you certainly understand, opening a new edition with a small user base means so much trouble that I simply forgot about it, until now. I guess he did exactly the same.
Hopefully you won't forget about me :) It's an important issue, but it must be carefully addressed.
I will certainly do my best not to. :) And I will do my best to help you solve any issues you see between pms.wp (or scn.wp or any other project) and Commons since you guys are our first priority. Commons works best when everyone uses it, then everyone has the most benefit too.
I looked up Piedmontese since I freely admit my ignorance of it. I see it is spoken in Italy. I was wondering what kind of attitude Piedmontese speakers have towards Italian speakers? Is it true that most Piedmontese users can also read/understand Italian? ie....are Italian help files and messages sufficient for Piedmontese speakers? Obviously Piedmontese would be preferred, but I guess what I'm getting at is, how essential is it to have a Piedmontese translation distinct from an Italian one? Please don't take offence if the answer is "100% essential". There's only one way to find out these things....
best regards, Brianna