On Sat, 22 Dec 2001, Magnus Manske wrote:
Here's my Christmas present for you all: New features for the PHP script to come!
Probably the most important one is the "interlanguage" feature. Just for German right now, but is can be easily extended for other languages as well. I set up an example at http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/fpw/wiki.phtml?title=Vikings where I added "[[de:Wikinger]]" to the text (it doesn't matter where the link is within the text). Now, I have the "de" namespace internally defined as a language namespace, going to the German wikipedia. The "de:" link is NOT displayed within the text, but in the article header, as you can see. The "Deutsch" link goes straight to the "Wikinger" article in the German wikipedia.
Something like this might indeed be the ideal *technical* solution to the language coordination problem. It allows us to sidestep the question whether articles should be translations of each other, while facilitating interlinking. I have one question about this implementation of the solution, though: we don't really want the English language as the "main" namespace, with other languages living at other namespaces, eh? After all, they too will want separate talk ("Rede") pages...shouldn't they be on completely different (but automatically interlinked) wikis?
One problem with the wording, "This article is available in Deutsch," is that it implies that the German article is the *same* article (translated) as the one in English. That might not at all be the case; but we might nevertheless like to have two entirely different articles on the same subject interlinked. Then, bilingual people can go in and adjust them so that the strengths of each are reflected in both. Better wording, anyway: "There's also an article on this topic in Deutsch" or just "Other languages: Deutsch."
I think this will work! One nice thing about it, by the way, is that it allows us easily, by hand, to go in and translate titles. This could really help the non-English Wikipedias to take off!
This is only the first step. As I explained elsewhere, once all wikipedias are changed to the PHP script, these links can be collected automatically (say, each day or each week), and ensure all existing language versions are interlinked properly.
What exactly do you mean by "these links can be collected automatically"?
Another toy is the "contributions" link on every user page. Try mine, for example, at http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/fpw/wiki.phtml?title=user:Magnus_Manske. The "This user's contributions" link at the top goes to a page with a list of all articles I ever edited, according to the database. (These are only the edits I did on the test site, of course).
Very interesting. Why not?
Finally, a minor thing : On Recent Changes, all edits that were made anonymously have the IP marked in red; as most vandals don't have a user name, it might be of advantage to spot every anonymous edit easily.
Well, I doubt it. We can spot IPs very easily in black. Putting it in red reminds people, "Stop! Danger! Anonymous person!" While some of us might have that reaction, it's better not to so obviously flag people like this. I mean, we don't want to discourage anonymous contributors.
Don't get run over by a reindeer, (why don't we have a [[reindeer]] article on the 'pedia???) Magnus
Yep, happy holidays and all that, good work Magnus, Larry