After this I will contact you directly since it's less relevant to
this mailing list. But I will make a couple of points that might be
relevant:
On 29/06/06, Berto <albertoserra(a)ukr.net> wrote:
Hi again!
(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 .
Yes, I've used it myself. The main problem is that most users who are afraid
of english will never get to see, because they will simply not click on the
*login* link. Anyway, if we can setup a proper instruction page on local
bases (that is, on pms) we can bridge this. The same would apply to
interliki links. If one can mantain a usable UI on *any* edition he will not
fear trying even the most exotic language... and this really is a quick way
to locate additional pics to use in a given context.
There is a very useful possibility you might not be aware of... try this:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&uselang=pms
If you can give this link to your users (probably won't be able to
through a menu, but on an article/page, yes), it might be easier. Of
course as soon as they click on any link, the "&uselang=pms" will
disappear and the menus will go back to English. So better make sure
Special:Userlogin is the 2nd thing they click on. :P
BTW I think this trick should also work perfectly on wikipedias. And
it should work even better since the menus won't be different.
) 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.
I see it on all editions (more precisely: IT, EN,
META, COMMONS) even now...
so probably we talk about different selectors. My common:user works in pms
lang, so do my it:user, en:user, meta:user, etc.
You are talking about the language selector at
[[Special:Preferences]], right? Yes, that works everywhere. I am
talking about a drop-down box for anonymous users to go through the
signup process. At the moment no one has this, it is a new feature.
What worries me is that a
user needs to undergo a first page in a foreign
language, in order to do
this. If we could just send the user language as a link parameter we could
probably solve the problem...
See above :P
> 2) there
is no way for a local edition to use commons as an "included"
> service (that is, one page as another, inside the edition).
I mean having
your upload page instead of mine. Which means all the links in
the page drive the user back into pms, while only upload functions and image
galleries relate to your server from everywhere in pms. Having exported fake
pages is okay, too. The thing I do not wnat to happen is an unexperienced
user to get lost somewhere beween two servers. What I want is having commons
"seamiglessly" integrated in local editions. People should not even know
that they are changing servers, unles they are interested in the tech
details and go reading the docs. Most users do not give a damn about it, all
they want is their pic to be uploaded for them to use it in an article, not
a conference on distributed systems management.
Yes, indeed... it is possible to make the upload page link to Commons,
but they will of course be taken to Commons. And until we have
universal login, they will have to sign up again. And they will have
to meet Commons requirements of image source, necessary license
information and (very strongly encouraged) category or gallery link.
But I check newbie users at the moment and 19/20 do not use
categories, so I don't expect pms-users to be any different. :)
File
descriptions are NOT required to be in
English at all.
Yes, but I really wonder what can a japanese user get from a pms
file
description.
Well I really doubt anyone will use an image if it has a caption they
can't understand at all. They will simply not use the file. OK that is
a loss but until we require that everyone knows 20 languages :) not
much we can do.
ie....are
Italian help files and messages sufficient for Piedmontese
speakers?
No. In every day life it almost always gets substituted by ITA in Piedmont,
and if we cannot keep an homogenous linguistic environment for our users we
really risk turning all our efforts to failure. We need people to have a
place for them to use the language for all kind of needs, if we want them to
develop that proficiency that is necessary to write a good pms wiki. It's a
pity, because it actually means that I get an additional load of
translations work on my "to-do" list, but unfortunately that's the way it
is...
OK, I understand that.
When it comes to interacting with other users, unless a PMS admin
takes on a lot of translation, they will probably have to use some
English or something else. I encourage all Commons users to use Babel
boxes.
Mmmm... I can't seem to guess your nick on
common... you can leave me mail
on
http://pms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussioni_utente:Bèrto_'d_Sèra so we can
define a practical action plan for the merger... :) We got some 80 pics so
far, If we manage to transfer them now it will be easier than making it once
they already grew up to 800.
OK, great. Oops, sorry I didn't write my username. it's user:pfctdayelise .
cheers,
Brianna