Hi,
I've recently discovered that namespace names may have an ambiguity with interlanguage links: If a namespace name is the same as a language code, using it in wikitext poses all kinds of challenges.
Actual example: In the Tyap language (code kcg), the Wikipedia in which was created a few days ago, the Category namespace is called "Sa:", which is also the language code and, hence, the interlanguage link code for Sanskrit.
So, "Sa" is usable in wikitext, but has all kinds of little issues. For example, old-style non-Wikidata interlanguage links to Sanskrit from the Tyap Wikipedia are probably impossible. They are not very likely to be inserted into articles, but still, it's somewhat conceivable. I also noticed that it confuses Pywikibot in some ways. And I can imagine other subtle bugs that it will cause.
I've asked Tyap speakers whether it's possible to change the word for "Category" to something else. No—they want to use "Sa". It's legitimate not to want to change the word for a technical reason.
So what can be done?
The editors there told me that it's OK for them to use "[[Category:" in wikitext, but they would like to see "Sa:" in the title of category pages. I'm not sure that it's possible: as far as I know, the namespace name definition in MessagesKcg.php will be used for both things, and if Visual editor is used to add categories, it will add "[[Sa:". Bots or gadgets can be used to replace it to "Category", but is looks like an ugly hack.
Does anyone have better ideas for a robust, comprehensive solution?
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Namespace names identical to interwiki links should work, with the namespace taking precedence. It may be surprising, but this is a well-tested feature: we have a 'wikipedia:' interwiki link defined on all wikis, and a 'Wikipedia' namespace on many of them, and everything works fine. (Although you lose the ability to use that interwiki, but it's also available as 'w:'.)
In this case you have an interlanguage interwiki link, which may complicate things somewhat, but it *should* also work. (You do lose the ability to have old-style interlanguage links, since you can't just use another alias, but hopefully this is a minor issue.)
If you document specific issues, I think folks would be willing to fix them.
Amir,
In Romanian, this kind of possible, but highly unlikely problem is called "drob de sare" (salt stone). I'll let you use your language skills to find out why :)
Let the community be and find their own ways to deal with the problem, if it ever becomes a real one. If one really wants to link to the sanskrit Wikipedia, it can do so using [[:w:sa:...]]. Bugs in Pwb can be solved if you log them - but does Tyap has any robots today?
No need to have users in a new language write in English just because some problems might occur in certain very particular scenarios.
My 2c, Andrei
Pe sâmbătă, 4 iunie 2022, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il a scris:
Hi, I've recently discovered that namespace names may have an ambiguity with
interlanguage links: If a namespace name is the same as a language code, using it in wikitext poses all kinds of challenges.
Actual example: In the Tyap language (code kcg), the Wikipedia in which
was created a few days ago, the Category namespace is called "Sa:", which is also the language code and, hence, the interlanguage link code for Sanskrit.
So, "Sa" is usable in wikitext, but has all kinds of little issues. For
example, old-style non-Wikidata interlanguage links to Sanskrit from the Tyap Wikipedia are probably impossible. They are not very likely to be inserted into articles, but still, it's somewhat conceivable. I also noticed that it confuses Pywikibot in some ways. And I can imagine other subtle bugs that it will cause.
I've asked Tyap speakers whether it's possible to change the word for
"Category" to something else. No—they want to use "Sa". It's legitimate not to want to change the word for a technical reason.
So what can be done? The editors there told me that it's OK for them to use "[[Category:" in
wikitext, but they would like to see "Sa:" in the title of category pages. I'm not sure that it's possible: as far as I know, the namespace name definition in MessagesKcg.php will be used for both things, and if Visual editor is used to add categories, it will add "[[Sa:". Bots or gadgets can be used to replace it to "Category", but is looks like an ugly hack.
Does anyone have better ideas for a robust, comprehensive solution?
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
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