[Foundation-l] Language Prevention Committee created

[Titoxd@Wikimedia]

I'm sorry, but all of this seems rather strange to me.
First, the world is not going to explode if a wiki does not have a language
file - the wiki will just return to the default language, English. You do
not *need* a language file to customize the interface - that is what the
MediaWiki namespace is for. You can begin customizing the interface
gradually, see what you need, and do it at your own pace.
If for some reason that I do not comprehend, that is unacceptable, then you
can generate a language file from the customized wiki itself! Just go to
Special:Allmessages, click on the "PHP" output format (for the English
Wikipedia, this page would be
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Allmessages&ot=php ) and
you have 80% of your language file right there. The rest is basic language
information, such as whether you write left to right or right to left, and
you can see it, for example, at the top of the Spanish language file at
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/languages/messages/Me
ssagesEs.php?view=markup (for full, copious comments as to what these
statements are, see the corresponding English file at
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/languages/messages/Me
ssagesEn.php?view=markup ). 
After this, you can submit a bug to BugZilla. Adding a new
internationalization file is usually a fairly trivial operation. What the
developers won't do is internationalize the file for you - you need to
provide them with the details. But again, this is *not* something that has
to be done *before* the wiki is set up.

Titoxd.