[Foundation-l] [Wikitech-l] Implementing the Babel extension

[Andrew Whitworth]

On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 2:50 PM, mike.lifeguard <mike.lifeguard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Exactly! And the babel templates are exactly the same. /If/ we decide to
> have a system standardized across wikis (a good idea, IMO) then hardcoding
> them is not an optimal solution.

I would disagree with this assertion about optimality. In addition to
standardizing the templates, they will be able to use ISO language
codes automatically and update translation text from betawiki. For the
problem that this is trying to solve, a simplification to the forrest
of babel templates, increase in interlingual participation, and
further integration of betawiki translation efforts into this, I would
say the extension is a highly optimal solution.

> The optimal solution is something like:
> * https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4547

I do like this idea, in theory. What I don't like is, as I said
before, that we would want to provide exceptions for wikis that don't
want to be using the shared templates. However, if this was
implemented in a similar manner to how image sharing is, that a local
copy is taken if it exists and the version from commons is taken
otherwise, that would be fine by me. You still lose some of the
features of the babel extension, however, but you do solve the core
problem.

--Andrew Whitworth