[Foundation-l] Wikipedia's ebook and PDF creation feature doesn't support Chinese and Japanese

[Ziyuan Yao]

Yesterday I started two discussion threads for this issue, one one the
Wikizh-l mailing list, the other on the zh.wikipedia Google Group
(both are official discussion lists for the Chinese Wikipedia):

Wikizh-l thread: (in Chinese)
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikizh-l/2012-March/000733.html

zh.wikipedia thread (in Chinese):
https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!topic/zh_wikipedia/5BD523P6d9M

The two threads are still early in discussion, but commenters so far
support adopting the latest MediaWiki version, but they also pointed
out a bug that needs to be resolved (Chinese text should be converted
to either all-simplified or all-traditional before PDF creation):

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34919

Previously there was another bug (Chinese lines don't wrap
automatically) and it was resolved:

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33430

>From this resolved bug report you can find the relevant developers of
MediaWiki's PDF creation feature (PediaPress).

On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 6:58 AM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, I think Shizhao is subscribed to this list :-)  but I cc: him
> just in case.
> This sounds like a reasonable request.  Can one of the developers
> involved comment on the situation?
>
> Ziyuan: can you post a link to the discussion on the chinese wikipedia
> about whether to upgrade?
>
> SJ
>
> On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 2:24 PM, Yao Ziyuan <yaoziyuan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 3:21 AM, Pharos <pharosofalexandria at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Side question:
>>>
>>> Does Chinese Wikipedia indeed have an elected or consensus "leader" or
>>> some sort?
>>
>> Dunno, but he seems to be the community organizer.
>>
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Richard
>>> (User:Pharos)
>>>
>>> On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 1:59 PM, Yao Ziyuan <yaoziyuan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> I think you guys can all see how useful it would be if the Chinese
>>>> Wikipedia also has the ebook/PDF creation feature as seen on other
>>>> language Wikipedias. Some countries don't always let their people
>>>> visit Wikipedia, so ebooks can be an alternative.
>>>>
>>>> We have tried to solve this bug that prevents the Chinese/Japanese
>>>> Wikipedias from having this feature:
>>>> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33430
>>>>
>>>> The relevant developers (PediaPress) have solved the bug to some
>>>> extent, but Shi Zhao, leader of the Chinese Wikipedia, still doesn't
>>>> think the resulting Chinese PDF files are good enough, so the Chinese
>>>> Wikipedia has not yet upgraded to the latest MediaWiki software to get
>>>> this feature.
>>>>
>>>> My two suggestions:
>>>> (1) Persuade Shi Zhao to adopt the latest MediaWiki software, which
>>>> can generate ebook/PDFs for the Chinese Wikipedia, although the page
>>>> layout is not perfect.
>>>> (2) Or find another organization than PediaPress to provide this
>>>> feature, because PediaPress refuses to adopt a more Unicode-friendly
>>>> PDF code library that provides better Chinese PDF rendering.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Ziyuan Yao
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
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>>>
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>
>
> --
> Samuel Klein          identi.ca:sj           w:user:sj          +1 617 529 4266
>
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