[Mediawiki-l] language, images, mediawiki 1.4, special messages and customization

[Morten Blaabjerg]

I'm currently in the proces of setting up a MediaWiki site, using
v.1.3.8. I was overwhelmingly surprised at the ease of setting things
up, and everything works quite well, (although a few things does not yet
so). I have a number of questions, I would like to have shed some light
on. And this seems like a good place to ask them. (Maybe someone would
one day collect the questions asked here, and expand on the online
documentation on the WikiMedia site help pages? -maybe I can contribute
to that some day...!) I intend to upgrade to v1.4 as soon as it is out,
so if any of the following is too much trouble with v1.3.8 and will be
solved with v1.4 I would like to know.

LANGUAGE

What is causing me the most trouble is the language issue, and the
special messages. While I intend the site to be informative and inviting
to global users, I reckon it will mostly be used by danish-speaking
local people, cooperating on creative projects and expanding a base of
knowledge.

When setting up the wiki, I decided to set up with the english version
of the text, which it seems I am now stuck with?
-is it possible to change the interface language from english to danish
(including all the special messages) after setup and with a growing
database? - which files are relevant?

Is it possible with MediaWiki 1.4 for users to specify their preferred
site language in their preferences, for the interface and system
messages? - how is this managed more precisely? - Which files will still
be of concern to me, after the install of MediaWiki 1.4?

Is it possible to limit the languages available to users, if one cannot
commit to customizing one's wiki to all kinds of languages? -or the
system messages can be kept to such a minimum, that I won't have to
(which I doubt)?

IMAGES

Another concern of mine, is images. Since my server runs in PHP Safe
Mode, image upload is automatically disabled (I strongly suppose that is
why it doesn't work, even though all the flags should be correct). I'd
really want image upload to be enabled, so what are my alternatives?

-will this be solved in MediaWiki v1.4.? -as suggested in the beta
release document?
-can I alternatively add the information included when uploading to the
database by directly querying the MySQL db myself, and uploading the
images manually via FTP? - this would be the best solution to get me
started for real using images, if possible. Right now all I do is
manually upload images and create tables with direct links to them.
Clearly this is not an optimal solution and use of the software. And it
breaks the creative flow, as all images will have to go through the
administrator.

OTHER QUESTIONS & COMMENTS

How does one best limit the menu items, user preferences or special
pages of no relevance to one's customization? Which files are the
important ones to meddle with, to remove, say, certain skins, from being
selectable by a user? The site has been designed with a site-particular
skin, a modified monobook-css etc. and you don't want the site style to
appear otherwise to the user. How do you do that?

Why not keep all the system messages within the file system, easily
accessible from the root system, - and keep them all out of the wiki?

There are quite a few "wikipedia leftovers" for instance, in the special
messages, such as a number of unneccessary references or links, that are
empty, and a bit of a hazzle to track down and eliminate. No need to
refer in the special messages to a 'policy' if a small site doesn't have
one (yet)... No need either IMO to wet everything in a
copyright/disclaimer context, if the site in question or users has no
need for them, but only loads their base engine with existing links to a
lot of non-creative empty 'paragraph pages' (and all that even before
there's any creative content).

This is just constructive criticism - so far from ever becoming a
programmer myself, I can only hack, copy n' paste and learn bits
everywhere. I love the power of the wiki concept - I feel I am
witnessing the maturing of the internet and its real creative power
here. Keep up the good work :-)

Cheers :-)
--
Morten Blaabjerg
morten at crewscut.com
Tlf. +45 65 90 60 88