[Mediawiki-l] Supporting multiple language articles - URL formation

[Paul Coghlan]

I need to support multiple languages on my wiki. I am trying at all costs to
avoid multiple MW installations such as at wikipedia using sub domains.
Mainly because I allow everyone to see everything. This way an Italian
speaker sees both Italian and English articles BUT they can specify only
Italian articles in their search.

I have sorted out the ability to automatically change the interface language
per user from Drupal. I am now looking at URL formation, ensuring different
and user generated URLs exist for the same articles in multiple languages.

For example, the English article about Milan, Italy would be at
/Milan%2C_Italy. The Italian version would be different in that it would be
at /Milano%2C_Italia. This doesn't represent a problem as they are
different.

However, the article about India will be the same in both languages, /India.

Has anyone tackled this issue? I am thinking that possibly a namespace might
be helpful?

Something like:

Italiano:Milano%2Italia
Milan%2Italy

Italiano:India
India

Would this work? Would an Italian speaker who is looking at the /Italia page
and then creates a sub page called /Milano have it automatically go into the
Italiano namespace?

I am not even sure if I am making myself clear on this issue. If not let me
know.

Thanks,
Paul