[Wikimedia-l] Alpha version of the VisualEditor now available on the English Wikipedia

[geni]

On 12 December 2012 20:29, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
>
> Terry with respect, an alpha release that is not even ready to be used in
> the scripts and languages of Wikipedia is not worthy of the designation
> alpha.

Err do you know what alpha means in a software context?

>It has pointed out for more than a year that the
> internationalisation of the visual editor needs serious attention. The
> notion that internationalisation is an architecture is very much accepted
> wisdom.

And we should care because? The reality is that en.wikipedia has some
of the messiest markup going and its users speak the same language as
the developers. If you want the thing to work at all its the only
viable approach.


> When Gabriel indicates that the names of namespaces is a present problem,
> you ignore the real issues that are beyond this. It is not just a matter of
> translating messages, it starts before this; having messages that can be
> translated. This has been an issue that has been all too often ignored.

If a language is unable to express a concept that exists in english
its probably going to go extinct within a few decades and it would be
generally unethical to interfere.

> I am looking forward to an alpha release worthy of the name where all our
> languages can be enabled for the use of the visual editor. Until this time
> it demonstrates the lack of importance given in the engeneering process to
> internationalisation.

In other words you are saying that engineering ignores the attempted
power grab by the language mob. Why is this meant to be a bad thing?

-- 
geni