User:Jean-Frédéric/i18n roadmap

Some thoughts for a pseudo-roadmap to a bright and glorious future of internationalisation on Wikimedia Commons get more stuff translated in our beloved users languages. This overview aims to focus on what can be done right now, by the Wikimedia Commons community , only mentioning what would be made possible maybe-some-day-months-or-years-from-now-pending-humongous-software-developments to not talk about it. ;-þ

(This expands on what I wrote on Commons:Requests for comment/Translate extension)

Main page

Right now main pages in different languages are completely independent. Half of them are most probably outdated. Some use {{Main Page Template}}. We should consider merging all of these with a proper Translate setup.

Oddly enough Wikidata does not use Translate on their main page − except for d:Wikidata:News. Meta uses a bunch of not really internationalized templates like meta:Template:Main Page/Code. The Outreach wiki uses a pure Translate setup, and Wikidata is moving there too. This is clearly the way to go.

Pages

Policies, help, project pages… Wikidata brilliantly shows how this can fly. Let’s continue migrating old stuff into the new system. Chin up!

We should make a dashboard of some sort to list pages depending on their state − fully migrated, Translate enabled but not migrated, Translate to enable but migrate will be hard, Translate to enable and easy/nothing to migrate − and index by priority.

(In French we (used to) have Commons:Centre de coordination des traductions & Commons:Table des matières de l'aide to help out).

Templates

Templates using {{Autotranslate}} with /layout, /en & so forth

Let’s move them to the /i18n structure. Example at Template:Personality rights/i18n

Question: Shall we continue using /layout too? Does not seem mandatory (even for using RTL tag)

{{Technique}}

Looks like we’re better off waiting for the Wikidata Revolution™ here.

Single, in-page translations using {{LangSwitch}} − eg {{Photo}}

Easy to migrate ; but it would be quite boring to have an entry in Translate for every possible word. Rather compile a gigantic list of words? See next.

I am not sure about replacing a single page with 200-300 pages so maybe gigantic list would be better. Some of the templates like {{Paris}} should be replaced by a Lua code calling wikidata.--Jarekt (talk) 02:42, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Humongous look-up tables using {{LangSwitch}} − eg {{I18n/location}}

Hmmm. Just replace the LangSwitch-ed values by English surrounded by translate tags and copy-paste words into the system? Will the look-up still work?

I guess we should try it or see if someone tried it at some different project.--Jarekt (talk) 02:42, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Translation tables using Lua − eg Module:I18n/oil on canvas.

(I did not even know we were doing that) How does Translate play with Lua? Presumably this is more efficient than LangSwitch based look-up tables?

I am not sure if it is better or more efficient. May be it helps with transclusion limit, but almost always can be replaced with other translation systems. I created Module:I18n/coordinates in order to place all the translations used by Module:Coordinates in one place. I think Lua calling Lua for i18n is conceptually simpler than Lua calling templates and is likely more efficient. --Jarekt (talk) 02:42, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

(Add the others I most certainly forgot)

• Many of out translations are done by translatewiki (see column #1 in Commons:Infoboxes). How is translatewiki related to translate extension? --Jarekt (talk) 02:42, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
• We might also have some MediaWiki pages which are used for translation and are not on translatewiki. --Jarekt (talk) 02:42, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Here too, we need a dashboard: Commons:Template i18n and its various subpages, and Commons:Template i18n/Most linked-to templates for the top-priority list. When a template uses Translate, it should be marked as such − like {{Template i18n row|Personality rights|ext.translate}} (see example on Commons:Template i18n/Restriction tags).

Galleries

Usually not internationalized, as far as I know. Possible constructs use in-line LangSwitch (see Petits théâtres de l'intime for example) − sometimes even for section headers. Can be done for gallery captions too, but crazy markup would probably make editing insane afterwards. Not sure it is worth it anyway.

Scripts and gadgets

Most usually script translations are set in the JavaScript ; but Rillke’s Watchlist Notice Wizard makes use of the Translate system − see here & there. Could that be generalized easily? Should it?

Files

The TranslateSvg extension 2.0 allows to translate SVGs, and works − see demo. See phab:T56214.

Closed captions

Incidental observation: closed caption editing sucks a lot on Commons (Amara integration, please). Translation included − tracked at phab:T44790

Categories

See User:Multichill/Commons_Wikidata_roadmap. Wikidata is the way.

File description pages

We should make it easier to translate file descriptions − see the 2009 designs by Guillaume Paumier for a possible look and feel − and do use MarkTraceur’s editDescriptions.js for a first implementation. The work on structured data planned by the Multimedia team would probably help a lot.