Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Multimedia and Commons/Make category browsing multilingual using Wikidata

Random proposal ►◄ Multimedia and Commons The survey has concluded. Here are the results!

Make category browsing multilingual using Wikidata

Problem: Although Commons is a multilingual project, MediaWiki categories can only have a label in one language. Wikidata changes this: when a category is linked to Wikidata (which over 3 million of them now are), you can define labels for it on Wikidata in many languages. The Wikidata Infobox displays those multilingual labels within the category, so you can see the topic info in your language when you are within the category. However, subcategories only appear in the language they were created in (normally English), which can make it difficult for people that don't know that language to browse them.
Proposed solution: Use the Commons <-> Wikidata sitelinks to Wikidata to display a category label in the user's requested language. This would be best done within MediaWiki itself rather than having Javascript or similar trying to rewrite the labels after rendering.
Who would benefit: Commons editors and readers who do not know English
More comments: A bonus would be if image (P18) could also be used to show subcategory thumbnails, and perhaps also use the descriptions on hover-over to add additional context. This was previously proposed in the 2021 wishlist, along with a related proposal for multilingual category names
Phabricator tickets: N/A
Proposer: Mike Peel (talk) 20:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Rfc on wikidata. Stang 16:47, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This could work the same way for any other Wikimedia project like Wikipedia, Wikibooks, etc. - Categories should be stored as Wikidata item numbers, instead of raw Wiki text, e.g. Category:Belgium (Q4366768)

Voting

Support --Crazy1880 (talk) 19:52, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support 4nn1l2 (talk) 19:57, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Arnd (talk) 19:58, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Rzzor (talk) 20:00, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Christian Ferrer (talk) 20:09, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Jmmuguerza (talk) 20:31, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support USI2020 (talk) 20:42, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Triplec85 (talk) 21:50, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Vis M (talk) 20:51, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Strainu (talk) 21:23, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Draceane ^talk_contrib. 21:59, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Sadads (talk) 23:02, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support --𝑇𝑚𝑣 (𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑘) 01:58, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Betseg (talk) 02:19, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Higa4 (talk) 05:41, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ottawajin (talk) 06:17, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Steven Sun (talk) 07:27, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Till.niermann (talk) 09:44, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support As a part of a larger goal of making our "multilingual" projects actually multilingual. They're unilingually English now and that problem needs to be solved. Meiræ 11:27, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Aca (talk) 14:53, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Mbrickn (talk) 16:16, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose @Mike Peel This proposal would involve creating Wikidata items for every single Commons category. What should happen instead is Commons categories get their own structured data per-category. This works just like how Files on Commons have their own structured data. Files have their own structured data and not Wikidata items for good reason: Wikidata is meant to store data about the universe, not every little thing about Wikimedia. Wikimedia projects should aim to store data about themselves as much as possible, just as Structured data across Wikimedia is planning to do with Wikipedia. Additionally, this would be better than using Wikidata because Commons editors could translate categories from Commons itself and would not have to create a Wikidata item and navigate to Wikidata. Lectrician1 (talk) 20:22, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- @Lectrician1: Except none of that exists, and this is a solution that would work now? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:23, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  Your proposal requires work as well. We have also already set up page-based structured data on Commons before so it shouldn't be hard to extend that to Categories and having the translations Commons-based is a plus. I'm just asking that we evaluate what solution will work best for editors and Commons in the long-run. Lectrician1 (talk) 20:29, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support JAn Dudík (talk) 23:18, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support only if it does not mean creating WD item for every Commons category. Wostr (talk) 23:54, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I can't imagine it would ... something like, say, "Stone houses in London" could be keyed to those three WD items. Daniel Case (talk) 23:24, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Daniel Case How is that supposed to work? This would require MediaWiki to correctly inflect virtually all nouns and know which case to use with which preposition, which I doubt is in any way close to being implemented. ~~~~
User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 19:03, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support OwenBlacker (Talk) 10:49, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support F. Riedelio (talk) 11:08, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Luan (discussão) 22:47, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Libcub (talk) 22:55, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ariadacapo (talk) 10:14, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support β₁₆ - (talk) 10:58, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support NaBUru38 (talk) 13:19, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Daud Iffa (talk) 13:52, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Thingofme (talk) 09:56, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Daniel Case (talk) 23:23, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Very necessary. Serg!o (talk) 11:14, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 13:58, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Lectrician1. Silver hr (talk) 17:53, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Giacomo Alessandroni ^{let's talk!} 14:38, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Paucabot (talk) 15:36, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Syced (talk) 10:31, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Meiræ. — Bilorv (talk) 20:45, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose If it is not guaranteed that it will not interfere with Commons categories linking to Wikipedia articles. If this could lead to a drive towards forcing linking Commons categories to Wikipedia categories, something quite disrupting to who does categorization on Commons, then Strong oppose. - Darwin ^Ahoy! 21:10, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- @DarwIn: That's a long-solved problem through the inclusion of the Wikidata Infobox in the category, which links to articles over categories where the articles exist. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 08:39, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  @Mike Peel no, its. not. It was only partially patched to try to circumvent the disruptive connections that have imposed from Wikidata, forcing Commons categories to be linked to the (mostly useless for Commons) Wikipedia categories, while Wikipedia article mainspace is still linked to the Commons gallery namespace, which was never designed for that. Bringing even more stuff to work over that broken framework only worsens the situation. Just no. - Darwin ^Ahoy! 13:51, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Lutzto (talk) 17:36, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Exilexi (talk) 18:08, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support--Vulp❯❯❯here! 07:38, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ayumu Ozaki (talk) 08:04, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support —— Eric Liu_（Talk） 09:57, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose --Ciao • Bestoernesto • ✉ 17:02, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support paul2520 (talk) 17:11, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tom Ja (talk) 17:45, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support ~Cybularny ^Speak? 21:15, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ecritures (talk) 22:48, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Marcok (talk) 08:09, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support ZellmerLP (talk) 19:30, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose pr. Lectrician1 --Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 22:41, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gaurav (talk) 07:09, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]