Meta:Babel/Archives/2011-03

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Where do I post a question?

Apologies if this is the wrong place, but on clicking Help in the bar down the left, it's just a general list of topics: nothing seems to be an "ask your question here" or equivalent (compare the equivalent at English Wikipedia. I found this page almost by accident, don't ask me how.

Anyway, we have a problem on English Wikipedia: the job queue has been down for at least ten days, and nobody seems to know how to restart it. The relevant threads are en:Help talk:Job queue#Where's it gone? and en:Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Redux of What Links Here. Is this the correct place to request assistance? If not, where? --Redrose64 19:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid the only place where you can have an answer is #wikimedia-tech or possibly wikitech-l, but this is the correct page on Meta. Anyway, looks like sysadmins are still working on it. Nemo 23:24, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Welcoming users

Meta is a difficult wiki for new users, who often arrive here without any clue about its purpose (and when they leave, they're lost forever). I think that it's quite strange that we don't even systematically welcome users. What about enabling mw:Extension:NewUserMessage here as Commons did two years ago? And, as on Commons, we should welcome also automatically created (SUL) accounts, because most users come from another Wikimedia project. --Nemo 07:15, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I think this would be a good idea; I don't see any drawbacks to this, except that maybe it's a bit less personal to receive a message from a machine than a human - but that's not really a big issue. I say go for it. Tempodivalse [talk] 15:25, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
I'll comment further later but for now, if this gets implemented PLEASE do "subst:" the Welcome message. Thanks, --dferg ☎ talk 19:35, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
No more comments? --Nemo 13:13, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I'd do it - it isn't the best way but it beats the hell out of "no welcome" which was the point on Commons. It also means that there should be less deletion of new user talk pages when they aren't sure what it is all about...:) --Herby talk thyme 13:19, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
(ec w/Herby) I'm not sure of the usefulness of the feature... we can live without it I think. The system that commons uses does not subst: the templates and I'm heavy concerned about that. Neutral Neutral --dferg ☎ talk 13:21, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
dferg, the system can be configured to substitute the template. --Nemo 22:27, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
orly? - well, then OK :-) --dferg ☎ talk 22:42, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Support Support - substed welcoming is good.   — Jeff G. ツ 16:33, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
I've opened bugzilla:26545. --Nemo 14:31, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Fixed: Meta-Wiki Welcome has been welcoming users for a couple of days now. I had to remove the automatic signature, so if you welcome users manually you have to add it now. If someone knows how to make the bot work without this change, please do so. --Nemo 07:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm glad to see that the message is substed. As an account I guess that if it starts doing weird things it can be blocked, right? His edits are not showed in RC so for the moment I've not set any bot flag (if it is needed, feel free to ask). Regards, -- Dferg ☎ talk 11:52, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
A bot flag is not needed for the welcome machine, all of its edits are automatically hidden (they're actually not visible in RC even with "Show bots"). You have to look at Special:Contributions to see if it's doing anything strange - although it shouldn't, it's been tested and proven on commons and en.wikinews. Tempodivalse [talk] 19:09, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Update: the extension was briefly disabled due to some problems with MediaWiki 1.17 and now is working (with some bugs). Anyway, given that nobody updated the template, which is now a bit weird when added by the bot but should be always usable by users, what about auto-adding signatures of active users willing to reply to help requests from newbies? It's enough to list them on MediaWiki:Newusermessage-signatures, then they're added randomly by the bot after the template. We could start with active sysops, then sysops would add/remove themselves and other users at their discretion. Nemo 08:33, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I would rather ask to dissable the extension per past incident and current bugs. I had to suppress some instances yesterday where the extension welcomed users with insulting usernames towards editors... and I always thought that the "personal welcome" is better. Just a thought, -- Dferg ☎ talk 08:37, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
And since some days the message is not being subst'd as agreed here... -- Dferg ☎ talk 09:21, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Note I use to do most of the welcoming without a problem. The reason why I wasn't able to do it recently is no longer true. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:54, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose I much prefer that new users are welcomed by another user. An automated message does not make you feel welcome, and doesn't keep an eye on your user space during those sometimes critical first few days. It also doesn't check whether the message is still up to date. Guido den Broeder 12:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Translating Articles into Multiple languages' Wikipedias

topic moved here from The Village Pump as suggested by Vgmddg.

Notice to discuss it here also given at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta_talk:Babylon#Translating_Articles_into_Multiple_languages.27_Wikipedias

Pandelver 21:34, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Translating Articles: Methods of Transfer

(1) Create a separate wiki for translation


This would be wonderful; you mean a kind of intermediary spot, part-sandbox, part polishing room, where articles can be prepared for posting to indivdidual language wikis, it seems?

What methods would you support, for example:

  • (1.01) Any idea of a software engine for at least some of the translations? (eg Google only has some popular languages, and must be human-re-edited or more than that, right now)
  • (1.02) How to connect, recruit, and assemble teams of human translators for each language.
  • (1.03) Regarding which, can you tell us if Wikipedia has translator SIGS in any way, Project groups within the linguistics projects, if any? Including the observations made by Wikid77 in major item (4) of this Methods of Transfer section below, "(4) Teamwork of translation groups"
  • (1.04) Would this be done by a Project group choosing articles by "worthiness" as you put it, or would they be submitted by readers or what?

Pandelver (talk) 21:08, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


(2) Reenable Article Subpages

  • According to Wikipedia:Subpages, originally subpages in the Article namespace were used to organize articles in terms of subtopics (i.e: Mathematics/Geometry/Prism), but they were disabled when the system of disambiguation and categorization came into place. I wish to bring this feature back, but to use it for translation instead. When an article is to be translated a copy of it will be made on the subpage of the article in the receiving wiki. Here it can be translated little by little by passing users. As information is translated, it can be slowly merged into the receiving article. This means that you can have subpages for multiple languages of the article. This is personally my favorite. --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 22:51, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Multiple languages in one Wikipedia could be a problem, especially for contra-flow, right-to-left text, such as in Arabic Wikipedia. It is probably best to keep working on translations within each separate wikipedia, that way people familiar with the language are more likely to help with translations (or advise you to stop). -Wikid77 15:59, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
For the right-to-left problem, there is the {{Rtl-para}} template, which allows you to to insert a paragraph that flows from right to left. Also, the language versions will not be a part of the actual article, but rather like another reference source for the article.
I also don't like having the translation being done on the giving wikipedia. First, if we do that, then every body on that language wiki who happens to know a little bit of another language will want to create a new version for that language, especially since they don't know the current state of the other version of the article. If this happens, then we will have 279 versions of the same article on each wikipedia! The English wikipedia currently has 3,548,101 articles. If the English wikipedia alone did this, then we would have approximately 989,920,179 articles. Trying to do this with all of the other languages would bloat Wikipedia up to the point of bursting! This really doesn't seem like a good idea when you realize that not all of the different wikis actually need help from other languages. The Spanish version of the article for Bread is well enough on its own, and isn't as much in need of information from other wikis.
As I said before, people on the other side also won't know as much about the state of the other article, so won't be able to make an educated decision as to whether or not to translate. For best results, you should collaborate with the other language before bringing it over though, to make sure the content is usable for example. And the idea of having it on the receiving side is that once you translate a piece of information you can put it directly into the article without having to flip-flop between languages. --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 21:18, 3 February 2011 (UTC)


(3) Design the infoboxes for easy translation

This idea is covered in my essay "WP:Thinking outside the infobox" because infobox fields seem to be the fastest information translated into other-language wikipedias. After having translated the infoboxes, there is a tangible basis for other people to expand the article in another language, according to their ideas of significant (or allowable) content. -Wikid77 15:59, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
I think that this is a great idea, as it allows you to get an idea about the topic if there is little to no information and helps provide a framework for the article. However, infoboxes alone are not enough. In order to really take advantage of translation, you need to be able to translate the actual article text. I think that this should be developed in tandem with another method. --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 21:18, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
Well User:translate Bot is at your disposal. Translating infoboxes we have done with some success before - notably importing German, French, HUngarian and I think Romanian places, prior to merging them into Infobox settlement. Rich Farmbrough, 11:18, 12 February 2011 (UTC).


(4) Teamwork of translation groups

  • Wikipedia is 10% translation and 90% confrontation: (or "consternation") - Teams could be established to overcome resistance to translated pages. I have had several people on German Wikipedia ask me to stop porting major, illustrated list articles which had only 98% correct wording. Yes, I was stunned when trying to translate the simple 50 illustrated U.S. state lists of National Landmarks into German, and they asked me to "HALT" because a few phrases out of 400 were awkward. Also, Swedish Wikipedia warned me a 97%-accurate, Google-translate-assisted article would be deleted (and was), despite my asking politely for help with Swedish grammar phrases. I am not exaggerating the 97%-98% accurate: because, naturally, after having German & Swedish articles shunned, I checked the accuracy for weeks afterward. Yes, the articles were highly accurate, but other people were so restrictive, they would NOT ACCEPT an article with a few simple awkward phrases, as only 97% correct!! -Wikid77 09:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
This will probably be paramount to getting this system off the ground, especially if resistance is as serious as you say! The whole reason we are trying to do this is to allow information to be shared between the different wikis. To do this, we will need to set up a system with all of the language wikis through the Local Embassy for this to have any chance of success.
As for these specific instances, for all intents and purposes I do believe that you were in the right. I think part of the problem may have been that it was rushed too quickly. Thinking from their point of view if one country is just minding its own business and all of a sudden someone comes along and forces a large volume of information on them there's bound to be conflict. First of all, as far as I know, none of the other languages know about this thread, so they don't know that we're doing this. Second of all, they have to become comfortable with accepting information from other languages. This is undoubtedly part of the reason why they didn't accept it. For now, I think the best mode of transport is to leave the article in a user subpage and wait for consensus rather than sending it directly into the article namespace. I still think that the fact that they deleted the whole article just because of one or two phrases is still astonishing though! --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 22:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


yeah, i agree, the information given to say, a chinese person is different to that of an irish person, though both races have a right to know everything about the subject that we can offer here at wikipedia.org >vgmddg (look | talk | do) 22:51, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

this is pretty cool and yes thank you for this oppurtunity to join wikipedia

This proposal was put forward by User:Vgmddg, who has a total of 1050 edits, all within English Wikipedia. I see no traces of translation experience here. I think these proposals are not practical, and will likely go nowhere. --LA2 00:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

400 free Credo Reference accounts available

Another 400 free Credo Reference accounts have been made available for Wikipedians, kindly donated by the company and arranged by Erik Möller of the Wikimedia Foundation. We've drawn up some eligibility criteria to direct the accounts to content contributors, and after that it's first-come, first-served. The list will open on Wednesday, March 23 at 22:00 UTC, and will remain open for seven days. See Wikipedia:Credo accounts.

Feel free to add your name even if you're lower on the list than the 400th, in case people ahead of you aren't eligible, and good luck! SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 04:56, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Interwiki sorting order#Proposal: Storing interwiki sorting at local system message

I have made a proposal for creating a central place for computer readable messages containing the interwiki sort order. At the moment each framework uses it own config file which has to be updated manually after changes to the list of wikis. Merlissimo 17:14, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

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