Meta talk:Internationalization guidelines

General notice

At the top of the page, there's a General notice: "When translations have been already done, please avoid performing any edit which would make them obsolete, even if tagging does not follow these guidelines."

This is too broad, and as far as I can see, it was ever discussed. For what it's worth, this talk page is empty.

It's too broad because it goes against the general wiki idea of "anyone can edit"—if there is something to fix, it should be fixed without too many limitations. Outdated translations are clearly marked as outdated, and they can be updated.

I can see some logic in a narrower guideline, for example: "Updating the source page of a translatable page is OK, but please avoid making minor changes that invalidate existing translations unless it's truly necessary."

Also, this should be in the text body, and not in a notice box right at the top of the page.

Tagging @Pols12, who wrote the original page, for thoughts. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 12:01, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

No opposition to rephrase it. Of course “please avoid” does not mean “please don’t”. It is just a reminder that the goal of these guidelines is to make translation easier and to minimize translator workload. If you invalidate translations, you increase translator workload, so the edit is counterproductive. But of course, if the content needs to be updated, it will be. Please edit the sentence if it not enough clear.

However, I think this should remain a general notice (at least keep it in bold) because I have already seen some kinds of stupid edit wars for internationalization purpose; actually the practices are not consistent through wikis (Meta-Wiki, Commons, MediaWiki.org). -- Pols12 (talk) 13:35, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Recommending Template:Localized link

For handling links in translate markup, I'd like to propose recommending the use of Template:Localized link to link to pages on Meta. For example: {{ll|Meta:About}}. This syntax is simpler than Special:MyLanguage since links using Template:Localized link can be excluded from translation units if the link text is the same as the page title. For example, {{ll|Meta:About}} (or {{ll|Meta:About|nsp=0}} to omit the namespace) instead of [[Special:MyLanguage/Meta:About|<translate>About</translate>]]. Using Template:Localized link also avoids the issue with Special:MyLanguage links not appearing on Special:WhatLinksHere (phab:T63547). For more examples, see this sandbox page and mw:Manual:Developing extensions. APaskulin (WMF) (talk) 19:32, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

I've published an edit with these changes. Feedback and further edits welcome! APaskulin (WMF) (talk) 18:54, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

I disagree with this global recommendation.

In a list, e.g. in page list in bottom “See also” section, LL template allows to skip a translation unit; it is fine.

However, in a paragraph, having a Tvar inside a sentence makes the sentence hard to translate because the translator doesn’t know the context. That may also create inconsistency (when the target page title is not translated) or grammatical typo (when the page title does not fit grammatically with other dependent phrases of the sentence).

Besides, LL template calls expensive #IfExists parser function: since links are very common in pages, the chance of exceed parser limit is not negligible.

-- Pols12 (talk) 16:03, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for this comment! You make a good point about creating inconsistency or grammatical confusion when the localized link template is used in a sentence. I've updated the page to recommend the localized link template only for standalone links. APaskulin (WMF) (talk) 22:26, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

New tutorial

Hi all, I've published a tutorial to accompany this page at Meta:Internationalization guidelines/Tutorial. I used an example based on content from mediawiki.org to include instructions for how to handle code-formatted text. Feedback and edits welcome! APaskulin (WMF) (talk) 20:38, 19 June 2025 (UTC)