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Propagation of changes

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Currently, there's a problem in MediaWiki, it hasn't any function for supporting set of pages with same content but different language. The work of synchronizing these pages is made by hand. So, below there are some proposals in aid of this task. Any contribution is welcome in Talk:Translation process.

There's one source page and the remaining are translations.

[edit]

We'll use an example in wich the source page is named:

  • Help:Variable in 'en:'

and translations:

  • Ayuda:Variable in 'es:'
  • Ajuda:Variável in 'pt:'
  • Help:Ca/Variable in 'ca:'
  • ...

With a few translations

[edit]

Use a language template named Template:Name of source page like Template:Help:Variable which content is a list of all pages:

[[Help:Ca/Variable|[ca] Ajuda:Variable]] | [[Help:Variable|[en] Help:Variable]] | [[Ayuda:Variable|[es] Ayuda:Variable]] | [[Ajuda:Variável|[pt] Ajuda:Variável]]

If a editor makes a change to the source page, he must mark remaining pages with a symbol, like an asterisk. And the template looks like this:

'''*'''[[Help:Ca/Variable|[ca] Ajuda:Variable]] | [[Help:Variable|[en] Help:Variable]] | '''*'''[[Ayuda:Variable|[es] Ayuda:Variable]] | '''*'''[[Ajuda:Variável|[pt] Ajuda:Variável]]

This way, changes are seen by the other pages inmediately. Now, if a editor reviews 'es:', he will only remove the asterisk indicating it is updated.

'''*'''[[Help:Ca/Variable|[ca] Ajuda:Variable]] | [[Help:Variable|[en] Help:Variable]] | [[Ayuda:Variable|[es] Ayuda:Variable]] | '''*'''[[Ajuda:Variável|[pt] Ajuda:Variável]]

With many translations

[edit]

If we have a lot of translations, it's a problem adding by hand all that asterisks. In this case we can use an additional template Template:Name of source page/Update.

Template:Source page

[edit]

Source page and translations will include this template. When a change is made in source page, the content of this template has to be substituted by the /Update template:

{{subst:/Update}}

Template:Source page/Update

[edit]

Source page and translations will include an edit link to this template. It contains the links to the translations marked with an asterisk (the link not marked is the source page). Example:

'''*'''[[Help:Ca/Variable|[ca] Ajuda:Variable]] | [[Help:Variable|[en] Help:Variable]] | '''*'''[[Ayuda:Variable|[es] Ayuda:Variable]] | '''*'''[[Ajuda:Variável|[pt] Ajuda:Variável]]