Talk:Wikimedia COTW/Help

Update

Can someone who has an idea where this is all going to update some of the information please? It's impossible for people wanting to join into this effort currently to discover what templates to use, when, which NOT to use etc. -- TheDJ 20:58, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Translations

I almost translated the this week's announcement in Finnish, but I dont' understand all of it. What does this mean? "The help pages should be linked from Help:Contents on Meta." Are all help pages in every language going to be in Meta, or is Meta going to have links to many Wikipedia language editions? -Hapsiainen 22:15, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

The help should be completely separate from Wikipedia, and contain no references to Wikipedia whatsoever. That is the only way it can be useful (as in, ready for copy and pasting or automatic importing) to all Wikimedia projects, as well as other users of the MediaWiki software. So, in answer to the question, all the handbooks should be created here on Meta, in the appropriate "Help:" namespace in that language. Note that these namespaces have to be configured manually - a Finnish one doesn't yet exist. What would be the correct name?--Eloquence 00:31, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think the Finnish namespaces should be Ohje and Keskustelu_ohjeesta. The latter is the discussion page. -Hapsiainen 12:43, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

There's a problem with namespaces. I'd like to translate to Valencian but "Ajuda" (Help) is like the Portuguese namespace. What name should be have help pages in Valencian? --Peleguer 01:32, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The main purpose of the different namespaces is clear separation in the database for the purposes of automatic extraction, so it doesn't really matter if the namespace is called "VA_Ajuda" or similar. What would your preference be in that regard?--Eloquence 01:45, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, my preference is using "Help:" namespace with a prefix or sufix in the article, because i think pages will be better organized like this. Using a false namespace is putting those articles in main namespace as they were "normal" articles. I don't know the real consequences of this, so i don't know if my preference is the best solution to this.

Anyway I think we should discuss about a standard way of translating the pages of the manual, I mean language templates, names of articles, namespaces, etc. I made some attempts to find a solution in Meta:Conventions for multilingualism, Propagation of changes, Meta:Translation and Meta:Translation/Coordination. --Peleguer 02:00, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There may be a misunderstanding here. The namespaces listed on Wikimedia COTW/Help are real namespaces, not fake ones. In the CUR table of the database, they have their own namespace integer number assigned to them. It is possible to, say, extract all pages belonging to the Dutch help relatively easily by specifying the namespace number.

The downside is that those namespaces have to be individually set up for each language by a developer. That's why I have to know for the languages listed on the page what the proper translations of the words "Help" and "Help talk" are. In your case, I assume the namespaces should be called "VA Ajuda" and "VA Ajuda Discussão"?

As for conventions, MediaWiki help policy would be a good starting point to link these, but that whole page probably needs to be carefully edited first.--Eloquence 02:10, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OK, I didn't know new namespaces can be created. The namespaces for Valencian should be like "CA Ajuda" and "CA Ajuda Discussió" (CA from Catalan). You have an example of namespace translations at w:ca:Ajuda:Variable. --Peleguer 02:27, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am not understand should how to do? --Shizhao 12:19, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Shizhao,

please tell me what the proper Chinese translations of the namespace names Help and Help talk would be. I can then create these extra namespaces, so the Chinese help can be maintained in its own namespace.--Eloquence 14:12, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Current Chinese namespace of help is help, not Chinese translations--Shizhao 17:41, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That it's called "Help" on Wikipedia doesn't matter - we need the translations here on Meta, so we can separate the Chinese help pages from the English ones. Without separate namespace names, an easy extraction of the help pages in one language for the purposes of copying them into other wikis is not possible.--Eloquence 23:38, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It gives a complication: if the master page of a Chinese help page is on Meta, and has internal links to other Chinese help pages, these links do not work in a copy on the Chinese Wikipedia.--Patrick 13:34, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This problem is solved by using links like [[{{NAMESPACE}}:Naamruimte]]--Patrick 20:34, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This collaboration of the week is Help:Contents, only this page? Or all help namespace --Shizhao 17:43, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The COTW takes place in all help namespaces in all languages.--Eloquence 23:38, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Importing help pages from other projects; author credit

Is it possible that pages with their edit histories can be moved from individual Wikipedias to Meta? Then some developer could move the useful help pages here, where they could be further improved. I'm also pondering, which help pages should be kept also in local Wikipedias, Wiktionaries etc. New visitors could feel confused when they had to go to another wikis to read about editing pages. -Hapsiainen 12:38, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

It's not necessary to move the history - just a GFDL notice with the link to the page on Wikipedia (whose current revision could point to Meta) is sufficient.--Eloquence 23:35, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Local copies are fine, just for viewing, not for editing, we have them already partially for English, e.g. w:Help:Variable and b:Help:Namespace; see Handbook_project#Vision (which, however, also mentions a complication).--Patrick 21:44, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps someone can create a GFDL template with the required import comments? -- TheDJ 19:42, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I created a {{H:i|source=[[m:Help:Contents|Test source]]} script. It is Namespace specific. --TheDJ 10:44, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Since we have already a general GFDL license message on every page, a second one does not seem needed. I agree that the source is mentioned, but I think that can better be done, and is usually done, in the edit summary.--Patrick 20:28, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Changes in English help

There will be major changes in content and structure of English Help? --Peleguer 11:22, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Use your own best judgment - what parts need to be restructured, what parts are missing? I also advise you to take a look at Wikicities:Category:Help, which is a fairly clean and lean set of MediaWiki help pages under the GFDL.--Eloquence 23:40, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am in the process of reorganizing the english docs to make them all appear under Help: namespace but its a mammoth task. I have placed a notice on Help_talk:Contents to this effect. Inter\^Echo 11:44, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps it's also a good idea to put a warning message in the header templates, so that every Help page reflects, that all the material is in the proces of being reorganized and that therefore navigation and content might be temporarily broken? -- TheDJ 19:48, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

More useful are instructions how to help, as I just did in the old Template:Hh and Template:Hc. I would prefer no messages which make pages messy which have already been fixed.--Patrick 22:40, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Minority languages whose users all understand English

I've read most of this page and its project page just once, and not understood it all. I wonder if I need to. Maori (where I'm the main contributor at present) is one of (I guess) several languages whose speakers almost all understand and speak English. It's the first language of more than half (maybe more than 95%) of the Maori speakers who would be likely to use any Wikimedia. This project will be of interest, but not vital, to them. How will it help anyone else? Robin Patterson 20:17, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In that case, why bother setting up Wikipedia in Maori at all? I guess it's so you won't have to go into the english wikimedia to get help. In the Irish one, our help pages are all blank, so this will be handy if anyone actually does it.- Dalta

Translation / Import ?

I'm motivated to do the French part, but what would you consider to be the best : translate from the English help on Meta, or import from the fr WP ? On fr, help is currently being reorganised until <God knows>... le Korrigan bla 13:25, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

You could start with importing the French help, and improve it and make it more complete by merging in translations of parts of the English version. It depends on how the quality of the two compare.--Patrick 21:00, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

It would be good if project-specific content stays on the project, while general MediaWiki help is on Meta and is considered the master copy, i.e., people would make edits on Meta and not on the French Wikipedia.--Patrick 21:19, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

The point is, I have on one side the help on fr: which is quite messy, and the help here which is incomplete in French but ready to be translated from the English version. Or is it ? I don't know how "ready" it is after all (you can surely tell me). I'll do my best ! le Korrigan bla 21:39, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Actually I just found out that the Help reorganisation on fr: is mainly about guides for newcomers, so I should be able to import more than I thought. Thanks ! le Korrigan bla 21:48, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

As far as the French help pages you import have to be supplemented by translations, I think the English version is ready for that, even though editing it is a continuous process, it is never finished.--Patrick 23:03, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Should this stay or not?

It isn't really in use anymore --Rodejong (talk) 02:51, 11 April 2012 (UTC)