Template talk:Languages

No border and no background[edit]

I find the border and background on the Languages template disruptive. Would in be okay to remove the border and background? I would prefer a look that blends into the page. Folks who need the language links will find them (they are at page top after all). Folks who don't need the language links shouldn't be visually climbing over a long bordered box to get to the page content. Could we use a borderless and backgroundless look like the language links on Wikimedia Commons, Wikiquote, Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wiktionary, and Wikiversity? I think that would be nice. I'm trying to work out a good layout for Wikivoyage and have this issue. Thanks, --Rogerhc (talk) 00:21, 21 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to remove the background color and border but they are in a nested-template that is also used for page-bottom notes, apparently, which may explain it's stronger graphical look. So instead of tangling with that I created Template:Languages light and styled it with a light visual look and float right, both visual points that I feel are appropriate for page top language links. It does the same thing as Template:Languages and even uses Template:Languages/Lang. Feel free to merge it back into this template if you like its look and feel and are willing to not use the page-bottom notes nested-template. --Rogerhc (talk) 01:42, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Languages: " in the user's language or the page's language?[edit]

I think it would be more appropriate if Template:Languages/Title was passed {{int:lang}} instead of {{SUBPAGENAME}}. If a user used the ULS to set their language to Spanish, the language bar should have the text "Languages: " in Spanish, even if they're viewing an English page. --Yair rand (talk) 01:25, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: languages tag, used in the Translate extension, shows title bar in the user interface language. --Kaganer (talk) 12:33, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done I have used Translate’s language bar message, they are now consistent. -- Pols12 (talk) 18:25, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Subpages[edit]

Is someone able to use this on Privacy policy/2008? If I don't specify the page title nothing is shown and if I do I get a load of unparsed links on preview. --Nemo 05:33, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is good looks? --Kaganer (talk) 11:33, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's what I had done, may there was some cache problem. Thanks. --Nemo 19:24, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Condition[edit]

I added a condition if {{NAMESPACE}} = "" then no need of ":". Else there are two "::" and it doesn't work. See List of Wikipedias/fr. Is it right ? Agloforto (talk) 21:45, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I removed my edit : it was working in NAMESPACE=0 no more in the other namespaces. How must we do ? Agloforto (talk) 21:52, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @Agloforto: I am not an expert about templates, and I do not know why MediaWiki does not understand links like [[::List of Wikipedias]] anymore, but I have removed the first ":" and it seems that everything is OK now. Regards --NicoScribe (talk) 09:01, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot. Fine Agloforto (talk) 12:16, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Meta thread[edit]

Why exactly are we still maintaining this template? 99% of our translatable pages contain the <languages/> tag, which is way more interactive (e.g. progress, outdated info) than this old template. Eduardogobi (talk) 02:45, 29 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This template is still useful for legacy pages, which are not migrated to use Translate extension yet. -- Pols12 (talk) 18:21, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fix?[edit]

Anyone knows what should be done so that and page using this template only links to pages that exist and do not create unnecessary redlinks? Pols12 able to help? --Min☠︎rax^«¦talk¦» 16:49, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The template uses #ifexist parser function to check whether the page exists before display a link. Unfortunately, #ifexist populates WhatLinksHere even if it may be not expected. I don’t see any workaround. -- Pols12 (talk) 17:03, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The obvious workaround is not using this template. 🙂 For example, @GVarnum-WMF, why was Access to nonpublic personal data policy-summary removed from translation instead of simply disabling translation (e.g. priority languages = en, disable translation to other languages = true)? In case of pages like Template:Image filter referendum that don’t use the Translate extension yet, they should start using it to simplify maintenance, even if creating new translations doesn’t make much sense anymore. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 09:57, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, priority languages = en, disable translation to other languages = true hides all translation pages in language bar (I just tried). But I think discouraging is sufficient, we don’t need to block the translation process. Pols12 (talk) 16:40, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacsipacsi: I will go whichever way community prefers, but I was asked to try and reduce the load on the translate system by removing pages transferred elsewhere and with no existing content (beyond perhaps page name) left for translation. While you can "discourage" translation, you cannot - to my knowledge - completely prevent it. Either way, as it has been explained to me - it adds more work for the translate system/database than seems helpful given the pages do not contain any actual useful text to translate. Again, I am happy to do whatever community prefers and action you mentioned was attempt to do that. My impression is that there is not yet consensus on how to handle this particular issue. For example, note conversations on the deletion policy where others discussed further deleting the language subpages. --Gregory Varnum (Wikimedia Foundation) [he/him] (talk) 21:38, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Pols12: Strange. I created phab:T359974 to fix this IMO buggy behavior.

@GVarnum-WMF: By whom was you asked? Removing the pages from translation also puts strain on the system, both in terms of CPU usage and storage need (we need to use expensive modules to determine the language of the page as {{PAGELANGUAGE}} doesn’t work anymore, and {{languages}}, which fills up the page links database table) and in terms of human hours (these modules and templates need to be maintained).

While you can "discourage" translation, you cannot - to my knowledge - completely prevent it. You can, exactly the way I explained: setting priority languages to English only and preventing translation to any other language. However, this is not very intuitive, so I created phab:T359975, asking a cleaner solution. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 18:18, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacsipacsi: It was a couple of translation admins and wiki admins concerned with performance of Translate extension and presence of non-translated pages (in this instance dozens) in the system. Given {{languages}} is used on hundreds of pages, I am not sure this particular set of pages will resolve the need to continue to maintain it. However, I am willing to do whatever community decides, but I would encourage reaching out to folks involved in the deletion policy discussion I mentioned before as deleting the now largely unused language subpages seems to be a preferred method by some rather than cluttering translation system. --Gregory Varnum (Wikimedia Foundation) [he/him] (talk) 18:53, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@GVarnum-WMF:

It was a couple of translation admins and wiki admins concerned with performance of Translate extension and presence of non-translated pages (in this instance dozens) in the system.

There are over 10,000 translatable pages on Meta. A few dozens more or less doesn’t really matter. I also still don’t understand what the performance concerns are. However, if phab:T359975 is resolved, maybe a follow-up task could address some of the performance concerns (if we figure out what they are), as T359975 makes untranslatable pages clearly recognizable.

Given {{languages}} is used on hundreds of pages, I am not sure this particular set of pages will resolve the need to continue to maintain it.

It won’t resolve it on its own, but it would take a step further (or, rather, avoid taking a step back).

I would encourage reaching out to folks involved in the deletion policy discussion

The problem is that before reaching out, I’d have to decide what my opinion on the matter is. 🙂 On the one hand, deletion would solve all maintenance issues, but on the other hand, it would break eventual interwiki (or external) links pointing to pages and remove the attribution required by Creative Commons (in case of the already-exported pages, which haven’t kept attribution). —Tacsipacsi (talk) 19:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacsipacsi: Spoken with some engineers working on these systems and confirmed that whatever performance issues may exist, they are working to resolve and are okay with system demands increasing while that work continues. If there is consensus from community on how folks would like these pages setup, happy to follow whatever preferred methodology is (and can wait until Phab ticket mentioned is resolved if preferred). --Gregory Varnum (Wikimedia Foundation) [he/him] (talk) 15:58, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Minorax, @Pols12, @Tacsipacsi, @Xaosflux, @Billinghurst: Based on this discussion and a few others, I am modifying my approach. I wanted to see if my new plan works for goals discussed here and at Meta talk:Deletion policy. I have tried this new method to provide some examples (1, 2, 3 - subpages: 1, 2, 3) and test it out a little. Essentially, my new plan is to redirect language subpages (without deleting their history) to the main page. The template displayed on pages moved to Governance Wiki has been modified so that it should display a translated message in the user's interface language. Given there are approximately 400 pages I am working on, despite technical limitations, I would like to avoid adding them to translate system to avoid unnecessary confusion/work, and because experience suggests use of an evolving feature (like Translate extension) will require more maintenance over time than use of an established feature (like redirects).

My hope is this: 1) Reduces usage of {{languages}}, 2) Avoids problem of "content with nothing to translate" lingering in the Translate system, 3) Preserves history of translations now migrated to Foundation Governance Wiki (example), and 4) Preserves any lingering outdated incoming links and existence of page in categories (for those that have depended on those to find translations of particular policies, etc.).

Please feel free to let me know if this modified plan is overlooking any obvious problems, creating a new problems, or anything else I may have unintentionally overlooked. Thank you for your help with contemplating improvements to my approach with these pages! --Gregory Varnum (Wikimedia Foundation) [he/him] (talk) 02:43, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We’ve discussed on really minor issues, in my opinion. Turning translation pages into redirections seems me fine.

I note FuzzyBot has deleted translation pages when there was no T-unit. I think that was not expected. Still a minor issue, but we may want to restore them as redirection too, if they register significant author credits (I don’t know). Pols12 (talk) 10:09, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@GVarnum-WMF: This may be a good compromise, although it has two drawbacks over keeping the translation pages:

While page histories are available, not very discoverable, especially if one doesn’t notice the tiny note about having been redirected.
UI language is a good approximation for editors, but not so much for readers (whether logged-in or logged-out). If one doesn’t edit Meta regularly, they probably don’t bother changing their preferences, so get the default of English.

However, as I said, this may be a good compromise, so if others absolutely don’t want to see these pages in the translation system, I’m open to it. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 19:43, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Pols12 and @Tacsipacsi: Thank you for your feedback. I think for now, I will go ahead and proceed with this compromise route. It is unexpected that Fuzzybot deletes the pages, but that can be reversed. I recognize there are some drawbacks, but it seems any option has some drawbacks. Hopefully this one has the fewest. --Gregory Varnum (Wikimedia Foundation) [he/him] (talk) 13:45, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just a quick followup note that the most recent set of page migrations was able to retain history. I think that should resolve any issues related to migration of translations in the future. Given the very unique nature of the governance content specifically in discussion here - I will implement for that specific set of content this compromise both for sake of migrations made before this was implemented, and for "extreme" link preservation. However, I think with this fix now implemented, and governance materials now all migrated, we can allow the Translate system to function as usual and just delete these subpages in the future. Thank you all again for your feedback! --Gregory Varnum (Wikimedia Foundation) [he/him] (talk) 15:53, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]