User talk:Quiddity (WMF)

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Hello, Quiddity (WMF). Welcome to the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! This website is for coordinating and discussing all Wikimedia projects. You may find it useful to read our policy page. If you are interested in doing translations, visit Meta:Babylon. You can also leave a note on Meta:Babel or Wikimedia Forum (please read the instructions at the top of the page before posting there). Happy editing!

-- Meta-Wiki Welcome (talk) 21:58, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

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1

wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy

I wonder if you have permission to edit on wmf:? I would like to ask you to help me translate this resolution page into Vietnamese. Thanks! Tryvix1509^Discussion 06:49, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed response here. I'll just add (for the record) that I had asked internally about this, and replied to your (same) question over at wmf:Wikimedia talk:Babel#Resolution:Licensing policy with a few more details. Cheers, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:49, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Source languages

Just want to bounce an idea off to you before maybe taking it to project talk.

I’m wondering, if we modified the translation system so that some paragraphs need not be in English (e.g., paragraphs 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 in zh-tw, paragraphs 10, 12 in zh-cn, the rest in English [just making these numbers up]; or all paragraphs in French). Or modded it so that some paragraphs can have a flag set so that the system knows English is actually a translation (possibly a mistranslation) and knows how to fetch the real source text in case the translator can make use of it. Would that be a big change, or would that be a CWS-sized change?

I’m wondering because I just did a translation to Canadian English and it was not quite the “just change some spellings” pseudo-translation because after a while I realized why some parts sounded odd was French was the real source language. (Some other translators clearly also figured this out, seeing how, for example, zh handled one heading.) A few months ago I did one where half of the page was originally in Chinese (mostly zh-tw, a couple of paragraphs in zh-cn; that one I saw it just at the right time, before the Chinese parts became English “source” and all traces of those English paragraphs being translations erased).

What do you think? Al12si (talk) 22:04, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

@Al12si Hiyo. Hmmm. I'm not quite understanding the question/context. I'll ramble a bit, in case that helps you form the followup question elsewhere. :)

Looking at your recent-contributions, I believe you are asking about something related to ContribuLing 2023. (links/examples almost always help!)

If I understand correctly, you've deduced that ContribuLing 2023/fr was essentially the source text, but the original author setup the page to use their manually-created English-translation as the page-translation 'source' (and then copy&pasted the original as the /fr 'translation').

(Sidenote: I should mention, in case you or other talkpage readers are unfamiliar, that it's possible to use any language as the main page-translation source. E.g. Wikimédia France uses French as the basis for all translations.)

Again, if I understand correctly (the part I'm very unsure of), you're asking if it's possible to have a mixture of source-languages? Or, possibly you're asking about using one translation as the basis for another translation (directly within the interface), but only for specific 'chunks'?

Overall, I'm not a dev, and cannot even begin to speculate about how technically-complex any change like those would be. I suspect it's far larger than a Wishlist proposal, but writing it up as a proposal may help you structure the question the most clearly. Alternatively, you could ask at mw:Extension talk:Translate.

I hope that helps! Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:08, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

@Quiddity (WMF) – Yes, your guess is correct, and my other example was Wikimedia Taiwan/The Chinese Wikimedia Open Meeting on the 2021 Foundation Official Action/Documentation. In the latter case the system claims that /zh “is a translation”, which of course is a false and misleading statement; the truth is 50% of the English page is a translation, and for the other 50% the Chinese page is a translation.

For ContribuLing, I’m not saying French is “essentially” the source language; I’m saying it is the true source language and the way the system is designed sometimes true source languages are buried in “translation” pages. (You read both the English and the French and it’s clear English isn’t the source; it’s translated from the French.) Given the nature of the conference, it’s really sad to see how, for example, ja has “translated” the first heading — or rather not translated it, since the English makes no sense and the Japanese translator clearly could not figure out what it was supposed to mean. — Al12si (talk) 00:18, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Yup, that's what I meant by 'essentially', sorry for the unclear wording! Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:27, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Wrong language in tech news

Hello I noticed that technews is posting in kannada (kn) language on https://tcy.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ:ಚಾವಡಿ/ತಾಂತ್ರಿಕ_ಸುದ್ದಿಲು&curid=6742&diff=152385&oldid=152212 , it should post in Tulu (tcy) language. Noted no one is translating that language in tech news,I was wondering why it happening in case this would happen to other newsletter also ~aanzx ^✉ _© 05:21, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi @~aanzx. This is due to the "fallback language" system.

(Background: You probably already know about it, but just in case: MediaWiki software has a feature that shows alternative-language messages, in places where the messages have not yet been translated into the preferred (wiki or user-preference) language, instead of just defaulting to English. A couple of years ago, the MassMessage extension was enhanced to also be able to use this feature (phab:T165128).)

In this case, I see in the settings file that Kannada is configured as the fallback language for Tulu. So, yes, it would happen for any other MassMessage, or any part of the User Interface, that has been translated into Kannada but not into Tulu. The intent is that it is more helpful to the majority of users, than English would be. I am not sure how fallback language decisions are originally determined.

If you have any further questions about this part of the software, I'd suggest asking the language engineering team.

I hope that information helps! Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:12, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for info and links, https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T165128#6506363 made sense how it happened, I got confused when when last week's was in English language and this week was in kannada language. Now that I remember last week tech news was sent early before I translated newsletter. ~aanzx ^✉ _© 08:41, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Since you froze Tech News, I caught an issue

You'll want to handle this adjustment as appropriate. The issue of course is that that message itself would disable reply links on not archived pages after it's turned on, like almost every user page likely to get that, and probably a fair few centralized talk pages too. @Quiddity for good measure. Izno (talk) 01:19, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

@Izno D'oh/Yikes! Thanks for catching that. Could've been very messy, and very stressful for me! It's been a... long week.

Luckily, it's within a tvar, so we can update it without invalidating the existing translations, which Ameisenigel has already done. (In case you're curious and unfamiliar, here's a screenshot of part of the interface for translation admins.)

Thanks again! Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:46, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

In passing ...

We haven't been, so as I am. A wave and hope that all is well for you.  — billinghurst sDrewth 22:21, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Actually, while waving, what is the process for putting a non-talk page, eg. s:en:Wikisource:Scriptorium/Announcements ( community contribution page for its newsletters) onto a Global Message delivery where the content model is "MassMessageListContent"? Currently the system says #yeahnah.

The edit page for Special:EditMassMessageList says to use {{target}} (nada), the extension help page says try {{#target}} (nada), and the extension page is mute. The help page talks about the ability to opt out a page, however, not the ability to opt in a page. It seems that there is a system setting for that content-type to stop non-talk pages. If not your space, then a pointer of who to bug would be handy. Thanks.  — billinghurst sDrewth 23:52, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

After some fruitless digging through examples here, and then through Phab (just searching the Workboard for "target" and then "namespace") I found phab:T279478#8476250 -

TLDR: It's a known bug -- the system is confused by the Namespace link matching the Interwiki link -- the workaround is to use the shorthand for the namespace. I've added the WS page, and noted the problem.

Now I wonder if I should convert it back into a plain wikitext page until this is solved... >.< Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:18, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the initial note, too. :-) 'tis good to receive a friendly wave! I keep seeing you around, doing the needful, but not in places I've needed to weigh in; so thanks for all that, too! Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:21, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for updating tech news!

I know you are only to credit for writing the items and not executing them, but this week's news are really exciting and I'm thankful to have someone updating it! Aaron Liu (talk) 00:24, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the rare happy-feedback! 'tis appreciated. :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:30, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

WP down?

Hi, only Meta seems to work, dewiki, enwiki, commons, all down? Could you take a look? Thx --Itti (talk)

@Itti: I think they should be working again now. It looks like there were some problems related to phab:T350443. Commons and Enwiki should have been unaffected, as they are on different sets of servers. I'll add more here later, if I find further details. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:16, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Thx for your helb  Support. Besst Itti (talk) 06:29, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech/News/Reader_survey_2024 (translation)

Hi, Quiddity, thank you always for your hardwork, and allow me to bother you with a small request. Will you revert my edit on Tech/News/Reader_survey_2024, which has one set of translate tags at the headnote:

• background: there are new translators from jawp and elsewiki, languages afaik, yey; and
• intended as: a soft reminder that everything is under control; as
• headnotes can be temporary: those volunteer(s) starting to contribute on translation will learn that, as well as under good care of each team.

FYI, ja native speakers are gifted with tradition to jump/get sceptic when you find small loose ends. (;

Wish you a great weekend! Kindly, --Omotecho (talk) 03:18, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@Omotecho Hi! Thank you for the appreciation. (＾▽＾) I've slightly adjusted the wording, and marked it for translation. I understand your concerns, and thank you for explaining! I hope you have a great weekend, too. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:19, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Planet Wikimedia

Hello there.

I please add me on the Planet Wikimedia. I have submitted my blog URL here. _User:Muddyb ^(Talk) 13:28, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi. My own entry on that page is also a request for assistance! The folks who update the system will look at both of our requests when they have time. I hope that information helps. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 17:37, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Pretty much. Alright! Thanks though. _User:Muddyb ^(Talk) 18:13, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

request help

thanks so miuch for your help a while ago with this navbox, Template:2020s community items!! i need a little more help. i jsut posted this navbox at the page Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2023-2024

for some bizarre reason,the navbox shows up fine, but some revisions which i just made today, do not show up all! i have never seen this occur before. can you please assist?! thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 17:09, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Hiyo. I've fixed the template (the core details to remember with translatable pages, is never write the T:n markers yourself, the software has to add those, otherwise it gets confused, especially if there are duplicates!), and marked both pages as "ready for translation" - that last action is the step needed before changes will propagate within translatable transclusions. :) HTH! Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 17:35, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

oh ok. well yes thats very helpful indeed! as long as we are on this topic, could you please explains what these steps are, as i would need to do them? i'll also look at your revisions. thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 18:06, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I'd say the best overviews of the translation system are at (ongoing draft) User:RAdimer-WMF/Marking pages for translation and the official docs at mw:Help:Extension:Translate/Page translation example. You might also find this blog post introduction useful (for yourself or others!): Understanding translation administration. HTH! Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 18:10, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Creating a new mailing list

Hello,

I work for Wikimedia CH and need to create a mailing list for our GLAM partners. I tried moving forward with the documentation on Mailman on Wikitech, but when I click the first link, I receive a message informing me I am not allowed to consult the page. Am I missing rights to be able to create a mailing list, or what am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance!--Flor WMCH (talk) 11:34, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi Flor, that Wikitech page is mainly for the devs/admins [Which I've now tweaked for clarity!]. The user-facing page is here on Meta-wiki, and the details/link for requesting a new mailing list are at the bottom at Mailing lists#Create a new list. Cheers! Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 17:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Will look there.--Flor WMCH (talk) 09:24, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Movement Strategy domain name

Hello,

For information, the Movement Strategy domain name, which can be found, for example, in a link in the introduction of this page, is not present in the list of domains at wikitech:Domains, nor in the listing on Gerrit. Regards, Korg (talk) 11:44, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for the note. I asked some developers, and it seems this is a purposeful omission because whilst we do own the domain, it is using a different "nameserver" from the other domains in that gerrit listing, and hence is not included for technical reasons. Also, the wikitech listing is probably outdated, which I've now updated it to mention. I hope that information helps. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:25, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

This document has a planned publication date

Hi, I'd like to suggest an improvement for Template:Deadline. Current wording is clunky even in English and gets worse in translation. Why not adding the exact time and date in UTC? Then we could change it to "This document will be published on [datetime]" with a link to zonestamp.toolforge.org. Le Loy (talk) 21:42, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi, that sounds good to me.

Note: If we're changing this significantly (enough that we have to invalidate existing translations?) then it might be best to rewrite it even further, for added clarity. E.g. Perhaps something like:

• "This newsletter and existing translations will be distributed at (or after) [datetime]".

The "(or after)" part might be helpful, because when I (in Canada) distribute it, I do it many hours later than my co-publishers who are located close-to-UTC do!

Also, now that we're linking to Toolforge (instead of the old timeanddate.com) we can probably drop the link-destination warning!

If you (or another talkpage watcher) have a clear idea of how to code it, please go ahead. Otherwise, I'll add it to my to-do list, for when I get a chance to re-learn how the relevant time-functions work. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:21, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

I've looked into the template's history, and it looks like there was an attempt to change it, which got reverted.Would that help you? Le Loy (talk) 08:34, 5 March 2025 (UTC)