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Change language name for Tai Nuea language (tdd)

Request to change ᥖᥭᥰᥖᥬᥳᥑᥨᥒᥰ to ᥖᥭᥰ ᥖᥬᥲ ᥑᥨᥒᥰ this request is requested by the native language expert user AeyTaiNuea, thanks.--𝓓𝓻.𝓘𝓷𝓽𝓸𝓫𝓮𝓼𝓪|𝒯𝒶𝓁𝓀 07:56, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[]

OK, but why don't they ask themself? :) Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 01:15, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[]

Sorry, most ethnic groups in Burma and China don't know about wikis, and very few people are interested, but some of the people who came to this wiki are only some who came because of my invitation. I still have to work hard to get them to understand the wiki, but I explained the wiki to some people, but some were not interested because they were not getting any money. I am trying my best to contribute to the wiki in many other languages including Pa'O, currently, I am the only person writing a dictionary translated into more than a thousand languages in Mon Wiktionary, my main goal is to preserve Burma's ethnic languages on the wiki so they don't disappear, thanks. 𝓓𝓻.𝓘𝓷𝓽𝓸𝓫𝓮𝓼𝓪|𝒯𝒶𝓁𝓀 11:07, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[]

@AeyTaiNuea has confirmed it, so I'll do it soon. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 14:38, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[]

Task: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T367377 Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 03:06, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[]

New feature for (in)formal language variants

Some languages have formal or informal variants. Currently there is German, Spanish and Hungarian formal variants and informal variant for Dutch.

The problem with these variants has been that to avoid unnecessary work, we have discouraged making translations which are equal to their fallback language. This makes it hard to keep track where (in)formal version is missing.

A new feature has been released, which allows defining both formal and informal variants inline in one translation. For example:

(es) ¿{{#FORMAL:Estás|Está}} {{GENDER:$1|seguro|segura}}?

This replaces two messages used previously:

(es)        ¿Estás {{GENDER:$1|seguro|segura}}?
(es-formal) ¿Está {{GENDER:$1|seguro|segura}}?

I'm inviting translators of these languages to try this new feature out and give feedback. Ideally we would migrate all existing in(formal) translations to this format and disable direct translation in the language (in)formal variant codes.

Note: This feature only works with MediaWiki! Nike (talk) 06:36, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[]

The problem I always have is that it's hard to find which messages need changing, because I can't distinguish messages that don't need fixing from ones which haven't yet been fixed. Maybe I'm missing something, but this doesn't seem to change that, it only changes where the fixed message is stored. It's also not clear to me in the interface whether the message currently being edited will support this syntax or not. - Nikki (talk) 11:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[]

@Nikki: This should eliminate the need to translate into xx-(in)formal entirely, and keep all translations in the main language code's translations. Jon Harald Søby (talk) 13:45, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[]

With the idea that all new translations can use this method. Need to think about something about merging existing translations. Nike (talk) 17:27, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[]

Yeah, I know. My point is that the separate translations aren't the problem for me. The problem is finding the messages that should be different.

For example, if I go to Special:Translate for de-formal and try to find which of the 46,000+ messages should have a different translation, how do I do that? I might be able to find some by searching for words like "you", but what about imperative forms of verbs or informal vocabulary? I would really need to check all of the messages.

Now if I go to Special:Translate for de and try to find which of the 48,000+ messages should have multiple formality levels, how do I do that? It's exactly the same problem.

How can we keep track of which messages have already been checked? (e.g. I already checked "Sunday", but just like I can't say it doesn't need a de-formal translation, I also can't say it doesn't need multiple formality levels)

How can we detect new translations where people haven't used it when they should have? (which will surely happen)

How will new users discover and remember to use this syntax?

- Nikki (talk) 11:41, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[]

How would I go about migrating nl-informal translations to nl in an efficient way? I can find no easy way of opening the corresponding nl translation given an nl-informal one. – McDutchie (discussion) 21:58, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[]

I have created the following pages to list messages to be migrated. It's not ideal but might be slightly easier than trying to use Special:Translate:

Nike (talk) 10:25, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[]

First ten done for nl, only 1484 to go... :-)

Now, next question: how do I activate the formal tense in the UI so I can test it? I cannot find an option in the preferences. McDutchie (discussion) 16:30, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[]

It's in the language selector. There is no separate preference for it. Nike (talk) 16:39, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[]

On my end, the language selector has no effect. Both for “Nederlands” and “Nederlands (informeel)”, the informal form is shown. McDutchie (discussion) 17:52, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[]

We deploy new translations usually once a week on Wednesdays. We don't use translations directly from the MediaWiki namespace (other than some exceptions) as MediaWiki would choke on such a high number of translations. Nike (talk) 19:16, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[]

That's not what I'm talking about. What I mean is: when I visit a translated message, like MediaWiki:Contactpage-emailsenttext-accountvanishapps/nl or MediaWiki:Contactpage-blocked-message-accountvanishapps/nl, then only the informal variant shows. Which is inconsistent with previous practice where nl was formal and nl-informal was informal. I've been following your example and using {{#FORMAL:informal version|formal version}}. So, with the new translations, nl shows informal language, but how do I choose formal? There is no nl-formal variant to choose. How do I verify that the #FORMAL tags I've been inserting are correct and work correctly? McDutchie (discussion) 16:21, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[]

The syntax for Dutch has been configured as formal because `nl-informal` is the variant. Nike (talk) 13:17, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[]

So does that mean we have to use <nowiki>{{#FORMAL:formal text|informal text}}</nowiki> for Dutch? McDutchie (discussion) 15:03, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[]

Oops looks some words dropped out from my reply, but you got it right. I've made "primary" variant to be the first param and the secondary variant to be second parameter. Does that make sense? Nike (talk) 15:05, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[]

Yes, but it's confusing, because it's the other way around from de and es – so I've been doing it wrong.

Having formal as the default really doesn't make sense for Dutch anyway, as formal language is very much on the way out – even banks now address their customers in the informal tense. So can we switch those around so that we have nl (informal) and nl-formal, as in German and Spanish? McDutchie (discussion) 10:55, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Hi, is this feature available only for aforementioned three languages, or can it be used for other languages, like Turkish? Joseph (talk) 11:30, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[]

The mechanism is generic, but it must be set up separately for any language that wants to use it. Nike (talk) 11:55, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[]

Thank you. Joseph (talk) 19:32, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[]

Nice! I’ve reformatted User:Nike/hu-formal to allow adding extra information in a more easy-to-understand way, and also added extra information: tagged the almost 80% of messages that could be deleted right away, without any migration. However, I have some questions/concerns:

Will this magic word work as expected in all cases? I’m mainly thinking about JavaScript usage (with or without jQuery.i18n), {{int:}} and using site language rather than UI language (the site language can also be formal or informal). I’ve also tagged some Babel messages, which likely need to remain as they are.
What if all messages get deleted and thus hu-formal doesn’t reach the export threshold anymore?

Tacsipacsi (talk) 18:55, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Oh no, I didn't think of JavaScript at all. We should add support there too. It should work everywhere else (except for really plain-text messages)

As far as I remember, hu-formal is always exported regardless of the thresholds. Nike (talk) 15:48, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[]

@Nike: I’ve now tested it by creating MediaWiki:Test in my local test wiki (whose content language is set to hu) with the content {{#FORMAL:A te tesztüzeneted|Az Ön tesztüzenete}}, and using it in several ways:

From PHP:

$ctx->msg('test')->text();
$ctx->msg('test')->inContentLanguage()->text();
$ctx->msg('test')->inLanguage('hu')->text();
$ctx->msg('test')->inLanguage('hu-formal')->text();

– these work as expected (the first one depends on the uselang URL parameter, the second and third return informal, the third one returns formal).

From wikitext: {{int:test}} {{MediaWiki:test}} transcluded on one page with default (hu) page language and on one page with hu-formal page language – both return the form based on the page language, even though {{int:...}} should follow the UI language. This is wrong, but isn’t easy to fix, since the actual wikitext parsing probably happens in the context of the page, not in the context of the message. Both to fix this and to fix JS without jQuery.i18n, I think some kind of load-time preprocessing is necessary (maybe a magic word is not the best syntax for that).

—Tacsipacsi (talk) 19:39, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[]

@Nike Who is stupid enough to write such a function? There is already a separate formal version! And if one would change everything, I don't even want to think about it —Preceding unsigned comment added by Justman10000 (talk • contributions) 14:19, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[]

That would be me. I warn you that calling people stupid is not acceptable here. Nike (talk) 13:00, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[]

I'm definitely NOT correcting every translation manually just because one think it would be clever to include a formal/informal function! Especially when one considers that a separate language code already exists for this! Justman10000 (talk) 08:59, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Then don’t do it. As a volunteer, you’re free to do it or not do it. On the long term, if this works out, it’ll reduce the maintenance cost, even though the transition does indeed take quite some work. (On a related note, calling staff members stupid definitely doesn’t help you getting staff access.) —Tacsipacsi (talk) 19:59, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Change in mdf.wiki main page translation

This is the only correct option as per recent texts in "Moksha" journal in Moksha language 2023-2024, e.g. Numulunj pilgae (talk) 07:10, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[]

@Numulunj pilgae: What do you mean by "this"? Jon Harald Søby (talk) 13:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[]

@Jon Harald Søby I meant sometimes we give up to newer options but still we should stick to existing spelling and grammar standards. So I've made changes. Numulunj pilgae (talk) 19:21, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[]

You haven't specified what "this" is - what the translation should be changed to. Translatewiki admins (of which I'm not) can probably see it from your abuse log, though. Pppery (talk) 20:49, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[]

To make sure: Do you want to change "Пряфкс лопась" and "Пряфкслопа" to "Пря лопа"? Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 11:26, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Translatewiki support for other i18n formats ?

See also bash script and github workflow to convert from i18n formats

Hello Translatewiki team

Various i18n formats exist. From what I know Wikimedia Banana.i18n, Translatewiki.net/Translatewiki github both follow a same convention. I also know of Browser.i18n file format.

i18n actors
	banana.i18n	translatewiki.net	browser.i18n
Documentation	source	source ?	source
Typical filepath	`i18n/en.json`	`i18n/en.json`	`_locales/en/messages.json`

Does Translatewiki already support alternative i18n formats or is willing to walk this road ?

Where can I find documentation for which i18n formats are supported by Translatewiki.net and its github bot ? Yug (talk) 10:56, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[]

cc Nike, User:Siebrand, User:Raymond. Yug (talk) 13:39, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[]

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:Translate/Group_configuration#FILES gives a hint. Nike (talk) 14:00, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[]

@Nike: to be honest I did not understand the link you shared, it may be too technical for me.

On my side I found a solution. I used a `Jq` command to convert from i18n json format to _locales/ json format, this is run by a github action periodically or at every push to my repository. It works.

[bash script and github workflow (the code has involved a bit since)
Our Github action

Sharing with you since you will stay on this project for a while and may later suggest this avenue to other people. Yug (talk) 08:56, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Build step sounds like a good solution. Nike (talk) 10:46, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Translated in wrong language ?

Hello all, An user reported to me that our project's pnb translations (Punjabi) are in fact ur/urd (Urdu).

How to verify this declaration ?
If true, how to proceed ?

Yug (talk) 11:37, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[]

Done On Github, I renamed the file from pnb.json to ur.json. Hope it will do. Yug (talk) 13:38, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[]

This caused those translations to be duplicated under Urdu. Nike (talk) 13:59, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[]

Nike, how should we do to delete the pnb. I request deletion of all the wiki page for pnb and remove the pnb.json from github, right ? Yug (talk) 12:16, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Hello User:Jon Harald Søby,

Thank you for the quick deletions you just made.

As you saw I requested to delete the whole series of erroneous translations Wikimedia:Signit-*/pnb. It fails for few pages due to `$1` in the wikicode. The few elements remaining to delete are visible here . Could you help delete these last two ? Yug (talk) 12:52, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[]

User:Jon Harald Søby hello, my apologize for asking again. Due to `$1` in the wiki code I was unable to edit the following pages for a while to add {delete} template. I only was successful today. Could you directly delete the following erroneous wikipages ?

Meanwhile, I cleaned up the Github repository here.Yug (talk) 08:09, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[]

cc User:Raymond, in case you pass by. Yug (talk) 16:39, 7 June 2024 (UTC)[]

@Yug: Sorry, I didn't notice the ping until now. (Ping only gives a notification if the @mention and a new signature is added in the same edit.) The messages were already deleted – you found the solution, but in case anyone else is reading this and wondering how to do it, the solution is to include the $1 in the text while adding the {{delete}} template. Jon Harald Søby (talk) 08:58, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[]

No problem, It's part of the wiki / volunteer way. Thanks to you both for all the support to the community :) Yug (talk) 13:01, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Staff

I know it is said that one cannot apply for this group, but I would also like to support at the system level... I would then keep the software up to date and optimise the configurations! Justman10000 (talk) 15:04, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[]

@Nike Justman10000 (talk) 15:05, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[]

@Nike There? Justman10000 (talk) 16:18, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[]

@Nike There? I would be really happy Justman10000 (talk) 19:47, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Constantly pinging me doesn't help your request. It's just annoying. Generally speaking, one has to prove themselves at their current level and present a clear need for what additional permissions would allow them do. Nike (talk) 05:10, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Like mine? I'm just a normal translator Justman10000 (talk) 09:13, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[]

User:Justman10000 hello, Your enthusiasm is welcome : ) Yet the request you made won't be sucessful due at least to the following :

Translatewiki is a rather focused scope, low maintenance project.
Translatewiki has an existing team visible on Project:About, who satisfies current technical needs
Translatewiki therefore doesn't need spontaneous new software admins
You have not defined your skillsets
There is no defined purpose / bug(s) / feature(s) on which you want to work
There is no minimal community support for that work
2~3,000 edits on a wiki is still low to request software administrator right.

If you are looking for open sources projects to work on, please let me know and share your skillset. I have some knowledge on that matter and may guide you a bit. Yug (talk) 16:59, 7 June 2024 (UTC)[]

There are only 3 people listed and there is always work! And why should I define my skills if it's clear anyway (what one needs to be able to maintain a MediaWiki instance 🤨)? Justman10000 (talk) 07:00, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[]

If you talk about MediaWiki –the PHP software server side– to « keep the software up », you need at least proven experience on back end dev, versioning (github/gerrit/gitlab), PHP, databases and JS. Then there is the trust threshold which likely none on us volunteers satisfy.

If you meant the wiki pages, we then generally talk about a « Wiki instance », not a « Mediawiki instance ». The threshold is lower there, still need more that what most of us have.

I expanded on Nike's rapit hints. You now have your answer and all information needed above. I'm moving on. Yug (talk) 13:11, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[]

I meant the whole site, the MediaWiki instance! And if @Nike: would give me a chance, he would see that I can do it! Even if it was just a kind of trial period or something Justman10000 (talk) 14:33, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[]

@Nike? I really don't want to be annoying, but I would like to be given a chance! If really not, I could also start as sysop first Justman10000 (talk) 11:37, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[]

However, I would like to contribute more than just translating! I also need translate-import to translate offline Justman10000 (talk) 11:43, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[]

There is a process for that Translating:Offline. Nike (talk) 15:27, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Means? Can I now be staff? Sysop? That would be really handy... Justman10000 (talk) 18:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[]

@Nike

Say, where are you all the time? Justman10000 (talk) 08:08, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[]

You are not ready for additional permissions. Please explore other means of contributing. Nike (talk) 08:30, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Says who? I have submitted a lot of translations! I need at least translation administrator or Offline translators Justman10000 (talk) 08:37, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[]

@Justman10000 Could you please explore why you need translation administrator or offline translator? What do you want to work on? Raymond 18:44, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[]

I would like to translate giant projects (like MediaWiki)! However, since this contains literally thousands or even tens of thousands of source texts, and I only want to revise individual translations, it takes too long for the respective source texts to be filtered by the search (only 100 source texts are searched at a time). Justman10000 (talk) 19:27, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[]

@Raymond There? Justman10000 (talk) 14:24, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Localisation of Interslavic

Hello! I am new here, so I hope I'm doing everything as it should be done. I'd like to start translating into Interslavic — Medžuslovjansky [isv], which is currently disabled. Interslavic is written in Latin and Cyrillic alphabet (both LTR, obviously). I have already made a portal. I would also like to request the right to translate, if possible.

Also, once this is done, would it be possible to import those messages that have already been translated from another wiki (Miraheze), or should everything be done manually?

Thanks, IJzeren Jan (talk) 16:04, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[]

As far as I can see, the language code isv is still disabled. What should I do to have it enabled? For the record, based on these guidelines:

ISO 639-3: isv
Name of the language: Interslavic – Medžuslovjansky / меджусловјанскы
Text direction: LTR
Two scripts: Latin and Cyrillic. I'll handle both of them.
No need to fall back to another language.

If this isn't the right place to ask these questions, can someone please tell me where I should go? Thanks, IJzeren Jan (talk) 21:18, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[]

@IJzeren Jan: I have filed this task and submitted this patch to add it. Jon Harald Søby (talk) 09:34, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[]

Thank you very much! IJzeren Jan (talk) 21:10, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[]

Delete Phabricator:arcanist-core-0195007b017e9f88/io

Could an admin please delete Phabricator:arcanist-core-0195007b017e9f88/io. It seems to be a duplicate of the English source, not a translation. Thanks. Pppery (talk) 18:13, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[]

@Pppery Done. Raymond 08:12, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Why did FuzzyBot undo my edits?

On the 23rd of May, FuzzyBot undid all my corrections to the Dutch translation of the SmartComments extension (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and many more).

Why did it do this, and how can we stop it from doing this again? McDutchie (discussion) 20:10, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[]

It did it because https://github.com/ArchiXL/SmartComments/commit/2d2866ce4e555a2d5888022d2e626503d4f151c5 happened. There's a lengthy discussion below that commit, the conclusion of which is that the developers of the extension think Dutch is the source language and shouldn't be changed, whereas translatewiki thinks English is the source language. Pppery (talk) 20:37, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Permission

My permission have been revoked by complaints from several users. But I want re get the permission. How to do?

Thank you! Googology (talk) 23:32, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Wm-license-self merge

Way back in 2017 I added wm-license-self ("I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following {{PLURAL:$1|license|licenses}}:") and wm-license-self-with-author ("$1, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publishes it under the following {{PLURAL:$2|license|licenses}}:") for phab:T40576, intending to replace wm-license-self-one-license ("I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license:"), wm-license-self-multiple-licenses ("I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following licenses:"), wm-license-self-one-license-with-author ("$1, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publishes it under the following license:"), and wm-license-self-multiple-licenses-with-author ("$1, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publishes it under the following licenses:"). Unfortunately the translations were never merged, and to this day the first set of messages is translated in 50 (!) languages more than the second set. What would the process be for migrating these over so that the deprecation of the first set of messages can finally be completed? Pppery (talk) 02:43, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Please delete test pages

Please delete 首页 and 沙盒, which is created solely for testing purposes. Diskdance (talk) 08:49, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[]

@Diskdance Done. Raymond 20:47, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Translation rights

It seems like Interslavic has been activated by now [1]. Can I request translation rights for both isv-latn and isv-cyrl? Or would it be possible to import the Mediawiki messages from another wiki? Thanks, IJzeren Jan (talk) 20:06, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[]

@IJzeren Jan: I have given you translator rights now. Normally that happens as part of the account registration process, but your account is older (2012) than that system, so it didn't happen automatically. Jon Harald Søby (talk) 08:51, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Pink warning `mw-sp-translate-fuzz` ?

Hello Admins (or experienced users).

I see my translations in Wikimedia:Signit-si-panel-videos-gallery-attribution show a pink overlay. What is the meaning of it ? Is it critical ? Inpecting the code shows tr class="mw-sp-translate-fuzzy". Yug (talk) 13:04, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[]

@Yug: It means that the pink messages are fuzzy, i.e. not updated to the current version of the original (English) message. Jon Harald Søby (talk) 13:56, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Oh... Since they arrived via Github they need Translatewiki's human review to be « Confirmed ». Thank !

PS: please note `fuzzy` is JARGON for non-English native I believe. Google definition don't apply clearly to this context. You may prefer something more explicit like `to-review` or alternative. Yug (talk) 14:57, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[]

We call it outdated in the UI, but the internal term fuzzy easily crops up while we are talking. Nike (talk) 05:08, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Actually, fuzzy doesn’t necessarily mean outdated: it may have syntax errors that have been flagged automatically, or quality issues flagged manually (by prepending !!FUZZY!! to the text), like a half-translated message. Maybe it’s time to change the UI wording to something more generic, e.g. “problematic” or “needs attention”. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 21:30, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Change language name for Eastern Pwo (kjp)

I request that the language name ဖၠုံလိက် be changed to ဖၠုံဘာႋသာ့ဆ်ုခၠါင်, read more about Eastern Pwo language name meaning below.

ဖၠုံ = Karen
ဖၠုံလိက် = Karen text
လိက် = Text
ဘာႋသာ့ = Language
ဆ်ုခၠါင် = speaking or speak, like (ဖၠုံဆ်ုခၠါင်=Speak Karen or Karen speaking)
ဖၠုံဘာႋသာ့ဆ်ုခၠါင် = Eastern Pwo language or Karen language)

but Eastern Pwo language is very close to Mon language, so even a Mon people like me can understand it, I will show an example (Mon=ခၞံၚ် Eastern Pwo=ခၞံင့် Translation=Rice noodle) but I still have a lot of responsibility for the Eastern Pwo language on the wiki so I would like to request this language change, thanks.--𝓓𝓻.𝓘𝓷𝓽𝓸𝓫𝓮𝓼𝓪|𝒯𝒶𝓁𝓀 12:42, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Proposal: change nl to informal tense, get rid of nl-informal variant

Reference: the thread New feature for (in)formal language variants.

The new {{#FORMAL:formal text|informal text}} magic word makes translations unwieldy and is too much like hard work. I gave it a try for a while, and though the idea is neat, I've concluded that I'm really not prepared to bother with it. Life is too short.

Also, the the formal mode of address in Dutch is on the way to becoming archaic. I may be one of those dinosaurs that still appreciates being addressed formally, but I'm a dying breed. Even banks now address their customers informally; this changed sometime in the last decade and a half. I think collaborative projects like MediaWiki and OpenStreetMap should probably have changed to informal sometime before banks did. :-)

There are other problems as well. The MediaWiki people proofreading the donation interface ignore the existing policy and insist that it always be informal for nl, and periodically change our formal mode translations to informal. For the SmartComments MediaWiki extension, nl is apparently the source language (!) and uses the informal, and any changes are reverted (see Why did FuzzyBot undo my edits?). This creates confusion and inconsistency. There are also some Dutch translators who simply don't know (or forget) that nl is supposed to use the formal, so they translate in the informal.

One way to fix this cleanly would be to switch the formal and informal variants around and have an informal nl translation with an nl-formal variant. But I think it's just not worth doing in this day and age.

So I propose that we:

Move all current nl-informal translations to their corresponding nl ones, overwriting the latter. (Hopefully this can be automated somehow!)
Find and change over the remaining formal mode translations.
Get rid of the nl-informal variant.

Dutch translators, what say you? McDutchie (discussion) 14:22, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Support! Formal Dutch is outdated and becoming more and more old Dutch. In many nl-messages already the informal "je" is used.

I do not know the quality of the nl-informal texts. One option is to override the nl- messages with the nl-informal ones. This may result in less quality and outdated system messages. So I am also fine with checking the Dutch system messages and chage it where needed. Just keep in mind that not only "u" and "uw" needs to be changed, also sometimes the verb and some derivates from "u". But yes, I think this. change is a very good idea! Romaine (talk) 15:22, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Oh, it goes further than that sometimes – there are entire turns of phrase that you would only use in either formal or informal mode of address (here is an example from when I was testing the new tag). But I have been occasionally proofreading and maintaining the existing nl-informal translations, so I think it should be easy enough to ensure they are all up to date before (and if) the big change happens. – McDutchie (discussion) 16:38, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Just because society is moving towards informal language without formal language, doesn't mean we should follow. We're not sheep. I'm not entirely against it, but not in all circumstances. In Wikipedia's case, I think formal makes more sense because of its nature. So I'm voting against moving everything to nl-informal. Vistaus (talk) 18:31, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[]

We are not sheep, but Wikipedia has the rule to follow that what is common within society regarding language. If the spelling changes, we follow that. If certain language is considered archaic, we don't use it. And so on.

The language used in system messages should reflect the common language used in society, as the purpose of the texts is to properly inform the public. The use of outdated language does not contribute to properly informing the public and can result in that system messages aren't taken seriously. Only if there is a very good reason for deviating from what is common, a different text can be used. There is no proper reason provided for the use of the outdated formal language. Romaine (talk) 14:41, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[]

I don't support this, but given the existing issues, I won't bother resisting. Ideally, I'd like to see an nl-formal, like de-formal, but the reality is that it just ends up being a forgotten variant left to rot. —Mainframe98 _talk 17:17, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[]

I agree that the informal form should be preferred! But instead of copying all the nl-informal translations over the nl translations, can't we use a script or bot to merge the translations (using the new #FORMAL magic keyword)? It wouldn't be hard to code something like that. This should not be done manually. Robin van der Vliet (talk) (contributions) 17:12, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[]

If you know a script or bot that is able to merge the translations, I am happy to have a look at it. Please realise that it is not just a change of "u" into "je", also the verb and other parts of the sentences can need a change. With manual labour there is a huge risk of errors, with a fully automatic conversion there is a huge risk of importing outdated nl-informat texts or it can miss certain outdated formal language. Therefore I think the best way to make this conversion is a semi-automatic one, with a human eye that checks if the fix of outdated language has been implemented properly. I am used to do this kind of work and I am willing to do this here too. I then only need to have a tool/bot that I can use. If I can use AutoWikiBrowser, I can program the tool to take the various variables into account. Romaine (talk) 14:54, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Rename request

Please rename my username from Ebraminio to Ebrahim. Thanks ebraminio^talk 18:06, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[]

@Ebrahim:

Done Jon Harald Søby (talk) 11:34, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Can we prevent translators changing existing important messages on their own?

Hello,

as happened multiple times in the Chinese language, there have been users changing existing MediaWiki core messages without a consensus, causing the interface to "unpredictably" change. This has caused significant confusion and even trust problems between the downstream community and translatewiki.

On platforms like Crowdin and Transifex, when a reviewer marks a translation as "reviewed", it can not be edited by ordinary translators without consensuses. Can we also try to introduce this behavior, to make the translation "more stable"? Thank you. Diskdance (talk) 03:33, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[]

About changing my username

AeyTaiNuea to Dai Meng Mao Long AeyTaiNuea (talk) 11:16, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[]

@Dai Meng Mao Long:

Done Jon Harald Søby (talk) 11:34, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Requesting a minor change to the MediaWiki:Parser-template-loop-warning original message

Could we please change [[$1]] to [[:$1]]? A template loop on a file or category page does not display the message correctly without a colon. Piano1forte2 (talk) 06:40, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Can you please report this as a task in Phabricator? The idea makes sense to me and I often make simple changes in English messages, but since it's the parser, this may have complications that I'm not thinking of, so the parser experts should take another look. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 11:19, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Where and how exactly do I do this? Apologies, I'm still quite new to this. Piano1forte2 (talk) 13:58, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[]

See mw:Phabricator. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 19:22, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Filed as phab:T368809 Pppery (talk) 04:41, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Requesting Waali language with language code=wlx to be added to Wikimedia

It would be an honor for Waali language with the language code=wlx to be added to the Wikimedia space. The Waali language holds immense significance for the community. It is the most spoken language within the Wa municipality, the regional capital and its surrounding towns and villages, and serves as a cornerstone of it’s cultural heritage. However, it faces a concerning reality – the spoken use of Waali is declining at an alarming rate.

This decline poses a serious threat to the future of the language. If left unchecked, the Waali language may face extinction, taking with it a valuable piece of natives’ cultural identity.

It is believed that the Wikimedia platform presents a powerful solution to preserve and revitalize Waali. By incorporating Waali into projects like Wikipidia and others. Zakaria Tunsung (talk) 12:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[]

Thanks for the request! I'll do it soon.