Talk:Wikimedia Language engineering

For your attention.

PR #322

Matma Rex’s patch demo is a nice way to try out work-in-progress patches without having to install MediaWiki and extensions and checking out the patch from Gerrit on one’s own computer (which is good not only to lazy developers, but also non-devs, who couldn’t otherwise get the patch working). Unfortunately, it doesn’t contain the Translate extension. Is anyone against including it?

I'd be happy to include it if someone submits a patch with all the configuration needed to get it working in a way that is convenient for testing.

I wanted to hear some feedback from the Language engineering team, but apparently no one noticed, and it was done in the meantime in pull request #322.

I think that inputs from members of this team are required, since these languages might also be our i18n challange-ups?

I believe that we need a translation lexicon in the translation program. The current translation program only displays the translations already done when the phrases hit almost 100%, but when there is one or two problematic words in a paragraph, the current program cannot do anything. I suggest a simple box in the upper right corner where the translator can add more difficult words that he translated and recap these same words suggested by himself or by others.

Could someone please take a look at this thread and see the possibility of Quiddity's suggestion ? Thanks.

I have created a list of unrecognised languages, using w:List of languages by number of native speakers for 5 million+, and a few others I know of in the 1 million+ range. It would be good if someone closer to the code can double check it. I think we should link the ISO codes to the relevant translatewiki page, like translatewiki:Portal:ban, as that provides stats and a list of translator usernames.

Hi guys, can I ask why you don't consider Russian language to be world language, in contrast to Portuguese. I mean his status in wiki language menu. Thanks

Back when we were creating the list in 2012, we gave "Worldwide" to languages that are artificial and don't belong to any particular country (like Esperanto and a few others), and to languages that are spoken on many continents. Portuguese is spoken in Europe, America (Brazil), Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau), and Asia (East Timor, Macau, Goa), and Russian is only Europe and Asia.

Frankly, I don't think that the choice of aforementioned criteria was a wise decision. Territory when Russian is used is much vaster than Portuguese-speaking territory. Russian is the second most widespread language on the Internet with more L1+L2 speakers than Portuguese or French. I wouldn't call Chinese and Hindi worldwide language, because they are restricted to one specific region, virtually to one country. But I think that we cannot say that Russian is somehow "restricted", given the immensity of the area. For me it is definitely world language, alongside with Arabic. And let's faced it, globally much influential and significant than Portuguese (official language of UN etc.). Anyway, if you like it, leave it as it is. Thanks for your answer. Bye.

On Sindhi Wikipedia the default fonts are Tahoma but these unattractive and does not suit our language. I request the concerned ones to kindly provide us with the fonts as the ones being provided on Sindhi Wiktionary.

@Runab WMF

Edit was reverted.

User:Purodha has changed User:Pginer's name to "Paul", but everywhere else I see he's being referred to as "Pau", a Catalan given name.

Fixed.

Looking good! Thank you for the good work.

You could give more prominence to the projects, and even to other Language activities e.g. Localization and Project:Language policy, and put the team section at the end. We are missing a good Language landing page for the whole community and this one is so close to be the one. But the emphasis (opening paragraph and bold fonts) on "The Wikimedia Foundation Language Engineering team consists of 7 opensource community members, developers and designers" just alienates the rest.

What do you think?

This post was posted by Qgil-WMF, but signed as Qgil.

Thanks Quim. I am still reorganising the page and agree with your suggestions. The content is mostly old (including the formatting) and also deprecated in some sections. We also need a couple of new icons for the new sections on the sidebar, if the older design has to be maintained. I am hoping that I can complete the updates to the content (especially the project section) in a few more days. Do please let me know if there are any important bits you'd like to see addressed on this page. which we are currently missing.

Thanks for the quick feedback. About icons, just be aware of the young Project:Visual_identity and feel free contributing to it while you scratch your own itch.

This post was posted by Qgil-WMF, but signed as Qgil.

Thanks for the link. This is helpful. I'll also be consulting with the design expert with our team - Pau, before making the final changes.

I still think that opening with "The Wikimedia Foundation Language Engineering team consists of 7..." and having your team picture at the top doesn't do a good favor to a "Language portal". It could be THE page for everybody interested in i18n / L10n but only with this opening gives a strong perception US vs YOU. Please think of it. All the rest is looking better and better.

This post was posted by Qgil-WMF, but signed as Qgil.

I agree about the opening line in particular. It is a legacy from an earlier version and I was pondering over it sometime back. We may also drop most of the text in favour of a less cluttered layout. It is still work-in-progress and I am hoping we'll have much more changes pushed in by the end of the week. Thanks for the feedback. It really helped flag a big issue that may have impacted our larger goal.

The top of the page that Qgil mentioned hasnt changed yet.