Topic on Extension talk:Babel

Some remarks and proposals on Babel extension.

3
Epok (talkcontribs)

Hi all,

I'm new to Babel extension use, as I used the old template-based languages boxes, and am just becoming familiar with this extension.

I have two remarks on the extension. Perhaps it's already been discussed, but I didn't find any conversation about these. I may also miss a point as I'm new to this extension use.

My first remark is about page categorization. On WP:FR babel templates, there is a filter aiming at categorizing only user pages using the templates, not pages from other namespaces; the following filter is used on the template: {{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|Utilisateur|[[Catégorie:Utilisateur {{{letter code}}}-5]]}}.

This avoids categorizing pages where we talk about the templates into the user categories, such as Talk: or Wikipedia: pages. This seems not to be present on the boxes generated using the babel extension, resulting in pages being included in user categories while not belonging into (see fr:Catégorie:Utilisateur arc containing project talk page). I think this filter is very relevant and should be used by the extension.

A second remark is about the text displayed on the boxes. This text is only displayed in the target language, or sometimes only in english. I think it would be very much useful if the sentences were written using two languages: the target language, and the local wiki language. Of course, this would require a very large translation work, translating each sentence in all of the languages. But I think this would add much more accessibility to user browsing other users pages while not speaking the target language. As an example, even if this template is not part of the extension, see this "*" box: fr:Modèle:Utilisateur en-*.

Any remark on these points?

Nikerabbit (talkcontribs)

Those translations already exists, so they could be used. But what would be the additional value for someone not knowing those languages enough to understand the descriptions? There is the language code too, that can be used to clearly identify the language.

Epok (talkcontribs)

I agree this would not be an "additional value", but we could say the same about the text written in a language that is different from the wiki language... I think this is important that on a specific language wiki, all text is translated to the local language so that it is accessible to everyone. Showing both languages would be, I think, an acceptable tradeoff, especially for not well-known languages, or language codes which are difficult to recognize.

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