Translating the wiki
goob
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I've seen a request from a user to contribute Russian translations of the wiki in a comment on this post.
Are there thoughts to provide a mechanism for this?
It would be good to have wiki pages in users' native languages, but if translation is done manually there would be a lot of work each time a page in English is edited (and what if a page in another language is edited - does that feed back into English and other languages?). Version control would seem difficult.
There is a suggestion for having an FAQ directly within Diaspora on this discussions, but here I'm talking about the whole wiki text.
What are your thoughts?
Faldrian
Mon 12 Aug 2013 7:12PM
Let's maintain one wiki and separate the different languages with subpages or namespaces. :)
Jason Robinson
Tue 13 Aug 2013 5:47PM
Not sure. Would rather everyone just used English - it would lead to more accurate data as there would be more content maintainers :)
Sean Tilley
Thu 15 Aug 2013 1:30AM
I'd rather not have the extra clutter and documentation falling out of sync.
rhaglion
Thu 15 Aug 2013 9:31AM
Topics for standard user (not technical) should be well understood by everyone even for those who don't speak good english.
Airon90
Sat 17 Aug 2013 8:38AM
English-speakers are favoured in understanding Diaspora software and social network. Every language should be supported. To everyone who fear obsolete translations: there is an extension used in MediaWiki for translations.
twain
Mon 19 Aug 2013 1:44PM
same as Jonne
goob Mon 12 Aug 2013 9:43PM
I think this is something where we have to go for the most practical solution. No matter how desirable it might be to have co-ordinated translations of the wiki, unless this can be done via a tool such as WebTranslateIt, I think it's going to be unworkable and lead to many out-of-date things appearing in different translations. I doubt whether this is possible on a MediaWiki wiki, so that means it would not be a good idea to try to keep the wiki translations co-ordinated.
I suspect therefore that it will be a better solution to have different subdomains of the wiki for different languages, which can then be developed somewhat independently.
It would probably be a good idea to have a group or mailing list for people involved in updating the wiki, so that if there is an important update, everyone can be alerted and update the wiki in their language as soon as possible.
goob Mon 12 Aug 2013 9:45PM
Oops, I meant to say that it would be great to have translations of the main project site as well. This can be done using WebTranslateIt.
If this were done, the first time a user visited the project site or wiki, they could be presented with a pop-up asking them to select their language from a list. This could then be stored as a cookie and used to serve up the right translation of the project site and direct them to the correct subdomain of the wiki. Hopefully.
Airon90 Sat 17 Aug 2013 10:04AM
What about this? http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Translate
Jonne Haß · Mon 12 Aug 2013 9:32PM
@seantilleycommunit no matter what method we use, if anything mirrors content at all it'll get out of sync. The solution is to not to try mirror content. Distinct wikis encourage that IMO.