Translation(s): none

(!) [:/Discussion:Discussion]

Choosing a page namespace for Internationalizing DebianWiki : This page attempts to list various problematics and constraints to be taken into account before choosing a namespace... This should help choose the best solution.

Your contribution is welcome :

?TableOfContents(3)

Constraints and needs

?Anchor(Search)

Easy to search (#Search)
It should be easy to search.
  • English version should be presented if localized version isn't available.
  • Find a page using localized words (assuming the user clicks "Full-text" search).

    • ?Anchor(Subject)

    Clear page subject (#Subject)

    Is it easy to identify what's the subject of a page, according to it's title ? SupportFrench and InstallDebian.pl are prone to confusion), as opposed to fr.wiki.debian.org/Support or pl/!?InstallDebian.

    ?Anchor(IdLang)

    Clear page language (#IdLang)

    Is it easy to identify what's the of a language ? A French visitor couldn't guess if he should click on Support or Assistance to get the French version (since both words are synonyms)...

    ?Anchor(OtherLng)

    Linking translated pages (#OtherLng)
    Make it easy to find the same page in other languages.(moinmoin don't have a feature to automatically connect/link localized versions of a page).

    ?Anchor(MmLnk)

    Moinmoin CamelCase linking (#MmLnk)

    Does Moinmoin create link automatically ? page containing a slash ("/") or a period (".") doesn't work, like InstallDebian/French or InstallDebian.fr . However, single word are never converted as links by moinmoin, so it's not really an issue since editors have to write ["Foo"] anyway... they can write ["fr/Foo"] too.

    ?Anchor(IsoColl)

    Country code collision (#IsoColl)

    .pl can be the short for perl files or polish translations.

    ?Anchor(LangColl)

    Language name collision (#LangColl)
    Some language may be spelled the same way in their local language (?).

    ?Anchor(WrdColl)

    Translated word collision (#WrdColl)

    The word Installation is the same in French and English. not to mention that nouns, projects name , brands, technologies aren't translated : Debian, DebianInstaller, iSCSI, HP.

    ?Anchor(Map)

    Problem mapping pages(#Map)
    It should be easy to find the different versions/languages of a page, in case link is missing.

    ?Anchor(NoTrnsl)

    Page not translated
    When a page isn't translated, the visitor should be presented the English version.

    ?Anchor(TruncURL)

    URL truncated by MUA (#TruncURL)

    Some links may get broken by some MUA, like [http://wiki.debian.org/Hardware].fr [http://wiki.debian.org/Hardware(fr])

    ?Anchor(RelLnk)

    relative links (#RelLnk)
    breaks relative links : "../Subpage" in Hardware/Wifi must be rewritten "../../Subpage/French" for Hardware/Wifi/French.

    ?Anchor(ShortURL)

    short URLs (#ShortURL)

    it's best if URL don't become too long. unlike : [http://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Dell/Latitude/Etch/PortugueseBrazil]

    sub-locales
    People from Brazil will appreciate if we handle pt_BR nicely.

    Summary

    This table is a summary of the alternatives below.

    Sample page name

    [#?IdLang]

    [#Subject]

    [#?WrdColl]

    [#?IsoColl]

    [#?RelLnk]

    [#?OtherLng]

    [#TruncURL]

    [#ShortURL]

    [#Map]

    [#Search]

    [#wiki.debian.org/Materiel]

    {X}

    {X}

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    {X}

    (./)

    [#fr.wiki.debian.org/Hardware_rewrite]

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    [#fr.wiki.debian.org/Hardware_vhost]

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    {X}

    {X}

    [#wiki.debian.org/Hardware/French]

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    [#wiki.debian.org/HardwareFrancais]

    {X}

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    {X}

    (./)

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    [#wiki.debian.org/HardwareFrench]

    {X}

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    {X}

    (./)

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    [#wiki.debian.org/Hardware.Fr]

    ?

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    [#wiki.debian.org/Hardware.fr]

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    [#wiki.debian.org/French/Hardware]

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    [#wiki.debian.org/FrenchHardware]

    {X}

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    {X}

    (./)

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    [#wiki.debian.org/Fr/Hardware]

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    [#wiki.debian.org/fr/Hardware]

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    [#wiki.debian.org/FrHardware]

    {X}

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    [#wiki.debian.org/DebFr/Hardware]

    ?

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    [#wiki.debian.org/DebFrHardware]

    {X}

    {X}

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    Possible tricks

    [#wiki.debian.org/fr/Materiel stub]

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    (./)

    Legend :

    Alternatives

    The following are various alternatives for translation page names for a sample 'Hardware' page. ?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/Materiel)

    wiki.debian.org/Materiel

    Cons:

    Pros:

    ?Anchor(fr.wiki.debian.org/Hardware)

    fr.wiki.debian.org/Hardware

    This can be achieved by two means :

    ?Anchor(fr.wiki.debian.org/Hardware_vhost)

    fr.wiki.debian.org/Hardware (vhost)

    Create multiple moinmoin wiki instances in multiple virtual hosts.

    Cons

    ?Anchor(fr.wiki.debian.org/Hardware_rewrite)

    fr.wiki.debian.org/Hardware (rewrite)

    Use Apache to rewrite fr.wiki.debian.org/Hardware to wiki.debian.org/fr/Hardware. We would need to hack moinmoin to fallback to English version.

    Cons

    ?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/Hardware/French)

    wiki.debian.org/Hardware/French

    Cons

    ?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/HardwareFrench)

    wiki.debian.org/HardwareFrench

    Cons

    ?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/Hardware.Fr)

    wiki.debian.org/Hardware.Fr

    Cons

    ?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/Hardware.fr)

    wiki.debian.org/Hardware.fr

    Cons

    ?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/French/Hardware)

    wiki.debian.org/French/Hardware

    ?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/FrenchHardware)

    wiki.debian.org/FrenchHardware

    ?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/Fr/Hardware)

    wiki.debian.org/Fr/Hardware

    ?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/fr/Hardware)

    wiki.debian.org/fr/Hardware

    Pros :

    ?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/FrHardware)

    wiki.debian.org/FrHardware

    Cons

    ?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/DebFr/Hardware)

    wiki.debian.org/DebFr/Hardware

    Cons

    (I guess It was actually a short for ?DebianFrFoobar )

    ?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/DebFrHardware)

    wiki.debian.org/DebFrHardware

    Possible Tricks

    The following tricks can be used to improve some of the above proposal.

    ?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/fr/Materiel stub)

    wiki.debian.org/fr/Materiel stub

    Create linker to help non-english people to find article by title search tool?

    Pros :

    Cons :

    History

    Resources

    ?Anchor(wikivote)

    WikiVote

    Please read ["?DebianWiki/WikiVote"] for instruction:

    Vote start 05/01/2008 and will finished 15/01/2008

    Mailing lists contacted on @lists.debian.org: debian-i18n, debian-l10n-english, debian-www

    ?CategoryWiki