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 recontributin is welcome :
- Add more constraints / needs below.
- Add more namespace proposal.
- Add brilliant ideas on how to implement those namespaces too !
?TableOfContents(2)
Constraints and needs
- Easy to search
- It should be easy to search. 1. English version should be presented if localized version isn't available. 2. Find a page using localized words (assuming the user clicks "Full-text" search).
- Easy to identify the purpose of the page (#Subject)
?Anchor(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.
- Easy to identify language used (#IdLang)
?Anchor(IdLang) Is it easy to identify what's the language ? A French visitor couldn't guess if he should click on Support or Assistance to get the French version...
- Linking translated pages (#OtherLng)
?Anchor(OtherLng) Make it easy to find the same page in other languages moinmoin don't have a feature to automatically connect (link) localized version of a page).
- Moinmoin CamelCase linking (#MmLnk)
?Anchor(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.
- Country code collision (#IsoColl)
?Anchor(IsoColl) ".pl" can be the short for perl or polish
- Language name collision (#LangColl)
?Anchor(LangColl) Some language may be spelled the same way in their local language.
- Translated word collision (#WrdColl)
?Anchor(WrdColl) the word for Installation is the same in French and English.
- Problem mapping pages(#Map)
?Anchor(Map) It should be easy to find the different version(language) of a page, in case link is missing.
- Page not translated
- When a page isn't translated, the visitor should be directed to the English version.
- URL truncated by MUA (#TruncURL)
?Anchor(TruncURL) Some links may get broken by some MUA, like [http://wiki.debian.org/Hardware].fr [http://wiki.debian.org/Hardware(fr])
- relative links (#RelLnk)
?Anchor(RelLnk) breaks relative links : "../Subpage" in Hardware/Wifi must be rewritten "../../Subpage/French" for Hardware/Wifi/French
- short URLs (#ShortURL)
?Anchor(ShortURL) it's best if URL don't become too long. unlike : [http://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Dell/Latitude/PortugueseBrazil]
- sub-locales
- People from Brazil will appreciate if we handle pt_BR nicely.
Summary
This table is a summary of the alternatives below. |
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Sample page name |
[#?IdLang] |
[#Subject] |
[#?WrdColl] |
[#?IsoColl] |
[#?RelLnk] |
[#?OtherLng] |
[#TruncURL] |
[#ShortURL] |
[#Map] |
[#Search] |
[#wiki.debian.org/Materiel] |
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[#fr.wiki.debian.org/Hardware] |
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[#wiki.debian.org/Hardware/French] |
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[#wiki.debian.org/HardwareFrancais] |
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[#wiki.debian.org/HardwareFrench] |
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[#wiki.debian.org/Hardware.Fr] |
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[#wiki.debian.org/Hardware.fr] |
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[#wiki.debian.org/French/Hardware] |
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[#wiki.debian.org/FrenchHardware] |
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[#wiki.debian.org/Fr/Hardware] |
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[#wiki.debian.org/fr/Hardware] |
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[#wiki.debian.org/FrHardware] |
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[#wiki.debian.org/DebFr/Hardware] |
? |
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[#wiki.debian.org/DebFrHardware] |
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Legend :
The namespace doesn't support the feature properly 
The namespace supports the feature properly. ? Undecided / Not clear, yet.
Alternatives
The following are various alternatives for translation page names for a sample 'Hardware' page. ?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/Materiel) == wiki.debian.org/Materiel =
- Subject collision : The same word can be used for different subject in different languages
- Language collision : two language can use the same word.
- Difficult to guess the page language (see point above).
- Difficult to list other languages-version of a given page.
- Difficult to present English page if {lang} doesn't exist.
?Anchor(fr.wiki.debian.org/Hardware)
fr.wiki.debian.org/Hardware
This can be achieved by two means :
Multiple moinmoin instances
Create multiple moinmoin wiki instances.
Cons
- Editors would have to create their accounts in each instances.
- Non-english visitor wouldn't be able to search in English pages (someone proposed to use English as underlay, which could solve this.).
Apache rewrite URLs
Assuming we 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
- The pages are accessible through multiple URI (fr.wiki.debian.org/Hardware and wiki.debian.org/fr/Hardware) which could lead to a major confusion !
?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/Hardware/French)
wiki.debian.org/Hardware/French
Cons
Breaks ?SubPages relative Links.
- If we wanted to have a page about "I18n/French", we should name it "I18n/French/French" and "I18n/French/English" ! (that's unlikely to happend)
?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/HardwareFrench)
wiki.debian.org/HardwareFrench
Cons
Can be ambigous : consider ?WhyFrench ; ?SupportFrench, etc..
The URL could become long for some language (esp. ?PortugueseBrazil)
?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/Hardware.Fr)
wiki.debian.org/Hardware.Fr
Cons
some links may get broken by some MUA => [http://wiki.debian.org/Hardware].fr
- very confusing (.pl for perl or polish) ?
?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/Hardware.fr)
wiki.debian.org/Hardware.fr
Cons
some links may get broken by some MUA => [http://wiki.debian.org/Hardware].fr
- very confusing (.pl for perl or polish) ?
?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/French/Hardware)
wiki.debian.org/French/Hardware
The URL could become long for some language (esp. ?PortugueseBrazil)
?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/FrenchHardware)
wiki.debian.org/FrenchHardware
Can be ambigous : consider ?FrenchWhy ; ?FrenchSupport, etc..
The URL could become long for some language (esp. ?PortugueseBrazil)
?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/Fr/Hardware)
wiki.debian.org/Fr/Hardware
Help ! any cons ?
?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/fr/Hardware)
wiki.debian.org/Fr/Hardware
Help ! any cons ?
Pros :
Even better than "/Fr/*", since a wiki page name should start with an uppercase, we know that a page matching regexp:^[a-z]{2}/.*$ is a localised version.
?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/FrHardware)
wiki.debian.org/FrHardware
Cons
?DeInstall ?=? Desinstall ? (I hope you don't have dyslexia problem).
?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/DebFr/Hardware)
wiki.debian.org/DebFr/Hardware
Cons
- Longer, than "Fr/*" !.
(I guess It was actually a short for ?DebianFrFoobar )
?Anchor(wiki.debian.org/DebFrHardware)
wiki.debian.org/DebFrHardware
- Longer, than "Fr/*" !.
?DebDeInstall ?=? ?DebianDesinstall ? (I hope you don't have dyslexia problem).
History
PaoloPan proposal for <language-identifier><page title in english>, on [http://wiki.debian.org/WikiMeta?action=recall&rev=44 2005-08-15].
debian-www [http://lists.debian.org/debian-www/2007/10/threads.html#00277 Debian Wiki: Give your opinion] thread on the mailing list, on 2007-10-21.
?CategoryProposal