Template talk:Lang-VP

Links for Chinese pages are dead.--Moja 21:31, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Fixed. dbenbenn | talk 00:20, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Why only English and own language?

@FDMS4: You changed this template to show only English and interface language. These templates are to easily change between localized VPs. For example, I use Hungarian interface and want to reach the Czech VP (happened). I could do this before. Now I can’t. Why? --Tacsipacsi (talk) 08:35, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

@Tacsipacsi: You can reach a list of all VP languages by simply clicking on the globe icon. I think the advantages of this solution (new and experienced users having easier access to the almost always only relevant pages) outweigh the "cost" of this one additional click in this rather uncommon scenario.    FDMS  4    14:30, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

@FDMS4: The "cost" is more than a click. The way the template is currently implemented means no one sees the full list of languages unless they follow a link, and that link may be either on English text (which they may have trouble reading) or on a little "globe" Unicode character (🌐), which they may not be able to see (not everyone has a font containing that character). I would suggest we revert this template back to showing the full list of languages and use the "language magic" to simply emphasize the link for the detected language. - dcljr (talk) 02:55, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

@Dcljr: The long list of languages not taking up a significant portion of the screen and thus making other important header instructions invisible is expected behaviour, please explain the concrete problems you believe this has led to. Unicode characters are widely used on project pages, headers and even as category sortkeys, and the globe Unicode character seems to be available to almost all if not all of our visitors. If you believe the use of Unicode characters in general has caused specific problems to arise, please bring this up at a more global venue (such as the VP); should a proposal to replace them by text or files on Commons get required consensus we can easily replace the globe character by a translatewiki-translated {{int:}} text label or a Commons file like the icon used for other languages in the mobile MediaWiki interface.    FDMS  4    09:27, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Have decided to move this to Commons talk:Village pump#Village pumps for other languages, where I actually started a discussion before commenting here. Sorry about the fragmentation… - dcljr (talk) 02:49, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

I can't read this.

I need to know where the Japanese village pump is at. I can't read this. - Alexis Jazz 08:00, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

What can’t you read? The Japanese VP is at Commons:井戸端. It’s clearly visible for me on this page. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 08:57, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

@Tacsipacsi: I can't read "井戸端". I can only read the Latin alphabet. I wanted to give a Japanse user a link to the Japanse village pump. Maybe it's my computer, but when I go to Template:Lang-VP I don't see "Japanese" or "Spanish", I see "井戸端" and "español". - Alexis Jazz 09:55, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

It’s the standard way language links used everywhere, in all localized templates, in the sidebar etc. It’s possible that you can’t read it, then simply give the Japanese user a link to this page. However, if someone doesn’t understand English, it’s way easier for them to find “日本語” (pronounced as [ɲihoŋɡo]) then “Japanese” or “Deutsch” then “German”. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 10:15, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I understand that, but for me it's almost impossible to (in this case) give a link to the Japanese village pump because there is no easy way to see which one is Japanese. Sure, I could simply link Template:Lang-VP but if the language of the user in question isn't listed here (and I'm unable to check because I can't read it) that would look pretty stupid and unhelpful. - Alexis Jazz 10:25, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

You can look in the source code for the language codes, or search Wikipedia for the native name (or language code). I think it’s such an edge case that we shouldn’t complicate the template further because of it. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 11:13, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

For me it's the second time I have trouble with this. The language codes are helpful. - Alexis Jazz 12:00, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: use COM:VP/ja. 4nn1l2 (talk) 10:58, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Overview

The following is just for personal use. These links go to Wiktionary.

বাংলা (Bengali), Alemannisch (w:Alemannic German), asturianu (Asturian, used in Spain), авар (?), Boarisch (?), bosanski (Bosnian), български (Bulgarian), català (Catalan, used in Spain), čeština (Czech), dansk (Danish), Deutsch (German), Ελληνικά (Greek), English, Esperanto, español (Spanish), euskara (Basque), français (French), galego (Galician), hrvatski (Croatian), magyar (Hungarian), íslenska (Icelandic), italiano (Italian), 日本語 (Japanese), kа (?), 한국어 (Korean), Lëtzebuergesch (Luxembourgish), македонски (Macedonian), मराठी (Marathi, used in India), Mirandés (Mirandese, used in Portugal), Nederlands (Dutch), norsk (Norwegian), occitan (used in regions of France, Spain and Italy), polski (Polish), português (Portugese), русский (Russian), slovenčina (Slovak, Slovakia), slovenščina (Slovenian), српски (Serbian), srpski (Serbian), suomi (Finnish), svenska (Swedish), ไทย (Thai), Türkçe (Turkish), українська (Ukranian), 中文（简体）‎ (?), 中文（繁體）‎ (?), Zazaki (used in Turkey),

Commons:الميدان is Arabic. The following are also writing the wrong way right to left:

• فارسی
• עברית
• پښتو

- Alexis Jazz 09:56, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

If it's "just for personal use", then put it on your own user page. - dcljr (talk) 18:06, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I mean more like it's not meant to go into the template or something. Someone else still might find it useful for locating a village pump in a particlar language, but if it annoys you I'll move it to my user page. Maybe nobody will ever find it useful, in that case I'll just be baffled nobody ever wanted to give a user who speaks a language they can't read a link to the village pump. - Alexis Jazz 18:15, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

LangSwitch

@Verdy p: I use the English interface, and starting from today, I am seeing Chinese and Hebrew VPs everywhere including on the Persian (fa) VP: COM:VP/fa. I don't support the recent change. 4nn1l2 (talk) 11:38, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

That's because you use the English interface, for which it also suggests languages for the user's language (and not the specific content language of the current page), which was always the case.

And both Chinese or Hebrew are appropriate in bilingual (English+other) speaking countries (which include for example, Canada for French, the United States for Spanish, Israel for Hebrew, and Hong Kong for Chinese ; it could as well include Pilipino for the Philippines, Hindi for India, or Afrikaans for South africa... if they had their own VP page; but Arabic, German or Russian were not added to the list for English speakers, even if these are important world languages, for the simple reason that these languages are not co-official with English in any bilingual region).

If you use the Persian interface, the links listed will be different and appropriate for Persian (I already enabled the addition of Pashto for example, may be I should enable Arabic too? It may as well include Urdu for India, not for Pakistan where English has no status; other languages can be enabled for Persian like for other languages; but the links added for English are appropriate because the template correctly assumes that the user's **prefered** language is applicable everywhere on Commons, including when they visit other village Pumps).

I personally use the French interface, and if I visit the Persian VP, the listed languages are appropriate for French but does not even include Persian (but I see now German for Switzerland, Dutch for Belgium, Luxembourgian for the Luxembourg, and other French regional languages: nobody is forgotten just because they speak a "minority language").

That's something I commented in the template: there's no parameter allowing to identify the current page language used in the VP, I will probably add it so that you will see Persian (in bold) on the Persian VP independantly of your prefered user language (for now this link is conditional and it has always been the case... except for English which is and was always present).

The goal of the change was that user's could continue using their primary language as their preferred language on this wiki and not forget that there are other languages. And anyway you can still click on the Earth icon to get the full list of supported VP's. This means that more people will know were to go for their requests and that their requests have more chances to be understood and replied.

You're one of the few users that visit a VP in a language that is NOT the user's prefered language (such setting is what causes Commons to be difficult to use, slowly but progressively we make Commons accessible in user's native language which should be their prefered one and that should be linked to other related languages in the international linguasphere of this user's language). For most users, occasional visits to a VP in a foreign language will still link them easily to their home language(s).

Note also that this template is used in all VP pages (so the change is not specific to English user's language, or to any VP in a specific language.

So if you're not satisfied for now by the Persian interface, it's time to work to improve it (there's lot of work to do and where you can help; I made considerable efforts to make Commons usable in RTL languages by fixing the Bidi layout and simplifiying the translation process, and by filling many forgotten cases or incorrect assumptions based only on English or a single language). verdy_p (talk) 11:43, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Final note: multiple users have sent me "thank you" for this improvement, that allows all relevant VPs to be linked directly. Don't forget that Commons is international and not made for a single language or a single country; you're not required to visit those extra languages that you don't understand even if you've set your prefered language to English. The alternative would have been to list all languages independantly of user's language, and generally this gives long boring lists of languages for most people, which are more difficult to navigate for them (see for example the root category of Commons that lists many languages, even if they are ordered by script and native names: these long lists take a lot of place; the Universal Language Selector also tries to lsit first the languages related to the current user's prefered language, so this is not a new concern; but it still offers a way to see all other languages by performing some clicks, exactly like here: only one click on the blue Earth icon to see the full list). verdy_p (talk) 12:03, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

@Verdy p: English is the global lingua franca, so it cannot be reserved for only native English speakers. I can't use the Persian interface, as there will be a lot of RTL/LTR problems. Maybe we should use the 6 official UN languages for the English (i.e. international) interface: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic.

Furthermore, we should give the priority to the page language ({{PAGELANGUAGE}}) rather than the interface language ({{int:lang}}), so that on the Persian VP one can see only languages relevant to the Persian (which are only English and Arabic; forget about Pashto whose VP should be deleted). 4nn1l2 (talk) 12:23, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

But this is a radical change, and for now this has never been the case (and int:Lang cannot be rejected now without discussion). But for that we need a new parameter (because it's imposible to determine the language of a specific VP page, they'll have to provide it explicitly. What I just propose is to keep the current list, and then add languages appropriate to the specified language (in addition to those the user's language).

I have an idea of a module for that which will make list of languages (mapped to contents or links) relevant to BOTH the user's prefered language and a specific language, using a language-to-regions mapping (which exists in CLDR data). Note that PAGELANGUAGE is NOT set in these VP (because they don't use any translation tool and don't use consistant naming)...

This wiki already has difficulties to manage the user's prefered language (it attempts to use the browser settings, but this is not consistant, so User preferences allow setting up only ONE preferred language, and no additional languages; using the list of wikis where the user has an account is also not relevant because these accounts are created automatically on their first visit, and my account has about 300 wikis in SUL!

Mediawiki should improve its international support to allow users setting up a list of languages they want to see and not just a single preferred one for the UI (this list should be used by MediaWiki fallbacks, and should also be processed according to BCP 47 rules, but this is not the case: MediaWiki is bogous in all its existing fallbacks which are processed incorrectly, and this bug has been signaled since long; on this wiki I have made another module to process list of fallbacks correctly!) ; for now this feature does not exist in Mediawiki or in user's preferences, so we have to live with what is existing: the user's preferred language, or the page language if only it can be determined) verdy_p (talk) 12:37, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

It's easy to determine the language code of a specific page. For example see [1] where I have set the language code of the Persian VP as fa. I can do that for all VPs, then we can use the switch function to provide relevant languages for every VP. 4nn1l2 (talk) 12:51, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

I applied my suggestion (i.e. the 6 official UN languages for the global English interface). I also set the language code for all language versions of VP, see for example: [2]. 4nn1l2 (talk) 15:49, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

@Verdy p: As I have told you before, I have applied the 6 official languages of UN for the international interface which happens to be English.

1. Israel is not a bilingual country. The only official language there is Hebrew. Period.
2. Why don't you add Bengali or Marathi which are spoken in India, a major English-speaking country?

4nn1l2 (talk) 04:33, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

1. Israel is an exception: it is majoritarily speaking English, even more than official Hebrew which is spoken by a minority part of the population (see w:en:English langlage for the list of countries where English is majoritary or official), that why Hebrew (official) is added to the English speakers, but not Arabic (not official and not majority in Israel)
2. We can't add for now Bengali, Marathi, Hindi, Filipino, Afrikaans (in officially bilingual regions) because they still don't have a VP page we can point to.

verdy_p (talk) 04:36, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

1. English is also spoken in UAE and Qatar majoritarily besides Arabic.
2. Bengali VP: Commons:আলোচনাসভা, Marathi VP: Commons:मराठी चावडी.

4nn1l2 (talk) 04:40, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

1. English is not official in UAE and Qatar where Arabic is still majoritary. These two countries are not in the English linguasphere like South Africa or India.

For Bengali and Marathi, are these "Village pumps" or just community portals ? They were not linked before. verdy_p (talk) 04:43, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

I just reverted this major change. Please gain consensus first and, if approved, then apply it. Your statements do not add up. 4nn1l2 (talk) 04:48, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

I see Bengali and Marathi are there, but we need to check if they are in regions where English was chosen to be official instead of Hindi. (see Wikipedia for the list of official languages of India where they have the choice between either English or Hindi at federal level). Only if they chose English to be official in addition to their regional language, then we can add these regional languages. If they chose Hindi, nothing to add. verdy_p (talk) 04:50, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

And reverting EVERY languages added is abusive, you even reverted the languages whose links were fixed. And reverted changed made by others. And ignored the many "thank you" I received (from speakers of French, German, Spanish, and others).

You (4nn1l2) are still completely ALONE to criticize only the addition to the list for English speakers, and you revert everything for the list displayed for ALL other languages.

Now you want to add Russian to the list for English but this is non-sense, there's no region where English speakers would need Russian because they are co-official or co-majoritary.

The case of Arabic for English speakers may be discussed if you prove that there's a real bilingual Arabic+English region.

But your own very specific use (because you want to use the Persian VP using English UI, which is very uncommon) is not valid for reverting what native English speakers in truly English speaking regions will want to see.

Note that English is added to the list for all other languages and this has not changed (so there was no controverse).

As well for the addition of Chinese variants for Chinese speakers (I did not remove them), just before English. You've visibly not understood how all this already worked.

Butr I have serious doubts about your unproven assertion for UAE and Qatar, that English is a "majority language" there (it may be largely spoken by their elite, but not by many migrants that speak Arabic only, which is also the only official language of these countries). For Israel, there's no doubt, it is proven that English is majority and more spoken than Hebrew (even if Hebrew if preferred for national official use). Note that Israel still has no constitution, and only defacto languages (Hebrew is then not really "official").

verdy_p (talk) 04:55, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

You have clearly no idea about UAE and Qatar. Arabs are just a minority in these countries. Most of their residents are foreign workers (mainly from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines) who use English for communication. In fact, English is the true working language in those countries.

Still you dodge reacting to my main suggestion: Use the 6 official languages of UN for the international interface which happens to be English nowadays. One century later, it may become Chinese, but that's the problem of future, not now. English cannot be reserved for only native English speakers. This language is the global lingua franca. 4nn1l2 (talk) 05:39, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

How about a pseudo-interactive map instead of a flat list?

A world map with flags superimposed on the representative countries. Put ImageNote on the flags to link to the forums. English on UK & US, French on France, German on DACH, Spanish on Spain, etc. It's more illustrative and also solves Alexis Jazz's problem, that foreigners cant easily find a certain language. (Of course the map assumes a bit of knowledge in geography and national flags in the users, but we are already assuming everyone's linguistic knowledge right now. :) )--Roy17 (talk) 11:20, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

<includeonly>

I am unwilling to search for a geek making the template’s view dependent on transclusion of itself. But currently this abominable arrangement makes understanding the 4nn1l2–Verdy_p conflict virtually impossible, when restricted to the standard diff interface. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:40, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

In fact, I misread the code. It was Verdy_p adding stuff impossible to see without transclusion. Moreover, Verdy_p pushed for a revision containing four <includeonly> without an intervening closing tags </includeonly> – evidently, a mistake in the code. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:10, 29 June 2019 (UTC)