#Wikimedia language committee and #trust

The Wikimedia language committee was originally created to stem the flow of new projects that just did not work. At the end of a lengthy process a specialist is sought to certify that the language used is indeed the language a new Wikipedia is about.

Rehmat Aziz Chitrali is such a specialist for the Khowar language. When you read one of the Wikipedia articles about him, there are seventeen articles, it is obvious that he is more than qualified for the task.

With so many articles, it is obvious that awards he received may have well been documented in some but not in other languages. For Wikidata several but not all awards were added to do some justice.

When the news is in that the Khowar incubator is indeed in Khowar, we will soon have a new Wikipedia.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#SignWriting #Symposium - including #Wikipedia

For a second year now the Signwriting Foundation organises their online symposium. For those who do not know, SignWriting is all about writing sign languages. This has been under development for over 40 years and it was founded by Valerie Sutton.

When a language can be written, it may have a Wikipedia and, it has been wished for for a long time. The problems are many. The characters have to show, the text is written online for it to be truly a Wiki.

In a presentation on this years symposium, Yair Rand informs us about a keyboard that has been developed to bring the reality of Wikipedia for a sign language even closer.

If there is one thing the people at SignWriting org teach us, it is that perseverance matters. With an input method, a Wikipedia in the American Sign Language is that much closer.
Thanks,
      GerardM

What #Wikidata has to offer to languages in the #Incubator

One of the objectives of Wikidata is to provide "information box support". These info-boxes use information from Wikidata on articles that are linked to it. The information is shown in the local language. For Incubator, things are .. complex. For starters, incubator is a multiple language wiki. To make it worse, Incubator includes some languages that will never have a Wikipedia.

Wikidata is more inclusive in its support for languages than any of the other projects. It can support extinct languages, it can support constructed languages, it can support multiple scripts for the same language and, the requirements are minimal. What is required is that the language is recognised in the ISO-639-3 and that a script is actually in use or has been used.

Let us consider the Maithili language. There is an incubator project for this language for a Wikipedia and for a Wikibooks. It can be used in Wikidata. Currently there is one label for one item. When all the labels used on relevant items like "India", "Gandhi", "Delhi", "horse" and "rabbit" have been added, millions of items will show at least a few labels in Maithili. The information for the info boxes for these five items are complete as well and could in theory be used in the Incubator project.

Info-boxes supported in the incubator that use Wikidata data seems to be an achievable goal. Adding Wikidata search support in the Incubator is actually a no-brainer because it just works. Thanks to the Reasonator all that data will be really well presented, it will even be informative. That is a step up from many of the awkward stub articles that are often found in the Incubator.

Wikidata is a great start for providing information in any language. All you need to do is add missing labels. The next step is start a stub with an informative info-box. This can be followed up by taking the time to write a decent article.

You know what, this does work equally well in any Wikipedia.
Thanks,
      GerardM

An #encyclopaedia in #Konkani

The #Wikimedia blog announced that the Vishwakosh was re-released under a free license. This is really welcome news for Konkani speakers and, it allows for the inclusion of the 3632 pages in a Konkani Wikipedia.

When the Vishwakosh is to stay in its current format, it is no Wikipedia but a Wikisource. Given the text in the blog, they want a Wikipedia and by definition the texts will change. There will be updates that reflect more recent developments.

But first the Wikipedia has to be released from the Incubator. With so much involvement of so many people, it must be easy to have all the localisations done in next to no time.

The language committee can expedite it when there is movement in this direction.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Sign language in #Tunisia can have a #Wikipedia too

On #Facebook I noticed what looked like an encyclopaedic article. It was about the poet Aboul-Qacem Echebbi.

When asked, they were interested in having a Wikipedia. Once a request has been made on Meta, the procedure to determine eligibility will start. In this case it is a formality as both native "speakers" and an ISO 639-3 code are present.

Once this procedure has been completed, it will be permitted to edit Wikidata as well.

In the Language Committee a discussion has started to consider if the completion of a set number of fully labelled items can be accepted as part of fulfilling the current requirement of the 200 Wikipedia articles. Reducing this number to 50 will make it more easy to complete the writing requirement. Currently many of these articles are not much more than sub-stubs.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#WMhack - #SignWriting in #Wikimedia #Incubator

One visitor at the Amsterdam hackathon was Stephen E Slevinski Jr. He was a man with a mission. His mission was to get American Sign Language on the Incubator. As you can see in the picture below, he succeeded in his mission.

Several members of the language committee knew that it was possible for Stephen to succeed. We also knew that when this hurdle was taken, any and all sign languages can ask for their own Wikipedia. There have been requests for languages like Danish sign language in the past as well.

Now that we have the technical ability to show a sign language, the old reason not to express "eligibility" for these languages has gone. Any and all sign languages that have an ISO-639-3 code will find that there is nothing that will prevent them to work towards a Wikipedia or any other project in their language.

I want to thank a few people. First all the people at the Amsterdam Hackathon who helped Stephen make this dream come true. Secondly, I want to thank Stephen, Valerie and all the other people at the SignWriting Foundation for their continued belief that their languages and their culture deserve their own  Wikipedias.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#ASL; the most challenging language at #Translatewiki

A #Wikipedia in "our" language is what people are working towards in the incubator. There are many challenges that need to be taken before this dream is fulfilled. Messages need to be localised, articles need to be written and finally the text has to be proven to be in "my" language. Several challenges that take time and effort, all for the big moment when one more Wikipedia is created.

They are challenges but they are dwarfed by the challenges facing the people working towards a Wikipedia in American Sign Language. First of all, their effort cannot be part of the incubator. Their incubator project is in a Wikimedia Labs environment. An environment with experimental software that allows them to write their own language.

The SignWriting script is written from top to bottom as you can see in the screenshot. This is not supported by MediaWiki. The SignWriting script is not yet part of Unicode. MediaWiki only supports scripts that are encoded in Unicode.

Consider what it does to localising the software at translatewiki.net. Below you find what Wednesday looks like for Adam, who is working on the localisation of the most used messages. It must be copying data from one environment to the next, not even knowing what the effect will be when it finally shows in the labs environment.

If anything I know how much hard work goes into new projects. The effort for the Wikipedia in American Sign Language is probably the most complicated of them all.
Thanks,
        GerardM

The #Santali language and the Ol Chiki script II

A request for a #Wikipedia is made for the Santali language. The request was made for use with the Latin script but Santali language is also written in the Ol Chiki script. It stands to reason that when a language is written in multiple scripts, it is relevant for the people who read that language to have fonts available for all the scripts in use. It is unlikely that the Ol Chiki font is part of any standard operating system.

When you are interested in an Ol Chiki font, one resource that pops up when you search for it is Wesanthals. Several fonts can be found at this website. Sadly they are not available under a standard free license. The good news is that we are reaching out to developers of Ol Chiki fonts.

When we do have fonts available under a free license, we can provide support for the Ol Chiki font in WebFonts. A text in Ol Chiki will be tagged like this:

<div lang="sat-olck"> ᱐</div> or <span lang="sat-olck"> ᱐</span>

Thanks,
     GerardM

#Unicode #CLDR How to fix a wrong name

One of the languages in the Incubator is Mapudungun. It is spoken in Chile and Argentina and many of the Mapuche people are offended by the English name used for their language. The result is that they refuse to have anything to do with the effort to have a Wikipedia for their language.

The Wikipedia article on the Mapuche language mentions the name that should not be used and it states: "The latter was the name given to the Mapuche by the Spaniards but nowadays both the Mapuche and others avoid this usage". The question is; why does it say Araucanian, where does it come from and how can it be fixed.

MediaWiki uses the CLDR for such data and with some digging the record that has Araucanian can be found. The ISO-639 standard does not have it as its name so it can be changed. The next question is, who is going to do this. There are several issues:

• the CLDR has only windows of opportunity when the data can be changed
• actually changing things at the CLDR is an "experience"
• we do not have anyone volunteering to join the language support team for English
• we do need this change to be in the CLDR for this issue to go away

Thanks,

      GerardM

#Localisation for #LUA scripts?

In order to improve the scripting in MediaWiki, it will become possible to add LUA code. Many of the existing templates are not really examples of readability or performance and, in addition to this many templates have been copied to many other wikis.

Changing these templates, making them useful in other languages is quite a job.and it requires knowledge of the scripting language(s) involved and obviously the language the script(s) that need supporting.

At translatewiki.net a request has been made to use messages for templates that are used on many projects. Templates like "done", "not done", "support", "oppose" and "neutral"are the ones suggested. It is one of those suggestions that gets a lot of sympathy from the translatewiki community.

Localising the messages and getting them to every project is a problem we have a solution for. Making sure that templates exist and remain on the latest version will need some thought. With the introduction of LUA imminent, this is an opportune moment to give the distribution of templates some thought.

Doing this by hand is already hard if not impossible. With Wikipedia going strongly towards 300 projects, it would be great when the support in the many languages of our communities can already start in the Incubator.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Wikimedia #Incubator in more languages

On the Incubator, a lot of thought goes into providing the best functionality to the people who want a project in a new language. Often these people do not speak English. Providing information to these fledgling projects has so far been done in English; we did not really have an easy way of providing translations.

Today at Incubator, the Translate extension has been enabled. People who do know English are now able to translate essential information in their language. This will make it easier for people to find their way and work on the initial documents for a language.

With this functionality in place, it is also a great moment to update these documents. Spending time now saves time later. SPQRobin made the request, Niklas did the configuration and once Robin is ready it will be for the Incubator community to prepare the way for those people who do not know English.
Thanks,
     GerardM

The #Tifinagh script for #Berber languages can be typed

In the #Wikimedia #Incubator, the Tifinagh script is used for one of the Berber languages. It is the original script for these languages and it is there to be used. Using it is hard when your computer does not support it.

The Narayam extension does allow the use of input methods on top of an international keyboard. When the Tifinagh script is to be supported, it helps when an organisation is putting its weight behind a particular input method. For the Tifinagh script it is the Royal Institute for the Amazight culture; they defined a keyboard, they provide a manual on how to use it and we are happy to support this keyboard in Narayam.

The Royal Institute produced many beautiful fonts; it would be nice when we find that we can use these as well and truly promote the use of the Amazight culture worldwide.
Thanks,
         GerardM

#CLDR and #GLIBC - what makes a #standard for locales II

Both GLIBC and CLDR register similar things. They register for similar but different purposes. One is a standard and the other is a de facto standard.

When people with the right background take an interest in a language like Sourashtra, they can have many objectives. What we are looking for are people who are interested in enabling, supporting and promoting the use of their language.

When a font is needed and they can point us to a freely licensed font, we can support them. When a keyboard is needed specifically for a language or a script, we can support them. When they provide us with the code to transliterate from one script to another, we can support them.

To do this for one application is a lot of work and there are so many applications out there, so much replication is happening. Many of these applications are as useful and relevant as MediaWiki. It is for this reason that all the language support teams are asked to verify and possibly amend and append standards like the CLDR or GLIBC.

With information available in the right places and with fonts, keyboard mappings and transliteration scripts shared widely, in a perfect world there will no need to ask to verify, amend and append. By working together using the same data, there will come a time when there is no longer anything to amend or append, when the data for a language new to Wikipedia will just be there.
Thanks,
       GerardM

in #ISO639 bbc stands for Toba #Batak

Artefacts of many "indigenous" cultures only exist in museums. The cultured people who created them have died or dwindled into non-existence and their descendants often do not know their history, their culture.

When the language still exists... it may be that the script is no longer in use because it is replaced by another. Even when the text is transcribed and then transliterated, the terminology and the associated understanding may be lost.

We have a request for a Wikipedia in Toba Batak. This is only one of the languages that is written or used to be written in the Batak script. The characters of the script have been defined in Unicode and the only font available is freeware and does not feature what you expect of a modern font according to the author.

The author of the existing font, a professor in Hawaii, is happy to work with us to establish a fully functional freely licensed font, a keyboard map and possibly a transcription engine from and to the Latin script.

Many of the objects in the Dutch and other western museums are valued far higher then the cost of the creation of a font for the Batak script. Once a script is available it becomes possible to transcribe all the texts that exists in museums and archives and this in turn will allow us to glimpse of the Batak cultures as they survive in its literature.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Looking for language support for #Lezghian

People want a #Wikipedia in Lezghian. They have done the localisation of the most used messages for MediaWiki. Articles have been written so everything is ready for the final phase.

Checking if what has been written is Lezghian takes a bit of doing. Amir is on it. He will find people who can but in a way Amir does not scale. There are some 300 Wikipedia and incubator languages and ambitions for many, many more.

We need plan B. Plan A is doing everything ourselves, plan B is to have a framework for language support provide us with the answers. The WMF language committee has a need and the WMF localisation team is setting up a framework that may be able to help.

When people know their language well, they can do so much more for their language. Not only to get a Wikipedia but also to get a Wikipedia.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Babel #localisation is now a priority

All #Wikimedia wikis have the Babel extension enabled. Slowly but surely people are starting to use it and it does already support many many languages.

For the Lezghian language there is a Wikipedia being developed on the Incubator. As a consequence there are Wikimedians who know Lezghian and it does make sense when they can find each other.

When this extension is localised at translatewiki.net, the Lezghian portal and the Babel information on user pages will be looking great. Once the localisations are enabled for Lezghian on the WMF wikis, you can indicate your fluency for this language and other languages as well. When the localisations are a bit off, you can update them at translatewiki.net and, the next day you may be able to notice the difference.
Thanks,
     GerardM

One language, two scripts

#Tamaziɣt is one of the #Berber languages of North Africa. It is written in two scripts; the Latin script and the Tifinagh script.

As there is a project in the Incubator for a Tamazight Wikipedia, it is relevant to consider if and how the two scripts can be transcribed from one into the other. This is what SPQRobin has done; he has written a program that converts a text between these two scripts.

Transcription is not new to MediaWiki; Serbian and Chinese are two languages where articles can be available in two scripts. It is awesome when we can transcribe in both directions as this allows people to read and write in their preferred script. When a language is also written in for instance the Arabic script, this is impossible because vowels are often not indicated.

With both scripts supported, we hope that the converter will be soon available in the Incubator. This may stimulate more people to learn to write their language and contribute to the dissemination of all knowledge to all people.
Thanks,
       GerardM

#Wikimedia #Incubator improvements

The URL may be a bit cryptic: http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wn/aa but it will show you the screen below.

The last two parts of the URL together indicate if a project exists in a particular language either as a full project or as a project on the Incubator. As you can imagine, a little tool that helps establish the status for a (potential) wiki would be nice.

As some ideas are obvious, it is good to know that SPQRobin is already working on just that. Robin is continually tweaking the Incubator and the result has been that it is easier to start new projects.

When you have ideas to improve the incubator even more, please let him know.
Thanks,
       GerardM

SPQRobin does #Haifa

Tomorrow I am travelling with Robin to #Wikimania. We are looking forward to meet our Wiki friends irl. We will have fun meeting new and old friends and we may see the sights of another beautiful city.
Thanks,
      GerardM

- Who is SPQRobin in real life

I am Robin Pepermans and I live in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium. I just finished my secondary education, having studied Latin and modern languages. My next studies will likely be Public Administration and/or Translation Studies in Ghent. I started editing the Dutch Wikipedia in 2006 under my username SPQRobin. At that time I was very interested in Roman history and the Roman Empire. Even though my interests quickly shifted, I remained known under this nickname since then.

- You are involved in multiple projects, what are they and what role do you play

As I become more active in the wiki world, I discovered Meta, Commons, and also the Incubator. It was a relatively new project, where new language editions of existing Wikimedia projects are developed and maintained until they are active enough to have their own sub-domain. Incubator was however not maintained well, so I improved it and helped the users there. A few more people joined me, and there is now a little group who maintains the Incubator. Not only was Incubator itself not maintained, the process to start a new wiki was often slow and people kept asking when their wiki would be created (sometimes with no response). To improve communication, I became a member of the language committee in 2009. This committee is in charge of deciding which Incubator wikis are ready for creation. Incubator, being a special wiki like Commons, required some software features that are not easily available in MediaWiki. Therefore I applied for commit access so I could create a MediaWiki extension that provides these features. It took quite some time for this extension to be enabled, maybe because Incubator is a lesser-known project and not a high priority. I am working further on this extension, for example the plan (that especially I and Milos Rancic are pushing forward) is to make subdomains of non-existing wikis (e.g. xmf.wiktionary.org and yua.wikipedia.org) redirect to the respective welcome pages or main pages at the Incubator, (xmf Wiktionary and yua Wikipedia).

- Lately you have worked on bugs that have to do with RTL languages like Hebrew and Arabic. Are these patches in production and what are these patches about

Recently I became more involved in fixing bugs and making the software better. It was clear that a lot of the interface and features had poor support for right-to-left languages, even though a lot of the RTL bugs are relatively easy to fix. You don't have to be able to read an RTL language to be able to fix them :-) I noticed that ResourceLoader included CSSJanus, which automatically flips CSS, making the software A LOT better and easier to maintain for RTL interface. Even the old bug 6100 (interface direction should follow user language and not content language) would be fixed. However, the content was flipped as well, so this was disabled. I fixed this issue, along with many others, and I generally improved the directionality support of MediaWiki. These improvements are now part of the upcoming MediaWiki 1.18, and will hopefully soon be deployed on Wikimedia wikis. You can already enjoy the improvements on e.g. translatewiki.net, which always runs the latest software. If you have any bug reports or suggestions regarding RTL interface, don't hesitate to contact me :-)

- You are going to your first Wikimania, what do you expect

I am really looking forward to my first Wikimania. I hope to see a lot of people who I know from Wikimedia in real life, and to meet other people as well. I am going to the developer days, where I will talk about my RTL work and improve it even further with other developers, especially for the issues that I am not able to fix myself :) I could also talk about the Incubator improvements that I am developing, such as the welcome pages for non-existing wikis.

Since Belgium, my country is one of the few Western countries without a chapter, I might talk with other Belgians and Dutch people about a possible Wikimedia Belgium or even a possible Wikimedia Benelux.

The sad thing is that the developer days coincide with the Global South Meeting and Chapters Meeting, which both seem to be very interesting.

New wikis in 2010

- How many more languages will we support in two years time

Currently we are growing quite slowly in my opinion. There are yearly some ten to twenty new wikis opened, most of which are in European languages. Sometimes there are promising projects organised, that want to help languages in the Global South to get their Wikipedia, but then I didn't hear of them anymore. My hope is that the chapters set up such projects. For example India, Indonesia and Australia are starting to become active in helping small languages get support and get their Wikimedia wikis. South America is less active but I hope they will join too.
 -Robin

No #Wikisource in #Hindi

"There is no Hindi Wikisource" I was told. "How is that possible?" It may seem strange now but the way new Wikis were created in the past was not the same. When a new language was added, all the possible Wikis were created at the same time. Nowadays there is a policy for the creation of new Wikis and it means that among other things, the localisation of MediaWiki for Hindi has to be improved quite a lot.

Not having a Hindi Wikisource is strange, it would be appropriate for the Hindi community to step up to the plate. There is plenty of Hindi material that can find its way to Wikisource.
Thanks,
       GerardM