Re: New DevMo Roadmap and Progress

fantasai wrote:
> Translations don't seem to be mentioned anywhere in your notes. What are
> your plans for hosting and managing translated docs? (We already have
> several translators for devmo, so this is relevant *now*.)

I envisioned handling translations much the same way Wikipedia does -- 
MediaWiki provides facilities that allow "interlanguage linking" between 
different translations of related wikis...

A good example is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

You'll notice that the bottom left column is devoted to a large list of 
language links -- these link to the different language versions of that 
article, and is automatically added to the interface when the 
interlanguage links in that article are parsed.

Those links are at the bottom of the page source, and look like this:

[[ar:لينكس]]
[[bg:Линукс]]
[[ca:Linux]]
[[cs:Linux]]
[[da:Linux]]
[[de:Linux]]
[[el:Linux]]
[[eo:Linukso]]
[[es:Linux]]
...
[[ro:Linux]]
[[ru:Linux]]
[[simple:Linux]]
[[sk:Linux]]
[[sl:Linux]]
[[sv:GNU/Linux]]
[[th:ลินุกซ์]]
[[tr:Linux]]
[[vi:Linux]]
[[zh:Linux]]

Those links are enabled through an interwiki link map that we can 
customize.  So, each language would have an independent wiki, but those 
wikis would be related and linked together via these interlanguage 
facilities.

The good part is that MediaWiki is already localized into a bunch of 
languages, and we can set up and skin new language wikis very quickly as 
they're deemed necessary (a list of which you think we need straight off 
would be useful).

The bad part is that these interlanguage links have to be added by hand. 
  This is actually a double-edged sword, however, because it gives us 
more flexibility in how we link things together than a fully automated 
system would.  For example, the English "Linux" article links to the 
Netherlands "Linux-kernel" article, and to the Svenska "GNU/Linux" 
article.

There would be some coordination required between language teams to 
ensure that links (and backlinks) are all added.  I could see that being 
coordinated through a mailing list -- any time someone creates a 
translated article, they just post its availability on the list, and 
others can take care of ensuring that their language wiki links to it 
properly.

~ deb