User talk:Noreferti

Hi, I see you have been translating some pages to French. From what I understand, the 'right' way to do this in Mediawiki is to create subpages of the main English page, for example create 'Rabbits/Fr' instead of 'Lapin'; then put a Languages template on the main page listing the available languages. This is so the original page and the translated version are kept together, and so the Languages template works correctly. --Inkoaten 10:33, 17 March 2009 (EST)

I have understood that but sometimes I make a mistake because doing many things at the same time.

At the beginning, by pure chance, I had to translate two pages which have the same name in french and in english : guide and container. So I was a bit confused about the links.

Now, I take care to use the <namepage>/fr then to move the created page to the french word.

Except for pages with no corresponding english pages, it should be ok now. Lapin was just a mistake. Sorry for that

-- Noreferti 11:03, 17 March 2009 (EST)

Ok, I think I see the problem with Lapin, it is using Rabbit not Rabbits as the base page (Rabbit is a redirect to Rabbits). The other pages seem to work better. I just worry a bit about translations getting out of date, or information being added only to a translated page and not the base page, because the pages have different names (French vs English, rather than only using a single base name + language suffix).

What do you think about not creating the pages named using French words (e.g. Lapin) and keeping the page as Rabbits/fr? Or perhaps you could create Lapin as a redirect to Rabbits/fr, rather than the other way around? That would keep the related pages together better.

--Inkoaten 17:01, 17 March 2009 (EST)

You deleted Tent. I'm assuming that was accidental and I've reverted the delete. --Inkoaten 05:35, 27 March 2009 (EST)

It's not tent but tentE with an E wich need to be deleted. Then I'll be able to redirect tent/fr to tente. I'm sorry to give you some trouble but we are now 2 or 3 translators working on the french version. I try to explain to the others how to process but they surely will make some mistakes so some pages to delete. Kaayru made some changes in game as well (about box and chest) and I had to modify the pages about them -- Noreferti 08:46, 27 March 2009 (EST)

I saw that you deleted Tente with an E. But you also deleted the English version Tent! That is what I fixed.

And can I ask you again to consider using subpages of the English pages as the 'official' location of the page, and adding redirects for the French terms to that official page if necessary? It is a much cleaner approach - for example, the Index will actually be useful, and all the pages on a single topic are kept together. So you would create Tent/fr with French content, and create Tente that had only a redirect to Tent/fr.

Finally, I don't understand why you need Tente to be deleted before you add new content there. Why don't you just edit the existing page right now? --Inkoaten 09:03, 27 March 2009 (EST)

Apparently, there is something I don't understand. I have understood that I must create the french page first as name/fr and translate it. eg : rabbit to rabbit/fr but obviously french people won't use rabbit/fr but lapin. That is why when the translation is done with rabbit/fr, I move the page (redirect) to the french name : lapin. If by mistake, the page lapin has already been created, I can't redirect the /fr page to the french page. I just receive a message as the french page already exists. That is why I erase all in this page and write : to be deleted.

Do you mean I should work the contrary : create the french page (lapin) and redirect it to rabbit/fr ?? What text will I get then ? As I know a redirected page just contains the message has it has been moved but not the french text.

I already created the index pages and the category pages : that works correctly even it's quite empty for the moment. Thank you for all your advices and the time you spend because of me. I'm not a programmer neither a specialist in computers, just a translator and I try to do by best.

What I'm suggesting that you do is:

• Create Rabbits/fr, containing a French translation of the English Rabbits page. Now the translated page is conveniently grouped with the original page, and the language bar at the bottom using {{Language}} works as expected to change between different translated page versions.
• Create Lapin, containing just the text "#REDIRECT [[Rabbits/fr]]". Then, if you search for or link to Lapin, you will be automatically redirected to Rabbits/fr.

A redirection page is just a page containing that #REDIRECT text.

The "move" option is essentially a shortcut for doing this:

• create a new page that is a copy of the old page
• replace all of the old page text with just a #REDIRECT option.

If anyone visits the old page, they are automatically redirected to the new page. But you do not have to use "move" to do this, you can manually do those two steps yourself. Or you can set up your own redirects as you wish.

There is some more information on redirects at Help:Redirects. Or if you prefer, I can try to contact you in-game and help you with this.

--Inkoaten 09:53, 27 March 2009 (EST)

You may also want to look at Wiki Translation, which describes the same strategy as I suggested. --Inkoaten 10:07, 27 March 2009 (EST)

OK Now I'm sure I have correctly understood how it works.

but a question : what is the advantage of your method (name => name/fr then french name => name/fr) in comparison with mine ( name => name/fr => french name) ? The advantage of mine is that the french reader will see the french name at the top of the page and not english name/fr but I must admit it isn't really a problem. Also I think it's a faster method (I don't have to create the french page as it will be automatically created by the redirection). --Noreferti 10:14, 27 March 2009 (EST)

It keeps all related pages together in one location (so, for example, a rename of a page should correctly move all subpages too, and it's easy to find translations of a given page because they are all grouped together in the index); and the Language template does not need special handling (as you currently have to do). It also means that the top level english index is not polluted with pages in many different languages.

It also means that a page has exactly one consistent place where it should be, and that place will not collide with any other page. With what you are doing at the moment, you will have a problem whenever the French term for a page is the same as the English term (or the German term, or the Spanish term, or any other language that someone wants to translate in the future) .. in that case, you can't put the page in the desired place and you must put it somewhere else instead. If you always use a subpage of the English page based on language code, then that problem can never happen. --Inkoaten 18:05, 27 March 2009 (EST)