Commons talk:Language policy

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• /Archive1 created on 14.April 2005

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Contents 1 VIDEO Coordination 2 Conventions de nommage. Objections. 3 Latin binomial 4 Templates or Imbedded Text 5 India 6 Portuguese speaking peoples all over the world & Brazillian speakers 7 Chinese (中文） 8 Redirects for categories 9 Multilingual descriptions 10 Page titles and Categories 11 Language-free templates? 12 Image Captions 12.1 Examples 12.2 Proposal 13 Roman emperors in Latin? 14 Listing of saints 15 Need some help with category names 16 Naming policy 17 POV pushing in file descriptions. 18 Multilingual descriptions language order 18.1 proposed amendment

[edit] VIDEO Coordination

Dear all, I know that they are many important things to discuss in this FORUM but I really want to ask about the Policies for ADD Videos? I want to contribute to developing this "Department" and I have already, many ideas and a ready Project for add more contributions. For Storing Videos, as well to Editing. I'm ready to support it, providing a SERVER (At moment only few GB but it can grow with the demand.)--Jober 10:09, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)Starting contributions in Portuguese

[edit] Conventions de nommage. Objections.

Si vous voullez vraiment que le projet soit multilingue il ne faut en aucun cas imposer une langue de préférence a d’autres.

Les français font des pages en français, les anglais font des pages en anglais, les allemands font des pages en allemand, les italiens font des pages en italiens, etc., etc., rien ne doit contrecarrer cela.

Les consultants ne connaissent pas forcément une langue plutôt qu’une autre, donc ils doivent pouvoir trouver un article dans leur propre langue, il doivent pouvoir en créer un dans leur propre langue, je pense particulièrement au personnes qui comme moi ne pratiquent qu’une seul langue.

Mais rien n’empêche qu’il peut exister dans un même article plusieurs paragraphes de différentes langues. Les personnes bilingues ou multilingue pourront créer des liens vers des articles dans d’autres langues, et traduire des paragraphes d’une langue dans une autre tous en respectant les paragraphes écrits dans une langue qu’ils ne comprennent pas.

Les paragraphes de différentes langues peuvent parfaitement cohabiter dans la même page (comme on peut le constater par exemple dans les formulaires administratif suisse)

Des liens vers d’autres pages dans d’autres langues pourront toujours être fait à la fin d’un paragraphe

--Utilisateur:MG*** <@> Accueil Main Page [Accueil] 08:30, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Begin Translation by Kowey 21:32, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

If you really want for the project to be multilingual, we shouldn't in any case impose any single language over others.

The French make pages in French, the English in English, the Germans in German, the Italians in Italian, etc, and nothing should go against that.

Users do not neccesarily know one language over anthor, so they should be able to find an article in their own language, the should be able to create one in their own language, I'm thinking in particular of people like myself who only use a single language.

But there is nothing to prevent there for being within a single article, several paragraphs in different languages. Bilingual or mulitlingual people could create links to articles in other languages, and translate the paragraphs from one language to another, leaving the ones that they do not understand.

Paragraphs from different languages could very well live together (translator note: cohabiter translated literally) on the same page, (as one can see, for example, on Swiss administration forms)

Links from other pages in other languages could always be added to the end of a paragraph.

End translation

Iedereen in zijn eigen taal? Alle talen gelijk? Ja, daar is natuurlijk wel wat voor te zeggen. Maar of het de communicatie ten goede komt betwijfel ik. Ik zag al veel duitse teksten hier verschijnen, en in navolging daarvan ben ik maar begonnen de tekst bij mijn fotos in het Nederlands te zetten. ter wille van de broodnodige communicatie zet ik die er tot nu toe ook maar in het engels bij.

De planten artikelen waar ik voornamelijk mee werk kunnen heel goed de namen in alle talen gaan vermelden, ik zag al een trend in die richting. Wat dat betreft is het wel goed de artikelen hier kort te houden en de inhoud in elke taal te hebben.

Voor planten lijkt het me nogal dubbel ten opzichte van de links die we ook krijgen of soms al hebben. Bovendien staan die vertalingen als het goed is straks ook nog eens in wiktionary. Graag je reactie, MG. Or should we keep all discussions here in English? 19:56, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

At least we should keep talks about general policies in English. Discussions in other languages just adds confusion to talk pages. The above discussion just emphasizes my point. --Stonda 13:32, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Non credo che sia una buona Idea - Diese Forderung halte ich für abwegig und unangemessen - Nem igazád Stonda Foreigner 14:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

That would mean the commons not being a multilingual project, there has to be an opportunity for people who do not speak english to contribute to discussions about policies or anything else. -- Joolz 00:13, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, and there has to be peace on Earth. Sorry, but you must use English. You can type it on any keyboard. Lots of people know it as a second language, probably for economic reasons related to the USA and the former British Empire. Chinese and Spanish lose out as being impossible for many people to type, few know Chinese as a second language, and in general many people preferring such languages are simply not on the net. Arabic can't even be displayed on many computers, never mind typed. That leaves English. AlbertCahalan 18:02, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

I forgot a language. Second to English would be Latin. We can all hate it equally. We can discuss modern topics now, thanks to a dictionary of modern terms published by the Holy See. AlbertCahalan 18:04, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

fr Vous oubliez l'esperanto... ; eo Vi forgesas esperanton... ; en You forgot esperanto... Bouil 08:09, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Please note: ... few Chinese and Arabs know English as a second language, and millions of chines are currentliy entering on the net. English can't even be displayed on many computers in asia, never mind typed. That leaves the native language of these native speakers. Foreigner 08:45, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latin binomial

This is not good. You won't get everybody to list their dog pictures under... whatever it would be, and most people looking for dog pictures wouldn't find them there. AlbertCahalan 18:23, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Since this obfuscation is being used, please verify my guesses:

rhubarb?

gooseberry?

... the first ont seems "fr:rhubarbe" to me, the part you make jam with, without the leaves.

Any other food I've missed because of Latin binomial names and lack of category usage?

AlbertCahalan 19:45, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, won't happen. en:Binomial nomenclature predates Anglosaxon world domination, and is here to stay. Common names are too ambiguous. 80.58.192.197 18:23, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I didn't say that Latin binomial names were bad to have. I just ask that they not be the only names. If you know other names (not just English) and do not at least include them on the description page, you're needlessly making things difficult for others. AlbertCahalan 19:41, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Also, if you really want to insist on Latin, you can start by moving all the Homo sapiens pictures. No? AlbertCahalan 19:41, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Español: En español puede haber decenas de nombres comunes locales para la misma planta. Sólo el nombre científico garantiza la homogeneidad: sólo hay que buscarlo en Google previamente. / English: In spanish there are dozens of vernacular names for a single species (I guess it is the same in Britain or any other not colonial country) and the same En:vernacular name applies to distinct species: common names are equivocal. / Español: El nombre científico representa un esfuerzo de normalización y es una buena cosa: ¡AlbertCahalan, creía que eras partidario! English: --LP 11:29, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

funny thing is, that the name of the first of these images "rabarbar lodygi" is not a latin binomial :) ... it's a polish description of the image and means "rhubarb, stems" ... just fyi, Blueshade 14:50, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I also think this is a supremely bad idea. There's a good reason, when I uploaded a picture of a cat, I didn't tag it Category:Felis silvestris catus. Because until my image was retagged, I didn't even know what that meant. Categories need to be USABLE if you want them to be USED! That means categories should be where you expect them to be. Secondly, categories should be easy to use. You shouldn't have to hunt all over commons to find what you think should be Category:Cats. I'll bet most people who categorise don't look up the category to make sure it's what they think it is first. That means if this policy was fully implemented, you'd need people whose sole task was to "watch" the obvious categories and move items out of them to their Latin counterparts as they appeared.

I don't see who this policy helps. Latin speakers?? Certainly no one else, except maybe zoologists. Finally it makes it extra hard for people who speak non-European languages. Using "Cats" (ie, English) is bad enough, but to go and use Latin?! What chance do they have?

--pfctdayelise 00:00, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Templates or Imbedded Text

With the arrival of templates, such as Template:English giving {{English}}, I am a bit confused as to what the language system should be. On most policy pages there are little tags at the top of the page which seem less intrusive. Once you get more than a half dozen languages using the template system they start to take up a lot of space. I don't know that that is necessarily bad, but it can start to look a bit cluttered, and distract from the actual images. Choosing to only list a few languages seems to defeat the entire purpose of a multi-lingual project. Anyway, shouldn't we choose one system or the other, or is there something I don't understand about the technicalities?

Surely a part of the problem is that these little tags are listed one under another, each in its own line, instead of being one beside another. --Eleassar777 18:06, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

This is being discussed on Commons:Village pump, CSS stylesheet alterations has been proposed to get round this problem -- Joolz 20:05, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, most people with access to a computer know a little english. I think the first language should be this, and then links to eventual translations. I'll let someone else decide if the language list should be on the side, on top or below... G®iffen 16:32, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

To close this topic, the language templates are now based upon the language code: {{en}}, {{fr}}, etc. The 'inline' keyword can be added to display the text without adding line breaks. When many languages are displayed the user can customise his own style sheet to hide other languages than the ones he understands.

-- AlNo (talk) 09:09, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] India

I'm aware of the policy that countries should redirect to their native script. Examples are of Russia and Germany. One user did the same for India, moving it to Bharat. Now the Indian Constitution recognises both the names as the official name of the country. Hence both infact are correct and official. India is in English and Bharat is in Hindi, and also both languages are the official languages of the Indian Union. I don't want to take a unilateral stance, but I feel that the name should be India; which is perfectly acceptable considering the above. What is the general consensus on this anomaly? Nichalp 05:01, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I was the user who moved it and I did not at the time know that "India" was an official name even though English was an official language. I have no strong opinion about it knowing that but is Bharat the more commonly used name natively? I also want to clarify what is the right course of action for say Egypt, should it be renamed to the Arabic? gren 06:32, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The first line of the Indian Constitution states: "India, that is Bharat...". In Hindi, Bharat is used, but the term India also is commonly used in cities. In English, Bharat is seldom used. A google search reveals Bharat used mostly for names of companies. Nichalp 12:39, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If both names are official then it should be fair to call the country however we like, thus westerners will call it "India" and indigenous population and such can call it "Bharat". The use of the name should be focused on the easiest recognition of the subject at matter, the country of interest, the mass of land that originates this discussion, is either India or Bharat, the right to choose belongs to each and everyone. unknown 22:16, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Bharat is just the name in Hindi, but Hindi is not spoken throughout the country, unlike English which is used at least by a significant number of people everywhere. There are other names forIndia in one of the dozen of official languages of India, and many more considering the numerous indian languages without official status.

The quoted constitution is only its English version, but the Indian constitution also has official translations in any one of its dozen of official languages. Note that, despite there are a dozen of official languages, Hindi is official almost everywhere and English is second (there are Indianstates that don't recognize English as an official language, and the reverse is also true). All other official languages are recognized only at the federal level, but not locally in every state (for Example Urdu, which is normally written only with the Arabic script).

So don't assume that the names "India" (English) or "Bharat" (Hindi transliterated from the Devanagari script to the Latin script) are universal! Even worse: "Bharat" is just one of the Latin transliteration adapted to English, but this is not the only one! Verdy p 04:20, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portuguese speaking peoples all over the world & Brazillian speakers

Please, who should address the currently abysmal situation that's happening in the Portuguese section?

In truth Brazilians have literally taken control over the Portuguese areas.

There's one big but, to this, and it's the one that Brazillians speak a version of Portuguese that was recently modified by them and them alone, and it's written and spoken by them and them alone.

As for every other single country in the world, almost a dozen across a handful of continents, speaks the oficial Portuguese, it goes without saying, spoken as well in Portugal!

To make matter even worse, most of the 'changes' enacted by Brazillians, are not 'choices' but merely grammatical errors that have been perpetuated by their own, unique, society...

They use 'Israelense" to speak of and Israelite, when the "Israelita" is correct, and -ense termination only for cities, not for nations. this is not only an error in grammar, but at points offensive, to in this case Israel - As it tends to denote that Israel isn't a real Nation. Many other oddities, such as removing the C from correct or contract, exist - without explanation or logic. They refuse to capitalize months, while they insist on capitalizing all first letters in titles. It's bizarre and nearly unexplainable.

This is highly impairing native Portuguese speakers all over the world from Portugal in Europe, to Africa, to Oceania and Asia access to their real, oficial and original version of Portuguese.

The administration of the Portuguese area, now mostly controlled by Brazillians, who outwheigh us in raw numbers, has pretty much taken the unbeliavable stance of taking their own, personal, and rule breaking version of "Portuguese" over the one, oficial, that's spoken by Europeans, Africans, Asians all over the world... since they outwheigh us in raw numbers, they're pretty much devastating everything that was written in oficial \ non-brazilian Portuguese.

I sincerely submit to you, that this is nothing short of cultural opression. Portuguese is directly descendant of Roman Latin, and has been spoken for centuries, topping easily one millenium. It is currently spoken by myriads of ethnically millions of people all over and in all continents of the world. But right now, they're all being oppressed and quashed in their right to their culture. I believe this violates the spirit of WIKIPEDIA, strongly.

I would, and in discussion, gathered, most Portuguese, and regular Portuguese speaking countries all over the world would, prefer to have either a "Brazil" ou "Portuguese Brazillian" section... I have no quarrels with them using their particular own version of the language no matter how bizarre it may be, but right now, it's cannibalizing all other countries in the world and depriving them of their own - to top it all of, official and original - version.

Please, to whomever this may concern. Thank you in advance.

I don't exactly understand how this is oppression. Are other versions of portuguese being deleted? If so, that does seem a bit silly. This issue has been encountered in English where a Brit might well say the same thing about Americans. I believe policy maintains that each writer can use the variant of their choice when writing personal messages, but that in articles a consistent format should be used. Usually whatever was used first is maintained, unless it is an article about the specific place in question. For example, articles about Brazil would use Brazilian, while articles on Portugal would use Portugal Portuguese. However, if you think the two are totally different you could split the two, like nynorsk and bokmål did in the norwegian wikipedia. Its really up to the portuguese speaking community. Peregrine981 03:33, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, I am portuguese from Portugal and a contribuitor to the PT wikipedia and only want to say that is very strange that this discussion is taken place here, We (portuguese, brazilians and other portuguese speakers) decided to live with our differences and we don't think that it's good to split the portuguese wikipedia in two. One day, if we decide different, the discussion will not take place here for sure. Paulo Juntas 12:18, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Intolerance is indeed a *very* ugly thing. When allied to ignorance its even worse. muriel@pt 14:13, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Dear anonimous, may I remind you that all languages change and develop new forms of writing and grammar. Portuguese is no exception, and it is not spoken in Portugal today as it was 500 years ago, so you too use a form of Portuguese that is not the "original" and "pure" Portuguese anymore. Your problem is that there are more people who speak Portuguese in the city of São Paulo alone than there are in whole Portugal, and also that there are 4,2 Brazilians to each non-Brazilian who speaks Portuguese. In spite of this numbers, the great majority of brazilian Wikipedists do respect other variants of the language, and I must say the same about the great majority of the portuguese fellows. Linguistic changes (in both senses) made in articles are reverted as soon as they are detected and the author informed about our tolerant rules. Of course, as more and more Brazilians discover the Wikipedia, it is obvious that brazilian Portuguese will be more and more present in the articles, what also makes sense, since there are more and more Brazilians reading them. I am convinced that forking the Wikipedia in Portuguese would be a waste of time and resources, and it would be really a pity. I do not have any problem whatsoever with the form of writing in Portugal, and I try to get things the right way: I learn your form of Portuguese as a hobby, as a new manner to see the world and, perhaps most important, as a sign of respect. Hope you do the same, as do people from Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and France with French; Germany, Switzerland and Austria with Germany; Belgium and the Netherlands with Dutch; Spain, Mexico, Argentina and all Latin America with Spanish; USA, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and so on with English. Something to think about:

Words are a mirror of their times. By looking at the areas in which the vocabulary of a language is expanding fastest in a given period, we can form a fairly accurate impression of the chief preoccupations of society at that time.

- John Ayto, lexicographer

Regards, --Mschlindwein 23:57, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Português: Acho que o português de Portugal convive bem com o brasileiro. Aprendi muita coisa da cultura de Portugal por causa disso. abraço! / English: I think that Portuguese of Portugal is able to live with Portuguese of Brazil. I learnt a lot about Portugal culture thanks to that. Greetings! --FML ^hi 18:19, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

This user is also a liar. The -ense termination is used in many other nacionalities names in Brazil (canadian-canadense, north-american-estadunidense).

and rule breaking version of "Portuguese" over the one, oficial, that's spoken by Europeans, Africans, Asians all over the world...

Did you REALLY think that Portuguese is used identically in everyone other country in the world?!RSRSRSMarc Sena 03:56, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

In fact brasilian Portuguese differs from european Portuguese - but hey, that's a real minor problem. Even if it was spanish a native speaker from Portugal could easyly understand it all. Obrigado for your attention Foreigner

[edit] Chinese (中文）

Why does commons persist in having separate Chinese pages with traditional and simplified characters, when zh: itself no longer does this? pfctdayelise 23:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Because this site does not yet have automatic Chinese converter used at Chinese Wikipedia, Wiktionary, or Wikisource. There are hopes to add a converter here, but it is not done yet.--Jusjih 16:07, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there a bug report or technical report about this anywhere? How can we request such a thing? pfctdayelise (translate?) 04:05, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Use Bugzilla.--Jusjih 15:49, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redirects for categories

Re:

• Categories can be re-directed (from one language to another).

Well, it depends on what do you mean by "can be redirected". Of course, you can write #REDIRECT to a category page and, after visiting the page, you will be redirected. But, the contents of that redirected category stays in there, not visible on the displayed destination page. See bugzilla:3311, bugzilla:710, and as an example, Category:Badcategoryname.

--Mormegil 16:11, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Multilingual descriptions

Shouldn't this page say something about how descriptions in multiple languages should look at the top of the page? --Pmsyyz 16:12, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

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I can only concur about multi-language descriptions. IM(nsH)O the descriptions should be limited to one sentence, spanning a single row. Multi-row description might be rather good foundation for a stub, and therefore ought to go to the particular Wiki leaving just a link behind. With the proposed chnage the article in the example (about Concave mirror) would become much shorter - "EN: Reflections from Concave mirror. Claimed neutrality of Wikipedia should keep all descriptions together, either at the beginning (100 languages x 1 row = 100 rows/few screens), or at the end. -- Zlatko + ^(talk) 16:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

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Hallo, I am not satisfied about this answer. I'm sure,that I saw images with different describtions, but unfortunately I can't find them again -- Jlorenz1 17:15, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page titles and Categories

There is a need for page titles and categories in different languages. As the same word can have different meanings in different languages, it has to be disambiguated. The best way to do this is using language codes. The German word for mobile phone is Handy (which, by the way, many Germans assume to be an English word) hence Handy (de) should redirect to mobile phone (I just did this).

There should also be a category Category:Handys (de). Any image or media belonging to Category:Mobile phones should also belong to Category:Handys (de). Mobile phone on the other hand should not belong to it, but Handy should do so, or else the English page title will apear in the German category. As mobile phone is nevertheless the only page German users will see, a link to Category:Handys (de) should be included on mobile phone.

As English is the lingua franca of the modern world, I'd suggest using the naming conventions of the English wikipedia for ordinary page names and categories, while the naming conventions of the respective wikipedia is used for the redirecting pages title (xx). 82.135.12.246 06:32, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

We are waiting for a technical solution to the problem of multilingual categorisation. In the meantime, please just use English. Any system like you propose will just require too much manual work, and it's silly, when a proper technical solution is what's really needed.

Page titles (article names) can be in any language. Redirects should be created for other languages. But you don't need to use the (de) suffix -- I doubt a German speaker is going to type "Handy (de)" into the search box, they will just type "Handy". Page names certainly don't have to be in English (but I would always include an English RDR, otherwise we are likely to end up with forked content!) For example, Russia is a RDR to Россия. pfctdayelise (translate?) 07:54, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

What is the status of the technical solution? Markus Schmaus 13:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

We're waiting for the developers to do something about it? I'm not sure. bugzilla:3311 (Automatic category redirects) seems to be our best bet. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:59, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

How about a soft redirect while the developers are waiting for the results. It works for the English Wikipedia. It may work here as well. Aditya Kabir 11:21, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Language-free templates?

I've made Template:Plus as a way to show that an image was made by combining two others. It needs no translation, as it contains no words! Wouldn't this be the ideal solution for as many situations as possible in the long run, rather than a complicated system of templates that might not be in the language of a user's choice? We could potentially:

• Offer a purely pictorial browsing system, where Category:Animals would be represented by a cluster of images of cats, dogs, birds, fish, etc. Each sub-category would be represented by a smaller cluster with less dispersion in the image subjects.

• Extend the + equation further: "= + User:Seahen + John Doe + The GIMP" would mean that John Doe and I had co-created an image by retouching using The GIMP. In this way, we could show who had made each image and how.

• Use icons for the tabs and sidebar menus. For "Random file," we might use a rolling die with pictures on the sides; for "discussion," a bunch of talk balloons.

This would not only mean less translation work, but it would mean almost everyone could use this site, even those who couldn't read so well. What does everyone think? Seahen 01:18, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Great to see a template that doesn't have words, but I am not too sure about some of your other ideas. For example I am not sure it is technically possible to replace categories with pictures (or ? not sure exactly what you're proposing there). And for the side menus, I'm not sure if we'd want images there because they would be so frequently hit. And the real problem of translation is translating policy and guidelines, not one-word menu items. I don't think you can convert Commons:Deletion guidelines to images somehow :). But interesting ideas nonetheless. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:45, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm not proposing we eliminate the category pages as we know them. Here's how the words-free navigation system would work: We'd establish a Portal namespace or somesuch. Then, suppose we had a Portal:Animals. The page would consist of:

• An image that was a cluster of bird photos and drawings, like the one at right; it would link to our Portal:Birds.
• Similar images for fish, insects, mammals, etc.
• Individual images if they (a) were featured (in which case they'd be marked with little stars) or (b) didn't fall into any of the sub-category clusters.
• An asterisk or something linking to Category:Animals.
• A cluster inside an up arrow, linking to the parent portal (probably a Portal:Nature or a Portal:Living Things).

Every image in a portal would link to another portal, an individual image, or a page that was a pure gallery (and, if it was a category, had no major sub-categories). If we put cluster images on the Main Page that linked to all the top-level portals, text would become completely optional.

As for navigational sidebar images being "frequently hit," so is our logo frequently hit! Seahen 14:39, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image Captions

I propose a policy by which inside captions, descriptions and/or legends for images and diagrams should be language neutral (and script neutral) as far as this is possible. Whis would allow for the images to be used in an international context regardless of the target language/script.

[edit] Examples

Examples of bad practice

Labels inside diagram, language specific.

Caption included in diagram, language specific.

Labels inside diagram, language and script specific.

Examples of good practice

• Change this into this.
• Change this into this.

Discouraged: Labels inside diagram, language specific.

Internationalised version: Labels outside, image can be used in all latin-script based languages.

SVG version: In-image captions means less work for readers to understand, and at 25% of the filesize, it's less of a concern if per-language copies are made, providing there is somebody with adequate graphic, SVG/XLM and language profficiency, as well as willingness, time and other resources.

[edit] Proposal

• The images should be captioned outside of the image itself, on the description page.
• Parts of the image should be identified in a language-neutral manner, e.g. by
  • colour coding
  • numbering
  • international scientfic symbols
  • mathematic signs, etc.
• Language/script specific images should be tagged by the {{Convert to international}} template, to encourage users to convert the images to a language neutral appearance.

--AtonX 14:45, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

As this is already the practice (at FPC, diagrams are requested to be converted to language neutral form), I think there is no problem with adding a formal statement to this effect to the language policy. You are welcome to do so.

Please point out that language-specific versions are welcome as long as a language-neutral version applies as well. Also, for the purposes of converting between languages, SVG files are particularly suited to this task. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 11:40, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• I strongly oppose the introduction of this policy for svg files. Because of easy translation (and relatively small size of vector files) it is unadvisable to want to convert all svg images to numbered versions. This makes reading the diagram often very difficult. A simple text editor is all one needs to construct the necessary language version when required. Anyway, language neutral versions do not exist. In some languages arabic numbers are not even used. I would however accept such an advice (but not as strong as making it a policy) for bitmap based pictures (jpg, png, gif). Lycaon 00:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
  • OK, phrasing this as a recommendation/suggestion/advice is better than "policy", you're right. Best to prepend the phrase "It is strongly recommended", then. :) pfctdayelise (说什么?) 01:55, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with the suggestion, that this should be made a recommendation. I however am convinced, that this should apply to SVG images as well, a different format does not justify exemption from the recommendation. The reason are as follows:
    1. A recommendation is what it is, it simply tells users, that things can be done in a different (and hopefully better for all) way. It does not mean, that all SVG images must be converted to a numbered version. Noone said that.
    2. For millions of people on Earth, reading a numbered diagram captioned in his/her language is much less difficult than reading an English-captioned diagram (not to speak of Dutch, or any other given language).
    3. Asserting that converting a SVG image to a different-language version is simple, is an understatement. In the easiest case, it means 1. downloading file from Commons, 2. downloading a SVG editor, 3. learning to use a SVG editor, 4. translating labels, 5. uploading to Commons. Using a simple text editor is not so simple either: One would have to have at least a basic understanding of the SVG (XML) markup language, which is even more difficult.
    4. Having different language versions for SVG images means, we would potentially have some 250 language versions for each file (currently the number of Wikipedia projects). Having language-neutral versions as much as possible (note: possible!) would prevent this resource hog in the future.

--AtonX 10:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Disagree. We should have a recommendation (or maybe rather “best practice”) to consider creating language-neutral images. But to state it as a requirement for all images goes waaay too far. Numbers are fine if they are few (but still, they are culture-dependent), for images of certain complexity, it is IMHO impossible to create a version both useful and culture-neutral. What exactly is the problem you are trying to solve?

Note to point 4 above: having different languages for SVG images means we would potentially have 250 language versions for each file. OK, while having language-neutral versions would mean… what? Having one image with 250 paragraphs of number↔caption mappings below? (So if I am not using Afar or Abkhaz, I will need to scroll down and up to learn what each number means?) Or what?

--Mormegil 18:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I guess that the main idea is that you can use the image in your local Wikipedia, and add captions in your local language. Most of the times, it's enoguh to write the English captions in the picture itself... Yuval Y • Chat • 02:44, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

So that now Commons is English-only project? (With a recommendation to create images that “other languages” might use, too, but please, do not put them on our English-only Commons.) Don’t think so. --Mormegil 09:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I meant that it's better to use images with numbers instead of captions, and when you write the legend in the commons, you don't have to write it in all the 250 languages. Sorry for not expressing myself clearly... Yuval Y • Chat • 10:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

If the image has the caption "outside" - i.e. on the description page (e.g. in English), the image can be directly used in any language version of any wikimedia project (or elsewhere). The caption can be then used in the translated version in the target document. This would eliminate the need to download, modify, upload various language versions. --AtonX 14:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Numbers make it more difficult for the reader to understand the image, especially with 10+ numbers. What is better? For one person to take the time to update the captions on either an SVG or a "blank" PNG, or for every reader to take extra time to try to understand which numbers go with which caption? Changing captions in an SVG is not difficult at all. Many people are spending a lot of time to create the SVG's in the first place, it takes much less time to update the captions. If really needed, a page could be set up for requested SVG caption changes. --Interiot 04:59, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

There is always some weight applied to all arguments, and all options have certain advantages es well as disadvantages. Numbered or colour-coded images (regardless of file format) can be used straight away in (almost) all language versions of all Wikimedia projects, albeit with the added effort of the reader to understand the image, in case he/she has—say—10+ items to identify. All what is needed is for the author to translate the caption for the target text and for the reader to correlate between labels (numbers/colours) and description. Note, that these are both file-format independent. Then, in the second place, comes the effort needed to convert a language-specific image into a different language. In this case, in addition to the language profficiency (to translate from the source) and reader effort (to correlate), image manipulation and Commons-contributing profficiency is required. Moreover, this is file-format dependent. Again, nobody says, all images must be number/colour coded. However, as seen above, there are clear advantages in encouraging authors to provide language-neutral images; either primarily, or in addition to language-specific forms. --AtonX 09:10, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't a "Requested Caption Changes" page cover all those? --Interiot 10:51, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

And what would be that? --AtonX 14:24, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

That would obviously be a page where you can request caption change, given a translation table... Lycaon 14:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

After thinking about it a bit more, I think these should be our priorities:

1. For important diagrams, we strongly encourage the creation of a numbered/language-neutral version, because that is the easiest way for new languages to incorporate the image into their article (as easy as Inkscape and GIMP are, many more people know wikitext, and users who aren't already familiar with Inkscape/GIMP will find it easier to incorporate the numbered version right away).
2. If someone has gone to the effort of making a local-language translated diagram available, under no circumstances will the numbered/neutral version be preferred over the translated version, for that specific language. (as long as it's otherwise equal in detail, etc)
3. We never discourage someone from going to the effort of making a translated non-neutral version available for their local language.

I agree with everything said above, except for the "250 versions of an image is bad" part. As far as I can tell, it's already common practice to provide multiple translated versions of a PNG or SVG. And if we really do have 250 people who are willing to spend time to improve the readability and ease of use of a diagram for their language, then we shouldn't stop them. But it's also good to have the neutral version available as a backup. --Interiot 18:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a version I can totally agree with. It might be useful also to think about a standard way of organizing the various versions of an image. (I guess the best way is to list all language-specific versions on the neutral image description page and to link only to the neutral version from the specific versions.) --Mormegil 11:58, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

hallo, as SVG allows layers, another way is to put the languge-version of the description to an extra layer of the image (even numbers). thus, internationalization of the image will only need to replace the layer - or, put them all into one file and hide them in a language-version. in fact, the language-neutral version could use some layers of descriptors, numbers in latin as we use, chinese symbols, und so on, which could be used by many different WPs, so maybe we'll only need a dozen of versions with "easier images" - greetings --W!B: 13:35, 22 December 2006 (UTC) - PS besides, the categories to language-neutral images should be extended, which makes it easier to find them..

[edit] Roman emperors in Latin?

I see that categories for popes are in Latin. Shouldn't be Roman Emperors in Latin as well, considering they ruled over such vast areas and no "nationality" so to speak can claim them as only theirs? See for example Category:Marcus Aurelius. Gryffindor 12:05, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

• Listing the popes by their latin names is modern language neutral, but really makes no sense other than that. Lisiting Roman Emporers by their latin names makes sense because that how they were referred to at the time, and many are still known by those names.--Evrik 05:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. Gryffindor 10:48, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Listing of saints

It is the common practice that saints get referred to by the standard name in the language being spoken or written. Hence St Paul in English, San Pablo in Spanish, Sao Paolo in Portugese, etc. Since English is the lingua franca here, I want to suggest that we name articles about the saints and the corresponding categories in English with redirects from the other languages. --Evrik 05:24, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe to be more neutral they should be listed in Latin whenever possible. Apart from that in their native names. I don't see how a Portugese saint should be listed with an English name.... Gryffindor 10:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

The standards for naming saints on the English wiki are here. As for English versus latin ... English is today what latin was 1000 years ago. Since most of the business of the commons is in ENglish I say we stick with English as often as possible and have lots of redirects. --Evrik 21:48, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

And the standard for naming popes is Latin [1]. I am not objecting to saints being named in English, however fact remains that St. Peter is the first pope. Gryffindor 09:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• Show me wher he is referred to as Petrus in English. --Evrik 22:38, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The Commons guideline says that popes should be in Latin, St. Peter was the first pope therefore Petrus or Simon Petrus if you will. Gryffindor 08:28, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Since the Pope is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and the head of state of the Vatican City (where Latin is the official language), using Latin for popes makes sense. Saints, on the other hand, may be Eastern Orthodox, or date from a time before the schism when Greek, rather than Latin, was the lingua franca. I bet most of the saints mentioned by name in the New Testament (Mary, Joseph, the Apostles, Mary Magdalene, Joseph of Arimathea, etc.) couldn't speak a word of Latin. I think using English as the modern-day lingua franca is much more NPOV than using Latin. —Angr 17:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

• There is a whole thread on St Peter here: Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/Disputes#Saint_Peter. --Evrik 13:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need some help with category names

In the last weeks I've had my hands on some categories and galeries of municipalities in the district Niederschlesischer Oberlausitzkreis. In the last days I begann to create the rest of them. Some of the missing categories and galleries aren't very problematic, but some of them are. Please have a look at my watchlist and tell me whether the following names are okay (all suffixes are in German, is that okay?):

• „Boxberg/O.L.“ (short formal name); „Boxberg/Oberlausitz“ (formal name); „Boxberg (Oberlausitz)“ (common name with a Wikipedia like suffix)
• „Gablenz (Oberlausitz)“ (common name with a Wikipedia like suffix)
• Krauschwitz (There are two municipalitiess of this name, one in Saxony-Anhalt, one in Saxony/Upper Lusatia. What's the best suffix here?)
• Markersdorf (This is the only municipality of this name, but there are several subdivisions of the same name in other German states and Austria.)
• Vierkirchen (There's a second Vierkirchen in Bavaria.)

For the names used in the Wikipedias there are two interwiki links pointing to the same list in the German and the English Wikipedias, all articles exist there. --32X 23:34, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming policy

Hiya, where should I be expressing a concern about this "native name" policy? I routinely work on Islam-related topics, and the native names are in Arabic, which I can't read. I'd thought the most reasonable thing to do here was to keep articles at the Latin-spelling of the names (such as Mecca and Muhammad), but I see that some of the pages are getting moved to Arabic. This makes my watchlist pretty much unusable, since I can't tell one name from the next. Or if I'm looking at a gallery, I often can't remember which gallery I'm looking at, since the title is incomprehensible to me. I don' want to get into move wars here... Where can I express concerns about this new policy? Or, is there a possible technical solution, where a page can have multiple names, and we can use settings to determine which language we want to view them in? --Elonka 06:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV pushing in file descriptions.

I have noticed some persons inserting their own POV/OR in file descriptions[2][3][4][5]. Is there a policy about that? // Liftarn

[edit] Multilingual descriptions language order

Hello, I am interrested in translating help and commons pages from English into German. At the moment I am translating Commons:Templates for galleries and that leads to my question: is there any guideline for the the order of language-description on e.g. gallery pages, like it seems to be for the language link box at the top of pages completely translated? By now it seems to be no “official” policy or guideline at Commons even in the case of the language box. Kind of regards --Godai2 21:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

What I see: usually in alphabetical order (by native name sound or by two letter abbreviation), sometimes with the native language of a topic first. See related: m:Interwiki sorting order and [6] --Pmsyyz 03:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! So I won't add any further information concerning the language order at Commons:Templates for galleries and it's German translation. Kind of regards --Godai2 08:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Note: But what I already did, was to show on the example the (most widespreaded) practice on Commons, German (Deutsch) before English description. --Godai2 08:36, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Alphabetical order (in native tongue) so Deutsch {{de| before English {{en|. Gryffindor 15:16, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] proposed amendment

ah, fitting here:

proposed amendment : the numerous descriptions should not adversely affect the legibility of the article, so that the media files presented in the articles don't appear after three pages of description. One language should be chosen for main description at the top of the article, other languages should be used at the end of the article.

I can't agree that: besides the - unquestioned status of english as a lingua franca on commons - all languages without exception should be treated equal, there is no intention to describe any article or category in any specific language - in fact, we will get about 200-500 languages, so its illusive thinking about "primary" language

we have {{en|''english texttexttext''}}, similar to en:Template:Lang it will set

<div class="description en" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><span class="language en" title="English"><b>English:</b></span> ''english texttexttext'' </div>

which will be enough for any software to deal with languages - any further correction should not be "hard-coded", but by CSS User style - which follows WCAG 1.0 Accessibility Guidelines of modern webdesign - thus, if one doesn't like to see suaheli or samoan - or english - text, it could easely done by putting into ones personal CSS:

div.description en  { display: none; }

maybe we will get sometimes an extra Preferences-section to choose the languages one wants to see or not - only guideline should be

proposed amendment : MARKUP ANY language-specific text with our lang-templates

(besides the one written in english as a "technical tool") - thats including the given "multilingual" Concave mirror-article --W!B: 09:11, 18 April 2008 (UTC)