UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/Language issues

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Language issues

After some recent experience concerning PLRDLF's images, I've discovered that when the "Language" section, under "Preferences" is set to a language other than english, this will take effect on the Special:Upload page. For example, when it is set to German, all images will have a "Beschreibung" section, instead of "Summary". If an administrator could fix this, then please, could one do so. If not, then I think we'll have to contact Daveh.

There may be other similar problems encountered when changing the language from the default, but I am led to believe that this is a unique case. Firstly and most simply because we have no history of similar problems. Secondly, because whilst "Summary" is changed to "Beschreibung", "Licensing" is not changed to "Lizenz", which is what would be used on a german wiki (As can be seen in this example. - Game Lord^{Talk|Contribs} 14:12, 30 November 2008 (EST)

Okay, I think I found out how to change it, (Admin-only link: [1]) but I'm not sure if I should - If I change it for German, I'll have to change it for the 150+ other languages the site supports as well to be consistent. Given that the site is entirely in English, it's probably a safe assumption that pretty much all of our visitors are literate in English. There's actually very little benefit to be gained by changing your language under the Preferences window. A very few pages have their links changed, and the buttons at the top and in a few other places are translated, but all of the actual content remains in English as it was written. My advice is that if you're fluent enough in English to get any benefit at all from this site, then you can probably live with the button at the top saying "edit" instead of "bearbeiten". --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 15:14, 30 November 2008 (EST)

I don't think we'd have to change it for every single language that the wiki supports. Only the languages that Elder Scrolls was translated into would suffice. The ones I can think of off hand are: German, French, and Italian. There are probably others and we could probably also get a list from Bethesda if necessary. If this list then turns out to be too long, then I say we only do it for the most probable languages. Or even, only the languages which we know cause current problems. This is currently only German, but if we notice another problem later, then an admin can quickly step in and fix it. - Game Lord^{Talk|Contribs} 17:03, 30 November 2008 (EST)

Well, I checked out French, Spanish, and Italian, and they all have the same problem - I'd guess that any language other than English would as well. If this is any indication, we'd need to also do Russian, Czech, Polish, Swedish, Greek, Hungarian, Chinese, Japanese, and Finnish. Adding in any nations represented by Users from Known Countries, and you'd have a bunch more. The question is: is this the only thing that causes a problem for international users? Or are there others we just haven't encountered yet? I'm actually slightly concerned because some system messages (like the official copyright violation notice directly below the edit window) have been changed from the default, and point at a different license than the default, and these have only been changed in the English version. Thus if you view the site in a different language, you're actually submitting under a different license, because we haven't changed the text in other languages. Not that this is likely to be a problem, but it is cause for alarm. How many other places do we have official notices that have been changed from the default but only in the English language version? And what are the legal ramifications if some editors are seeing a different legal message than others? --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 18:01, 30 November 2008 (EST)

Even if another solution would be preferable in the long term, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't just change the page right now, given that we know we have one editor with his preference set to German who is uploading images. It takes 10 seconds of an admin's time to change that single page, versus countless unnecessary edits to go back and edit every image after PLRDLF has uploaded it. I'd rather have our editors spend their time making constructive edits on the site than wasting their time doing unnecessary busy work. Therefore I've gone ahead and changed the german-language page. --Nephele^Talk 01:38, 5 December 2008 (EST)

Also, for anyone who is wondering, I can't see any reason to be concerned about licensing/copyright for readers who choose to select a default language other than English. The site's copyright is established by the statement "All content is available under the terms of the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License" at the bottom of each page, plus the "cc (some rights reserved)" icon at the bottom left. Those are identical even if you select a different default language (at least, assuming that French and German are representative of how the wiki treats other languages). The Privacy Policy, About, and General Disclaimer links all still lead to the appropriate (english-language) pages. Most of the text that appears under the edit box is the same, english-language text ("Any changes will be visible as soon as you save the page..."). Immediately under the edit box is a chunk of text that is translated into your selected language, but that text is still valid for UESP. In particular, it does state, in german/french, that all contributions are licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License, and points to our standard UESPWiki:Copyright and Ownership page for details.

In short, I think it is safe to say that no matter what language you choose to use when viewing/editing the site, it is still clearly and unambiguously stated that the content is licensed under the correct license. --Nephele^Talk 18:25, 5 December 2008 (EST)