Last modified: 2005-09-02 07:57:41 UTC
Individual Wikipedias manage their interface text by having administrators update MediaWiki: namespace pages. (cf. Special:Allmessages) To locally update A, one edits B: * A=the English "Donations" link in the sidebar on en:WP (default interface) B=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sitesupport * A=the Lithuanian "Donations" link on en:WP, for a user using the lt: interface B=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sitesupport/lt * A=the Lithuanian "Donations" link on lt:WP (default interface) B=http://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sitesupport To update the text of that link in the default language file used by all Wikipedias when there is no local page overriding the message text, you must... file a bug in bugzilla (after figuring out this is where to turn) asking for the change to be made. See bug 3245 for an example: http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3245 PROPOSED FIX: Write a script that regularly checks for changes to the local MediaWiki-driven interfaces, and assist devs/admins in rapidly updating the language files with that content. (Note, when writing the above script, that one should check many languages as well as many projects. For instance, when updating the French-language interface strings, one should check the Fr: translation of a given string *on all wikis*, to see if any of them have changed since the script was last run [each language version of each project has a local Fr: translation that can override the default] , and offer a human operator some sort of script-assisted conflict resolution.)
Have a look at diffLanguage.php in the maintenance directory. It can compare the mediawiki language file with a list of messages as given by Special:Allmessages (PHP output). Example if you want to update the french language: php diffLanguage.php fr /tmp/from-fr-wikipedia.php Output lines like: accesskey-search differs: --- /tmp/mwParser-606869213-tested 2005-09-02 09:56:08.000000000 +0200 +++ /tmp/mwParser-606869213-reference 2005-09-02 09:56:08.000000000 +0200 @@ -1 +1 @@ -F +C For massive update, the best is to submit a patch as described on: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_localisation
