Last modified: 2012-01-13 14:59:49 UTC

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Bug 32257 - Narayam should default to Tamil-only on Tamil Wiki projects
Narayam should default to Tamil-only on Tamil Wiki projects
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Product: MediaWiki extensions
Classification: Unclassified
Narayam (Other open bugs)
unspecified
All All
: Normal major (vote)
: ---
Assigned To: Nobody - You can work on this!
: i18n
Depends on:
Blocks: 32578
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2011-11-08 05:54 UTC by sodabottle
Modified: 2012-01-13 14:59 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

See Also:
Web browser: ---
Mobile Platform: ---
Assignee Huggle Beta Tester: ---


Attachments

Description sodabottle 2011-11-08 05:54:18 UTC
Hi the latest rollout for Narayam in Tamil Wiki projects has broken the following things:

1) The layout name "தமிழ்99” is appearing in english as "Tamil99" despite the translate wiki variable still being "தமிழ்99” (http://translatewiki.net/wiki/MediaWiki:Narayam-ta-99/ta). It appears unchanged in the translatewiki site and is broken only in tamil wiki projects

2) The layout name "Tamil Bamini" is appearing in english despite the media wiki variable being set to "பாமினி” (http://translatewiki.net/wiki/MediaWiki:Narayam-ta-bamini/ta)

3) "More input methods" link is appearing. This shouldnt be happening in the Tamil wiki projects

These are the ones that are immediately visible. I dont know if something else is broken inside. I am still testing. Please fix these.

A general request - while rolling out new patches/versions please be careful with regression issues. A small wiki like Tamil does not have enough people to monitor such breakages and report them here. Luckily we noticed this breakage early (this could have easily gone unnoticed for days if not weeks).
Comment 1 Srikanth Logic 2011-11-08 06:29:57 UTC
A feed of release notes / changes list for i18n patch that gets applied we can keep track of and check will be of great help.

Adding to 3) , while its good to have ability to write in multiple scripts in general on a mediawiki extension, Tamil Wiki projects encourage use of Tamil and English only in its pages, hence "More input methods" must be disabled to avoid any admin overhead in deleting pages created in other languages.
Comment 2 Santhosh Thottingal 2011-11-08 07:11:05 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> A feed of release notes / changes list for i18n patch that gets applied we can
> keep track of and check will be of great help.
> 
> Adding to 3) , while its good to have ability to write in multiple scripts in
> general on a mediawiki extension, Tamil Wiki projects encourage use of Tamil
> and English only in its pages, hence "More input methods" must be disabled to
> avoid any admin overhead in deleting pages created in other languages.

The optional list of additional input methods from other languages were included based on bug reports(Bug 28474). It helps to write words other than Tamil in articles like http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%87%E0%AE%A8%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%BF (Article about Hindi, where some words will be in Hindi for illustration). Articles about language, places, people , scripts are other example. Wikitionaries also will get benefit from the feature. 

We never expect people use that feature to start writing articles in non-tamil languages, even though it is possible. But that is spam and avoiding a feature for that is not right way, IMHO.
Comment 3 sodabottle 2011-11-08 07:22:22 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)

The entire tool is titled "தமிழில் எழுத” (To type in Tamil) in tamil wiki projects. We are displaying Narayam as a Tamil typing solution, not as a multilingual input tool.

Adding ways to type in other languages under that heading is misleading. At present there is no requirement in Tamil projects (including wiktionary) to have other than Roman and Tamil typing solutions. Tamil users who know a script other than roman/tamil is a minority of a minority and certainly no one has asked for a way to type other scripts.  For the instances you are describing - (to add other transliterations) people copy the other language script from the respective language wiki project.

This is an unwanted feature that will needlessly confuse people with a potential for spam. We never asked for it and thrusting something upon us which we never asked for in the first place isnt the right way IMHO. Please remove it.
Comment 4 Gerard Meijssen 2011-11-08 07:24:57 UTC
The tool is called Narayam. Calling it "Typing in Tamil" is wrong and leads to issues like this. Narayam provides you with a keyboard method and is not restricted to Tamil. Thanks, GerardM
Comment 5 sodabottle 2011-11-08 07:31:28 UTC
>>The tool is called Narayam. Calling it "Typing in Tamil" is wrong and leads to
issues like this. Narayam provides you with a keyboard method and is not
restricted to Tamil. Thanks, GerardM

Gerard,
The entire point of adding this tool was to make it easy for people who dont have in built typing solutions to identify a typing solution from the screen. Labelling it Narayam isn't going to help anyone. The major part of the target demographic for this typing tool are people are non-regular users and IP editors, who will wander in and want to type in Tamil. That is why labeling it "To type in Tamil" is a must here. The previous javascript typing tool was also titled "to type in Tamil". Narayam has replaced it under the same name. 

Here is the short summary - Tamil wikiprojects need a tool for users to type in Tamil - not multilingual typing solutions. This was what we had in the old JS tool and this is what we agreed to have as an extension.
Comment 6 Srikanth Logic 2011-11-08 07:58:10 UTC
Bug 28474 for a different requirement. Quoting it

"This should be helpful:
- for true multilingual wikis
- for users contributing in a language or script foreign to the wiki *
- for developers wanting to test new IME
- for Scripts being used for many languages, such as Cyrillic, or Latin"

The points 1,3,4 definitely doesnt hold water in the case Tamil Wiki. Point 2 is a very very minor use case (like Santhosh pointed out in http://tawp.in/r/3b6 ). There might be atmost 100 articles(am giving a generous guesstimate here) out of 40k odd articles. So presenting the full list on toggle button is not an apt solution. 

I dont know why there is a consistent vision to keep user preferences low, but One size doesnt fit all is a bad approach. The bug 28474 suggested a user preference for "Full Narayam". I would go beyond and suggest a configuration for the extension itself which could help the cases like Tamil wiki's case(of not having other languages if user preferences cannot be done) where its not required. 

Narayam or whatever tool that is built is FOR the community and this approach of not giving preferences is not a healthy sign. Different communities have different requirements, So please dont implement everything for everyone and push on them, atleast ask if its relevant to all before doing so, otherwise give a configuration option to ignore the new update.
Comment 7 Srikanth Logic 2011-11-08 08:00:17 UTC
Correction prev comment must be read as "One size fits all is a bad approach"
Comment 8 Srikanth Logic 2011-11-08 19:10:49 UTC
Issues 1) and 2) mentioned on comment #1 seem to have been fixed now. 3) still exists.
Comment 9 Srikanth Logic 2011-11-08 19:11:44 UTC
(In reply to comment #8)
> Issues 1) and 2) mentioned on comment #1 seem to have been fixed now. 3) still
> exists.

comment #0 sorry for email spam
Comment 10 Mark A. Hershberger 2011-11-10 17:41:46 UTC
Updating bug summary to reflect the only open issue.
Comment 11 Santhosh Thottingal 2012-01-13 14:59:00 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
> 3) "More input methods" link is appearing. This shouldnt be happening in the
> Tamil wiki projects
> 
> These are the ones that are immediately visible. I dont know if something else
> is broken inside. I am still testing. Please fix these.

We have dicussed this during Pune hackathon. Shall I close it?
Comment 12 Srikanth Logic 2012-01-13 14:59:49 UTC
Discussed and agreed

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