Last modified: 2011-03-13 18:05:18 UTC
in the "in other languages" sidebar box, one can provide a link to a google translation, like this: * [[:de:Tom_DeLay|Deutsch]] [http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fde.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FTom_DeLay&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools(xlate)] (renders as: * Deutsch (xlate) ) I imagine this would be pretty simple to do, and it would be very usefull.
why not?
we know that the article exists on the other wiki, and we know the name of it. we even have a link to it already. ("Deutsch" is linked to it.) All we need to do is take that URL, URL encode it, and place it in the middle of the URL string.
1) The extra links would be very annoying, and waste screen real estate and attention that's already spread thin. 2) Machine translation is pretty damn awful. We have actual sites in different languages for a reason. 3) If you really want to use crappy machine translation, you can do it yourself. 4) If you really really want to use crappy machine translation on every link on Wikipedia, you can write your own little JavaScript goodie to add it to your display and no one else's.
