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Namespaces in form dropdowns are shown in the local language rather than in the user interface language
Open, MediumPublic

Description

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Go to a wiki whose language you can't read (e.g., mr.wiktionary.org).
  2. Change your UI language to something you can read (e.g., English).
  3. Go to Special:Search.
  4. Switch to "Advanced" and click the "All" button.
  5. Guess which tick box you need to turn off, to keep your results from being flooded with false positives in files stored on Commons.

It would be helpful if all the namespace labels in pages such as https://mr.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=विशेष:शोधा&profile=advanced&search=&fulltext=1 were presented in your own UI language instead of exclusively being in the local language.

Event Timeline

I use a browser plugin to help with this; so that I get asked if the page should be translated, which of course, makes it much easier to read:

Screen Shot 2017-08-31 at 11.27.06 AM.png (75×740 px, 29 KB)

debt triaged this task as Medium priority.Sep 7 2017, 5:18 PM
debt moved this task from needs triage to Up Next on the Discovery-Search board.

Interface language should override the content language setting, it looks like this isn't really happening at this point. We just need to find where this code lives and where/why it's happening. Maybe a day or two to complete.

Change 459625 had a related patch set uploaded (by EBernhardson; owner: EBernhardson):
[mediawiki/core@master] Render advanced search in interface language

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/459625

There are more places where the namespace names in content language are shown in the UI:

A change of the language of the namespace names from content language to user interface language should be consistent at all places.

I disagree this should be the same in every place. I think it really depends on the use case. Reporting to a user a list of some thing that exists, like an existing page title or namespaces groups have rights to, might make sense to be in the content language of the wiki. Asking a user to choose items from a list they can't read seems a distinct issue.

I'm perfectly willing to delegate the choice to Language-Team though.

https://mr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Contributions?uselang=en shows the namespace names in a drop-down list.
https://mr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Search?profile=advanced&uselang=en shows the namespace names in a checkbox list.
I think this is no difference and the language of the namespace names should be consistent at all places of the UI.

Hmm... There are several considerations here.

I agree about Special:Search—it should be in the user language. It can possibly also be used when moving pages, and in the other places that @Fomafix suggests.

Some care is needed for other places, though. The original English names work everywhere for links, so if the user language happens to be English, as I guess it is for @Whatamidoing-WMF and @EBernhardson, then [[User:अभय नातू]] will work as a link in mr.wikipedia. But if the user language is Russian, for example, then it will only work in Russian (and maybe a few other wikis that have Russian as fallback, and I'm not even sure about that). So for page titles that may be used as links it's probably better to use the wiki's language, or to explicitly use English.

Also, there are namespace names that are local only to particular wikis and are not translated. "Portal", for example, is local only to a few wikis, and AFAIK is not centrally translatable. Neither is the "Txiki" space in eu.wikipedia. I guess that there's just nothing that can be done about them.

@Nikerabbit , any more thoughts on this?

The merged patch only changed the "old" UI for Special:RecentChanges and Special:Watchlist, the new rcfilters UI is not affected by this change and perhaps should. (I failed to find from where the list of namespace is populated in rcfilters).

Change 459625 merged by jenkins-bot:
[mediawiki/core@master] Render namespace lists in the user's language

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/459625

There are more places where the namespace names in content language are shown in the UI which are not covered by rMW9f28aa0709d0:

Jdlrobson renamed this task from Namespaces are shown in the local language rather than in the user interface language to Namespaces in form dropdowns are shown in the local language rather than in the user interface language.Apr 13 2022, 3:29 PM