CJK speakers sometimes hesitate to localise namespaces. A big
reason is that it can create a strange configuration of
full-width (fw) characters [1] (which applies to most page titles
and some namespaces) and half-width (hw) characters (the
separator ':'). People rather prefer the sequence of 'XX:○○'
(hw-hw-hw-fw-fw) than '○○:○○' (fw-fw-hw-fw-fw) because the former one
has only one switch between hw and fw whereas the latter has two.
This kind of mixture of character sets can lead to displeasing
and unbalanced rendering of the text in pages and URLs containing
it, when each character set is assigned with a different font in
the user's environment (which is quite common).
This problem will be partially solved by having full-width aliases
instead of the original namespace separator.
For example, if ':' is an alias to ':', then
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/プロジェクト:コンピュータ
shall be redirected to
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/プロジェクト:コンピュータ
allowing a wiki to use the former one when the community prefers it.
(プロジェクト literally translates to 'Project' and コンピュータ translates to 'Computer')
I believe this option will motivate further localisation of namespaces
in CJK languages, if implemented.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfwidth_and_fullwidth_forms
Version: unspecified
Severity: enhancement