Change #1160291 had a related patch set uploaded (by ToluAyo; author: ToluAyo):

[translatewiki@master] Remove specialpages-note-cached and sitenotice_id from MediaWiki.yaml

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1160291

Change #1160291 merged by jenkins-bot:

[translatewiki@master] Remove specialpages-note-cached and sitenotice_id from MediaWiki.yaml

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1160291

Change #1160361 had a related patch set uploaded (by ToluAyo; author: ToluAyo):

[translatewiki@master] Remove unused messages from MediaWiki.yaml

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1160361

Change #1160361 merged by jenkins-bot:

[translatewiki@master] Remove unused messages from MediaWiki.yaml

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1160361

Change #1167897 had a related patch set uploaded (by ToluAyo; author: ToluAyo):

[mediawiki/core@master] Move ignored messages to a separate i18n file

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1167897

Change #1189295 had a related patch set uploaded (by ToluAyo; author: ToluAyo):

[translatewiki@master] Remove nontranslatable messages from MediaWiki.yaml

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1189295

Change #1167897 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] Move nontranslatable messages to a separate i18n file

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1167897

Change #1189295 merged by jenkins-bot:

[translatewiki@master] Remove nontranslatable messages from MediaWiki.yaml

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1189295

Sorry for being a bit late for the party, but there is one problem with this change, which should be solved one way or the other: wikis often link to translatewiki.net for message documentation, and now these documentation pages are abandoned and won’t be updated anymore. Ideas:

• Obvious: revert the change. This isn’t necessarily the best idea, though.
• Create a new message group called “MediaWiki – ignored”, which behaves much like a regular message group, but all its messages are automatically ignored, still saving the maintenance burden.
• Display the message documentation in a different way. Note that message documentation often contains translatewiki.net-specific templates, so it needs to be parsed on translatewiki.net, no matter where and how it’s shown. (And preferably stored in a way that backlinks show up on translatewiki.net.)

Hi @Tacsipacsi, thanks for your input. I'm curious about the third point you made to display the documentation in a different way since the change is completed as a result of the broader task around cleaning up the main i18n en.json file especially with nontranslatable/ignored messages. Are there similar messages that maybe show how the third approach would be implemented? Or would you be able to provide further details as to how to approach it that way.

I don’t know of any existing messages that would use something like my third point, nor do I have a specific idea how to do it, sorry. It was just an idea, and actually I’d prefer the second approach due to its simplicity.

I can follow up with you on this suggested approach as this task is being closed after being completed as a part of the goals for T404633

In T396889#11223823, @Tacsipacsi wrote:

Sorry for being a bit late for the party, but there is one problem with this change, which should be solved one way or the other: wikis often link to translatewiki.net for message documentation, and now these documentation pages are abandoned and won’t be updated anymore. Ideas:

• Obvious: revert the change. This isn’t necessarily the best idea, though.
• Create a new message group called “MediaWiki – ignored”, which behaves much like a regular message group, but all its messages are automatically ignored, still saving the maintenance burden.
• Display the message documentation in a different way. Note that message documentation often contains translatewiki.net-specific templates, so it needs to be parsed on translatewiki.net, no matter where and how it’s shown. (And preferably stored in a way that backlinks show up on translatewiki.net.)

Can you give an example of how wikis link to message documentation? I don't think that I have ever seen that.

English Wikipedia does this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Accesskey-pt-watchlist (Template:Interface explanation). I vaguely recall having seen this elsewhere as well, but I’m not sure where (if at all).

In T396889#11304182, @Tacsipacsi wrote:

English Wikipedia does this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Accesskey-pt-watchlist (Template:Interface explanation). I vaguely recall having seen this elsewhere as well, but I’m not sure where (if at all).

Thanks. It also links to subpages of Manual:Interface, which looks like a better place for this documentation in the first place. qqq is for translators and for MediaWiki developers, and it's not necessarily the best thing for system administrators anyway.

In 30 of them, qqq just says {{ignored}} or {{notranslate}}, 81 are {{doc-accesskey}}, and 22 are {{MW legacy IRC logentry}}—none of these really need documentation.

As for the rest, I'd just add useful documentation to mediawiki.org for messages that need it and remove the translatewiki.net link from that template eventually, but it can be discussed on its talk page.

In T396889#11304240, @Amire80 wrote:

qqq is for translators and for MediaWiki developers, and it's not necessarily the best thing for system administrators anyway.

Enwiki (or other wiki) admins/interface admins are closer to translators than to system administrators, they need answers for the same questions as translators: 1) where is the message used, 2) what are the parameters (and what they mean), and 3) how the text needs to be interpreted in case it’s ambiguous out of context.

In 30 of them, qqq just says {{ignored}} or {{notranslate}}, 81 are {{doc-accesskey}}, and 22 are {{MW legacy IRC logentry}}—none of these really need documentation.

{{ignored}} and {{notranslate}} are indeed not very useful, but IMO {{doc-accesskey}} and {{MW legacy IRC logentry}} are.

As for the rest, I'd just add useful documentation to mediawiki.org for messages that need it and remove the translatewiki.net link from that template eventually, but it can be discussed on its talk page.

translatewiki.net (qqq) has a major advantage over mediawiki.org: it’s stored where developers live – in the Git repo. This makes it easier to update docs whenever the code (English message and/or its usage) changes. If documentation is added to mediawiki.org, chances are higher that it simply doesn’t get updated.