As a Wikidata editor, I want the example lexeme shown in the info panel on Special:NewLexemeAlpha (soon to be Special:NewLexeme) to be in a language that hasn’t been extinct for thousands of years, so that I can understand it and use lexicographical data correctly.
As a Wikidata interface administrator, I don’t want to have to create hundreds of pages in the MediaWiki: namespace just to ensure that users see at least a rudimentarily useful example lexeme on the special page.
**Problem:**
The example lexeme ID is configured using the `wikibaselexeme-newlexeme-info-panel-example-lexeme-id` interface message, which defaults to `L1` in the extension’s source code (`en.json`), but which we intend to be overridden on each wiki in the MediaWiki: namespace. Currently on Wikidata, [MediaWiki:Wikibaselexeme-newlexeme-info-panel-example-lexeme-id](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Wikibaselexeme-newlexeme-info-panel-example-lexeme-id) is set to L7 (English noun “cat”), which is a useful example lexeme for users who look at the page in English. When you load the special page in a language where no specific example lexeme ID has been set in the MediaWiki: namespace yet, we expect the ID to fall back to the English MediaWiki: page, which is still more useful than L1 (Sumerian noun “ama”/“𒂼”). However, this doesn’t happen: apparently, when MediaWiki applies language fallbacks for a message, it only uses the JSON message files and ignores MediaWiki: namespace pages that exist for the fallback languages.
**Example:**
[The special page in Portuguese](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:NewLexemeAlpha?uselang=pt) currently shows L1:
{F35330233}
We would like it to show L7 instead, which is likely to be more useful than L1 to Portuguese speakers.
**Screenshots/mockups:**
**BDD**
GIVEN my user interface is in a language other than English
AND no example lexeme ID has been configured in that specific language yet
WHEN I load Special:NewLexemeAlpha (soon to be Special:NewLexeme)
THEN the info panel shows L7 rather than L1
**Acceptance criteria:**
* The example lexeme ID falls back to other translations for this message in the MediaWiki: namespace before resorting to the extension’s `en.json` file.
**Open questions:**
* Suppose your user interface is in Brazilian Portuguese (pt-br), and the example lexeme ID has not yet been configured in that language, but it has been configured in general Portuguese (pt). I assume we’d ideally like the general Portuguese example lexeme ID to be used in that case, but how important is that to us? (Because I suspect this might be harder to implement than just choosing MediaWiki:Wikibaselexeme-newlexeme-info-panel-example-lexeme-id over `en.json`.)