Although Appropedia has started in English, we wish to welcome contributors in all languages. So far there is some material in Spanish, and within the Appropedia community of editors there at least a couple of other languages spoken (and this will no doubt increase).

Which languages?[edit | edit source]

All people should be catered for, ideally. Where people know more than one language, priority should be given to languages which are most widespread - for example, Indonesian rather than Madurese, and Spanish rather than Quechua. At the same time, if skilled literate users are eager to begin work in a target language, that is enough to begin the work.

This is a guideline, and not part of the official policy. There may be a good argument for putting certain practical pages such as how-tos into the mother tongue. And if a person is passionate about a language and wants to translate into that language, we are happy to encourage that.

Question: What are the minimum resources needed to support a language?[edit | edit source]

  • Presumably we need various resources in the target language, and they need to be verified as accurate and clear
    • disclaimer
    • copyright notices
    • basic help pages

Long-term solution: Subdomains[edit | edit source]

Ultimately we will probably want to use the same approach as Wikipedia, Wikibooks and Wiktionary, using subdomains (e.g. en.wikipedia.org for English, id.wikipedia.org for Indonesian, es.wikipedia.org for Spanish, etc). However, that requires being certain that there is a viable editing community in that language.

Separate subdomains will be (decided by consensus? approved by (a committee?) based on whether there is are enough active editors to justify a separate wiki.

Interlanguage links - "This topic in other languages"[edit | edit source]

While there are no separate subdomains, it is suggested that links to such articles are placed on the relevant page, under the heading "This topic in other languages" - which may be placed after "See also" and before "External links."

If Appropedia creates different subdomains for different languages, we can then imitate the interlanguage links approach used by Wikipedia etc, where for example [[id:Sumur resapan]] creates a hidden link, adding the link to the list of "this article in other languages" in the left column or under the page header.

Userboxes[edit | edit source]

Let people know which language you speak with a language userbox.

These have not been made yet. Should we import language userboxes wholesale from Wikipedia, or another Wikimedia project? Can we simplify categorization using bots? I suggest putting everyone who speaks a language into the basic category for that language, as well as into a subcategory. So, the base category should not be used specifically for native speakers, and there should be no userboxes that are as vague as just "This user speaks Swahili" - there should be some indication of level, or native-speaker status. It doesn't quite make sense to have subcategories with only one person. --Chriswaterguy · talk 17:56, 25 April 2007 (PDT)

See also[edit | edit source]

External links[edit | edit source]

Discussion[View | Edit]

Long term policy questions[edit source]

I think that a plan like wiktionary and wikipedia implement is great for a situation where many of the pages will be the same across languages (dictionary and encyclopedic entries such as "Smile" or "The Panama Canal", will need "Sonrisa" or "Canal de Panamá" counterparts). I think that most articles in Appropedia will be unique to their language. Multilingual contributors can bring information between different pages, but most will be unique. A definite exception to that will be the Topic Categories. A Topic Category such as Category:Photovoltaics will probably need a corresponding Category:Fotovoltaico. Should each of these Topic Categories list all pages under that category or just the pages in their own language and links to the category in other languages? One possibility is to create category namespaces in other languages such as EsCategoria, PtCategoría, FrCatégorie, etc. What do you think? (Should I get working on the final category clarification before endeavoring into this question?) --Lonny 23:00, 6 December 2006 (PST)

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