Talk:Global templates

Hi! I'm thinking on submitting a proposal for a rapid grant, with the idea of spreading the concept of Multilingual Templates and Modules and the Synchronizer tool I developed. The plan would be building a list of several top Lua modules and their authors, and then contacting them and working with them to globalize the modules. Then, use Synchronizer to do its thing and spread awareness about the whole effort via the automatic edit summaries generated by Synchronizer, which contain a link to Synchronizer and are likely to be noticed by Lua developers all over Wikimedia. In the process I'd not only improve or help improve several Lua modules, but also Synchronizer and the relevant documentation. Thoughts? Support? Objections? Thanks!

Thoughts:

1. I'm terribly ashamed that I haven't tested Multilingual Templates and Modules yet! I have no good excuse. I should really do it as soon as possible.
2. If this work can be a step towards exploring how the unification of templates or models works in a way will be useful for the age of true support for global templates in the software, then it sounds like a very good idea.

Hi!

1. Were you able to give it a try? What templates/modules have you developed? Perhaps I can help you get them "globalized"!
2. I think this work would help towards true support for global templates/modules because such global templates/modules would surely require code designed and ready to run with no modifications (other than the config) in every wiki, which is exactly what Multilingual Templates and Modules and Synchronizer requires.

Cheers!

I really support the idea, but I have some suggestions, without which I might not be able to support this proposal. I also don't want to let my suggestions go to the hard "Oppose" section at Global templates/Discuss. Where should I voice my suggestions? Thanks! —‍CX Zoom (A/अ/অ) (let's talk|contribs) 13:48, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Right here :)

Support I can support it, because the idea could be good. Some little details can be improved to implement it, but I suport. BoldLuis (talk) 21:32, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure what are you referring to.

If you are talking about the fact that I removed your additions to the page Global templates, then I did it because I want to keep this page as short as possible, and some links that you added already appear in other places. Please tell me if I misunderstood anything.

I have some suggestions for what I think it was collective.If you are interested, with its virtues and faults, I can tell some ideas about global templates to you. Thanks in advance. BoldLuis (talk) 22:05, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I am very interested.

Although this does not correpond with your actions, I am going to talk. My suggestion, between others, was use a functional template as Template:Gupdate (global update) to update a template in a local project (ie English Wikipedia) or inversely, use Template:Nogupdate to not update a local template (ie. in Wikipedia), using the global template in Mediawiki / Meta-Wiki. Using this argument, I answered to one person that opposed to global templates with this objection. BoldLuis (talk) 22:20, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not sure that an additional template is needed to mark this. A local template is similar to a local image. If you have an image file called "File:Cat.jpg" on your wiki, and a file called "File:Cat.jpg" also exists on Commons, then you'll see the local file on your wiki. There is no need to mark them with templates. But maybe I am misunderstanding something in your suggestion.

But some templates have important functions in some sister projects that are not included in a "global" template (that can be OK for the rest or majority of the other sister projects).

For this reason, this template can be marked as "noupdate" in the code.

Examples, can be seen in Wiktionary. In some ways, are created new templates to workaround this problem and not linked in Wikidata. I was a wikitraveller there (wikitraveller is a wikiuser that travells from one project -as Wikipedia- to an another sister one, unknow from him / her - as Wiktionary, Mediawiki and on-.

Do you know what "taifa"s mean?.

Can you please give a more specific example? Which Wiktionary templates are you referring to exactly? And are you talking about Wiktionary in general, or the Spanish Wiktionary, or the English Wiktionary?

And I am familiar with the general concept of taifa, but how is it related?

(Puede escribir en español, si quiere. Puedo leer español, pero no puedo escribir bien.)

In English Wiktionary (shhhhhhh!).

Yes, English Wiktionary has its own templates. All wikis have their own templates. Some of them are similar to templates that exist in other wikis and should be stored in a common place. Some should not be shared, and should be stored locally.

This is a good policy. We can begin with some templates, instead of them all. Which ones do you propose ?. For example, ideal can be user templates, because user accounts are now global in Wikimedia sisters.

See :meta:Which templates should be global? — there are quite a lot of proposals there.

I'm also writing a more detailed and organized plan. I hope to publish it soon. User page templates can be relatively easy to make global, although they, too, should not all become global. Some are relevant only to some wikis.

Agree. But the WikiProjects can redirect to Wikipedia WikiProjects, excepting there is a specific WikiProject in the sister wiki. But, by default, link to Wikipedia WikiProject. (see for example, {{User WikiProject Deaf}} in Meta).

On the other hand, in Mediawiki there is reluctance to create (global) templates and link them to existing ones in Wikipedia, Meta and so on. I think , the best place to put global templates for Wikimedia sisters is Meta (including global template documetation and TemplateData); and for all Mediawiki softare is mediawiki.org. This includes use Meta-Wiki templates in Mediawiki.org website when editing a wiki page there.

There is no reluctance to create global templates. It's simply impossible at the moment because the infrastructure for doing it doesn't exist yet. My proposal is about creating such infrastructure. Which templates will be on this infrastructure and which won't? That's a question for the next phase, although it's possible to start thinking about it now.

I propose {{online}}. It is going to be used for an online meeting about Lingua Libre features. On the other hand, I have been thinking and there is a very important point: some templates in sister projects are not linked in Wikidata to the Wikimedia global system. This is not a good idea.

On the other hand, I can utilize the same user account and appearence in all the Wikimedia sisters, but cannot give working people a Barnstar in all sister (projects). I cannot understand it. This would be also global. BoldLuis (talk) 17:56, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Does this "online" template exist anywhere at the moment?

Yes, it does. I have used it for an online meeting of the Spanish Chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation. You can see it in my Meta-Wiki user page m:User:BoldLuis. Of course it must be improved, and I know how, but it is a just born (ideal to use in our corona times). Some days ago, there was a meeting about Spanish Wiktionary. It was not announced. Why have to copy and paste this or similar template in Wiktionary (it can be deleted, by the way), when a global template can be used?. In a similar way to my user account, from where I show the template in action to all the Wikimediasphere. On the other hand, one person is doing some questions about the global template project. I try to do me best, in some way offering solutions to the doubts and troubles he found before in his experience., but perhaps you can have more info...BoldLuis (talk) 23:49, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, something like this could be made into a global template.

Today, I have seen the news (for me) that Wikidata templates are used globally (for data). This began in Commons. I think now it is in Wikipedia. Hope soon it be in all the Wikimediasphere. There is a problem with the template {{Taxobox}}.

I translated the article from the Catalan Encyclopedia:

• From this https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebrella
• To this https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thymus_piperella

In the Catalonian article, the template is very short:

{{Infotaula ésser viu
| autoritat      = [[Carl von Linné|L.]]
| categoria_subdivisio = Espècies
}}

Only authority that classified the plant (Linné and the category upto the speces level.

It could not be included in the Spanish Wikipedia (it did not work in the translation) and I recieved a message from a Librarian saying I have to incorporate the taxonomy.

I was surpissed how easy was include the taxonomy, because it used the default valudes and mainly the data in Wikidata (it could be shorter if Linné can be proposed by default and level is upto species).

The problem: there is not a real global template and global wikidata. If there would be these real working global values: the template would be included by default with the rightt values in the translation (I was using Wikipedia translation tool).

Because Superkingdom: Super-regne Eukaryota is the same in Spanish, Catalan and English (really, it is a Latin word). The same for the rest of the words in the taxonomy box (Lamiaceae Thymus Thymus piperella ).

Why did it not work?. Because there is not a real global template "Taxobox". Taxobox is not in English or Spanish. As global, uses codes (QIDs) and labels.

For example, in the template syntax kingdom would be labeled as "Reino" in Spanish. But would be the same thing (imagine the item Q2334).

So, there is not a Spanish template or an English template. There must be a global template, with the same field and behaviour (i.e. put all the names upto the species level in the article page). Only changes the "label", really something adjective, not substantial.

With a really global template, a lot of unnecesary work can be saved and knowledge and Wikipedia can move a big step forwards.

(I hope this can be OK to convince more people about the necessity of global templates). BoldLuis (talk) 00:07, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

This is mostly correct. Wikidata is global—its data is accessible from all wikis. But the templates that access the data cannot be global, and have to be rewritten in every wiki. The proposal is to make a repository of global templates.

Reduce data multiplication (the same data in Wikipedia in a local template, also in Wikibooks in a local template or data and so on; and specially, from interlanguage, in English Wikipedia, local data and template, in Spanish Wikipedia, local data and template; when only relating data from one language to the another one, it is enough; in the taxonomy field is clearest; perhaps in medicine and so on)

If Wikidata knows that Eukaryota is Eukaryota in Spanish (becomes from latin) and in English, it can be used in template taxonomy and in template nutrition (i.e. for nutrition values). It can be also used in an article in English about vegetals, where Eukaryota is mentioned and in a Spanish article about forest where Eukaryota appears. It is a great step forward.

I think template content translation from one language to the other (including to English) would be activated by default or use a complementary tool for this in Meta. For example, to say: translate me the content of the template Taxonomy from the page A in English Wikipedia to Spanish and show me the result here (and the "Spanish" template in Spanish Wikipedia with the field fulfilled with the data from the template from this English page). This template content translation in Meta would be very good. Also people ("global template helpers, helpers or whatever we can call it) to help to the users when there is a problem. For example, I can deciede do not translate a page to another Wikipedia until I have OK translated the template contents before (using Meta Global Template Tool).

Global templates and global data also reduces data searchings and helps for a more effective edition, as seen.

These are arguments I try to show and that anyone can use for global templates.

Can we solve a problem to show the advantages?. We could began with this template and the troubled translation. It would be OK as a sample test case to show it works.

BoldLuis (talk) 20:54, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

It's possible to begin with any template, but the infrastructure must be made first :)

@User:Amire80: : We could use something similar to Special:ExpandTemplates or forked (Globexpand) (module?).

And begin with the template {{Taxobox}} (now in English Wikipedia, but it is going to be global template in Meta / Mediawiki?):

We can take the template syntax (schema / structure) and parameters in English from TemplateData and Wikidatize it (taking content from Wikidata for the parameter names, as data items, properties...) and , as much as possible, in the scope target (this means, we can globalize all the parameters or only some of them; it is an incremental work).

For example,

Y have translated it now to English:

The idea is: Why do I have to translate it?. It would automatically be translated into other languages (it is a very simple image and there is no doubt about which word correspond to the other in the translation - this can be taken from Wikidata). Point one---> global images = schema image (this means image that contain text, fields) + lexemes from Wikidata

This file is similar, but translatable (really, would be automatically translated when used in other Wikipedia and detected by Commons.For example,if used in the article in Spanish Wiipedia, would appear in Spanish there, automatically.

I have manually translated the SVG file into Spanish and Latina in Commons.

It uses {{translation possible}} . Very interesting is the template {{Convert to international}}, very similar to a global template in use and goal (could be called "globalize", instead).

And a very interesting tool for infrastructure---->>>it employs the SVG Translate tool :

https://svgtranslate.toolforge.org/File:Biological_classification_L_Pengo_vflip.svg

I edited he page of the image File:Taxonomy and phylogenetics.svg and added:

== {{int:filedesc}} ==
{{translation possible}}
{{validSVG}}

Clicked in the use the use the SVG Translate tool and translated the fields within the image and uploaded it using the tool.

And now, it is multilingual!!.

There is a problem, as said in the help page:

w:user:cmglee/extract_lang.py has a Python3 script to extract and write a monolingual SVG file from a multilingual SVG file, to let a language version be previewed in a Web browser during its development. The alternative way to view a non-default language in a multilingual SVG in a Web browser is to install and change the language of the browser and restart it.

But this is not the sollution. If I can go to the description of the file, select Spanish and click in the button "Go" and see the same image in Spanish, this also can be done automatically when the image is in the Spanish Wikipedia and it is not specified a parameter in the [[file: ]] to indicate that the file must be seen in the original name (for example, using [[file: | V=en]] where v is version; or directly [[file: |en]]. It shows an urgent improvement to be done (and for which we have the tools, because can translate it using a button now, for example).

On the other hand, to create the translation, it must be automatically translated, without human intervention, obtaining the data from Wikitada (for example English Genus ---> Spanish Género ; English Family ---> Spanish Family). I used the translation tool for texted images and here is the result in Spanish (I have to upload a file, when the best is the same English file seen in another langue - this means, with labels selected to Spanish to see the automatic translation).

Now, we go to the 2 related templates.

The first one is :

{{Biological classification}}

It uses Extension:ImageMap magic to link the label boxes to the right pages and give a general description.

The schema is in Wikidata QIDs (unique idenfier) and in the three languages (English - Latina - Spanish):

• wikidata:Q3 - Life - Imperium - Vida
• wikidata:Q146481 - Realm - Regio - Dominio
• wikidata:Q36732 - Kingdom - Regnum - Reino
• wikidata:Q38348 - Phylum - Phylum - Filo
• wikidata:Q37517 - Class - Classis - Clase
• wikidata:Q36602- Order - Ordo - Orden
• wikidata:Q35409 - Family - Familia - Familia
• wikidata:Q34740 - Genus - Genus - Género
• wikidata:Q7432 - Species - Species - Especie -

Now only in English (or can be also in Latina).

• wikidata:Q3 (Life ) -
• wikidata:Q146481 (Realm ) -
• wikidata:Q36732 ( Kingdom ) -
• wikidata:Q38348 (Phylum ) -
• wikidata:Q37517 (Class ) -
• wikidata:Q36602 (Order ) -
• wikidata:Q35409 (Family ) -
• wikidata:Q34740 (Genus ) -
• wikidata:Q7432 (Species ) -

Using this wikidata schema, Commons or Mediawiki can automatically translate from one language to the other. For example:

• wikidata:Q3 (Life in the SVG translation ) - is "vie" in French
• wikidata:Q38348 (Phylum ) - is "embranchement" in French and so on for all the Qs in the schema.

Also, in the same way, I can translate it to any language included in the wikidata item (Chinese, Arab…)

Imagine you see in Wikipedia (in Catalan Wikipedia in ca:Pebrella):

{| class="wikitable"
|Super-regne
|''[[:ca:Eucariotes|Eukaryota]]''
|-
|Regne
|''[[:ca:Plantes|Plantae]]''
|-
|Ordre
|''[[:ca:Lamials|Lamiales]]''
|-
|Família
|''[[:ca:Lamiàcies|]]''
|-
|Gènere
|''[[:ca:Thymus|Thymus]]''
|-
|Espècie
|'''''Thymus piperella''''' 
[[:ca:Carl_von_Linné|L.]]
|}

• wikidata:Q7432 (Species ) - for this plant has the value - Thymus piperella
• wikidata:Q34740 (Genus ) -Thymus
• wikidata:Q35409 (Family ) -Lamiaceae and so on.

In Wikidata ítems (Template schema and parameter values), for Thymus piperella

• wikidata:Q7432 (Species ) - is wikidata:Q1330282- Thymus piperella
• wikidata:Q34740 (Genus ) - wikidata:Q131224 - Thymus
• wikidata:Q35409 (Family ) - wikidata:Q53476 - Lamiaceae and so on.

Wikidata / Wikimedia / Wikipedia could easily translate it into Spanish or English or whatever langue with data in Wikidata:

• wikidata:Q7432 (Especie ) - Thymus piperella
• wikidata:Q34740 (Género ) - Thymus
• wikidata:Q35409 (Familia ) - Lamiaceae and so on.

Really easy. And this is, what Wikipedia automatic translation could not do. This is the goal for the global templates.

---END OF THIS PART---

WikiProjects to activate / cooperate:

• commons:Category:Commons WikiProjects -- WikiProject Global Wiki / Global Village or similar.
• wikidata:Category:WikiProjects
• meta:Category:WikiProjects
• Category:MediaWiki.org WikiProjects (User:Leucosticte/WikiProject Interwiki Integration) and Wikibase

Thanks @BoldLuis. All of this makes sense. It talks about the implementation of the templates themselves, which will be possible only once the infrastructure and the repository are implemented, so this is relevant for a much later stage. I will gradually add these things to a page I've started writing recently, Global templates/Transition, and which is far from finished.

I see that you know Spanish. One thing that would be really helpful at this stage is to translate the full specification from English into Spanish so that editors in Spanish wikis would be able to read it easily. The short specification is already translated to Spanish, but the long one is not yet translated. Can you please translate it? It's long, but it was already done for Italian, Turkish, and other languages, so it's possible to do it :)

If you can invest some time in it, it would be excellent. Here is a direct link to translation. Thanks!

I am going to do it, step by step. 👌

just for an incremental solution, could you try coordinating citation templates as linked on wikidata ? https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q92570 if you have a mapping of corresponding fields, then that would be global ?

@Slowking4 sorry, only noticed it now!

In theory, yes. The question is how do you actually do the mapping of the corresponding fields.

Can be proposed to Wikidata itself (in Wikidata website / wiki /coffee).

Added some links to term definitions from the description.

@Clump: It makes sense allow links to pages where newbies can see the signification of concepts that are new for them. How can do it in this propose, so it can obtain more support?. BoldLuis (talk) 22:15, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Which concepts, for example?

Lua, for example.

This lots of concepts are also understandable for newbies. One after the other:

Many of the most notable features of Wikimedia sites are implemented as templates and Lua modules: Wikipedia Infoboxes and citations, maps, navigation headers on Wikisource and Wikibooks, conjugation tables in Wiktionary, deletion and merging procedures in multiple wikis, and hundreds of others.

OK. I actually planned to add links to this paragraph, and somehow never got around to it. I'll do it some time soon.

OK. I am going to give you a barnstar for this good purpose ;-)

Thanks. I added some links. Let me know if anything more is needed.

Thank you.