Translations of MediaWiki’s user interface are now stored in a new file format—JSON. This change won’t have a direct effect on readers and editors of Wikimedia projects, but it makes MediaWiki more robust and open to change and reuse. MediaWiki is one of the most internationalized open source projects. MediaWiki…

There are several confusing and surprising things about the Javanese language. First, a lot of people confuse it with Japanese, or with Java, a programming language. Also, with over eighty million speakers, it is one of the ten most widely spoken languages in the world, yet it is not an…

The VisualEditor beta release is being gradually rolled out to all Wikipedia editors in all languages. This is one the most exciting developments in the history of Wikipedia, because it will make editing the site accessible to the general public, rather than just to the people who have the patience to…

On Thursday, 23 May, just one day before the big Wikimedia hackathon in Amsterdam, Wikimedia Israel held its first hackathon in Tel-Aviv. Israel has a thriving software industry, as well as a healthy Wikipedia editing community. Despite this, there are relatively few software developers in Israel who work on Wikimedia-related…

Batti il ferro finché è caldo —an Italian proverb In its last two-week sprint, the Wikimedia Language Engineering team worked with developers from other teams to improve its keyboard support and we continued working on the new user interface for the Translate extension. Input methods: More languages and support for…

De mica en mica s’omple la pica i de gota en gota s’omple la bota. —a Catalan proverb During its most recent development sprint, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Language Engineering team continued to improve the user experience of the Translate extension to make it as smooth and efficient as possible. Highlights…

(Emor me’at ve-ase harbe. —a Hebrew proverb) The Wikimedia Foundation’s Language Engineering team is continuing the makeover of the Translate extension, which started taking shape in early December. (Introduced in 2011, this MediaWiki feature powers the translation of Wikipedia’s software, announcements, reports and fundraising banners, and of other sites and…

Ei kannata mennä merta edemmäs kalaan. —a Finnish proverb The Translate extension, a central piece in the puzzle that makes Wikipedia and the community around it massively multilingual, is getting a major overhaul. “Translate”, as it’s commonly called, powers the translation of Wikipedia’s software, announcements, reports and fundraising banners, and…