[Mediawiki-i18n] Enabling the Translate and UniversalLanguageSelector extensions on Commons

[Guillaume Paumier]

Hi,

I'd like to start a discussion about the merits and challenges of
enabling the Translate and UniversalLanguageSelector extensions on
Commons.

The Translate extension (
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Translate ) is super useful
to translate content; it's already used for translations on Meta,
mediawiki.org and other non-Wikimedia wikis. In my experience, this
extension usually increases the amount of translations and
multilingual content on a given wiki, which Commons would benefit
from.

The UniversalLanguageSelector extension (
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:UniversalLanguageSelector )
allows users to easily switch the interface language; it also embeds
an interface to enter text in non-Latin languages even if your
keyboard doesn't allow it.

My feeling is that both these tools would dramatically improve the
user experience on Commons for people who don't use English. As a
multilingual wiki, Commons even seems like the perfect audience for
these tools.

There would probably be some adjustments to make to transition from
the current way we handle multilingual content and interface, but I
don't perceive them as insurmountable.

Are there drawbacks I'm not seeing, or challenges to enabling these
tools on Commons?

-- 
Guillaume Paumier
[[m:User:guillom]]
http://www.gpaumier.org