[02:20:39] (yay bugspam. ...) You know what would be a great thing to work on? Bug 9436 - Vertical writing support in MediaWiki! After all, it's blocking almost seventy-five million people from being able to use Wikipedia in their own language. How about that? [02:20:46] !bug 9436 [02:20:47] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=9436 [02:55:01] Hi YairRand. [02:55:41] Elsie: Hi [02:56:55] Bug 9436 is interesting. [02:57:02] quite [02:57:14] But it sounds like it would require a lot of development time and other resources. [02:57:36] really? that's unfortunate. [02:57:54] Well, reading through the bug, it's not clear what level of browser support there is today. [02:58:04] every browser except firefox [02:58:07] Hopefully more support than there was six years ago. [02:58:16] Every major browser, I suppose. ;-) [02:58:18] opera, ie5.5+, chrome, and safari [02:58:21] There are a lot of Web browsers. [02:58:31] :) [02:58:32] It's also not clear what the path forward for that bug is. [02:58:36] An RFC might be helpful. [02:58:42] Or some other place to gather notes. [02:59:00] Complex problems can't be solved in Bugzilla comments alone, unfortunately. [02:59:17] I don't really understand what would be so complicated about it [02:59:23] A clearer outline of what's needed, what current browser support is, and which wikis specifically would benefit would help. [02:59:38] as I understand, there's already a system for flipping the necessary CSS left-to-right... [03:00:07] and there is an open-source extension to CSSJanus that allows it to flip 90 degrees [03:00:22] what else is necessary? [03:00:31] No idea. :-) [03:00:45] That's why I think a better overview would be helpful. [03:01:42] for the ASL stuff, I just manually rotated vector.css and a few other things, and it seems to work nicely on non-firefox browsers. [03:02:03] and rotated a few images [03:02:38] Well, any solution that gets deployed would need to work in Firefox. [03:02:41] That's not really optional. [03:03:00] why not? the alternative is not having vertical support for anyone. [03:03:18] Firefox simply doesn't support vertical text in any form. [03:03:41] Which wiki communities would benefit from this? [03:04:09] Mongolian, ASL and other sign languages, and a few pretty minor languages [03:04:22] Well, Firefox is open source software. Perhaps Wikimedia could add vertical text support. [03:04:31] Or could fund a grant to add it. [03:04:44] There's no ASL Wikimedia wiki, as I understand it. [03:04:51] Not yet. [03:05:01] That is largely because of the bug. [03:05:03] Did LangCom approve one? [03:05:30] It's also largely because many people still can't figure out what an ASL wiki is or why anyone would create one. ;-) [03:05:39] But we'll avoid that topic for now. [03:05:48] great [03:05:59] I'm not sure if langcom approved it yet [03:06:00] For that bug, if you want forward progress, my recommendation would be to make a clearer path for it. [03:06:17] There are likely dependent bugs that need to be addressed. [03:06:26] maybe [03:06:44] Whether or not they're filed yet, I have no idea. [03:06:52] You may also be able to rope Brion in to help. [03:06:58] With an RFC or with the actual coding. [03:07:02] hm [03:07:31] I'm not sure if this really needs a whole large process and stuff [03:07:52] Well, you're six years in. :-) [03:07:59] hm? [03:08:04] Since the bug was filed. [03:08:07] ah [03:08:13] You can continue simply hoping progress will be made. ;-) [03:08:24] ... [03:08:24] But there are finite development resources. [03:08:32] And so you'll have to be able to make a clear case for the investment. [03:08:38] Even if it's not a big investment. [03:09:24] My two cents. :-) [03:09:25] I see [03:09:41] Thousands of bugs already and only many more thousands to come. [03:09:54] Prioritizing is difficult. [03:09:59] so so hard [03:10:26] I would think that blocking what will probably become a major Wikipedia from being created would cause something to get a high priority [03:10:49] The Mongolian Wikipedia will be major? [03:10:57] no, the ASL [03:11:13] and probably a number of other sign language wikis [03:11:28] some of which have millions of native speakers [03:11:31] Sign language is written vertically? [03:11:34] yes [03:11:40] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SignWritingIncubator.png [03:13:11] (The World Federation for the Deaf estimates that there are 70 million native signers in the world.) [03:13:22] [SignWriting] was developed in 1974 by Valerie Sutton, a dancer who had two years earlier developed DanceWriting. [03:13:36] Presumably most of them can read and write in English, though. [03:13:46] not natively though [03:13:47] And presumably most of them have no idea what SignWriting is. [03:13:49] so can most speakers of plenty of other languages [03:13:58] * greg-g dated an ASL interpreter for 4 years, he's made that assumption too [03:14:04] it's a pretty easy script to learn to read [03:14:14] SignWriting is still probably easier than English, honestly [03:14:22] So is Klingon. [03:14:22] totally different grammar (English vs ASL) [03:14:44] YairRand: Are there any estimates as to the number of people who can read/write SignWriting? [03:14:54] not as far as I know [03:15:05] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SignWriting [03:15:36] It's still not part of Unicode? [03:15:58] no, but I don't think it needs to be. [03:16:36] https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/ase/M529x544S2ff00482x483S20500519x504S18517503x517 [03:16:36] It seems like there are a few factors that contribute to this bug not moving forward. [03:16:44] such as? [03:16:56] The lack of support. [03:17:08] you mean browser support for vertical text? [03:17:17] And Unicode's support. [03:17:29] I don't think waiting for unicode is at all necessary [03:17:42] And the apparent lack of people reading or writing in SignWriting (public support). [03:17:53] honestly, I'm not sure unicode support would even help that much. [03:18:16] ah, I don't think that public support is really lacking all that much. [03:18:49] I dunno. I've honestly never really understood the whole concept. [03:19:00] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_American_Sign_Language_2 [03:19:15] of having a wiki in sign language in the first place? [03:19:55] Yeah. [03:20:08] there are people who don't have a spoken language, or anything like it, as there native language. [03:20:13] *their [03:20:20] I'm re-reading the Meta-Wiki page. [03:20:28] The discussions about this always get very heated. [03:21:01] yep [03:21:38] I think that might be largely due to people that don't actually understand that signed languages are independent languages [03:21:59] I think people can vaguely understand that. [03:22:29] some do, some don't [03:22:59] People (or at least I) have difficulty understanding how someone who is simply deaf wouldn't simply use the Wikipedia in his or her written language. [03:23:19] And some people think SignWriting is kind of made-up. [03:23:42] well, because it's not their native language. they aren't as comfortable in English, or whatever other spoken language, as they are in their native language. [03:24:08] Perhaps. But their native language is communicated with hand signals, as I understand it. [03:24:23] sort of, I guess. [03:24:26] so? [03:25:06] Better video support or a means of transferring images of hand signals might do more to create an ASL wiki. [03:25:14] "his or her written language." doesn't exist [03:25:35] greg-g: I think people have difficulty understand how being deaf prevent someone from reading. [03:25:41] and isn't necessarily English [03:25:44] understanding * [03:25:46] why use only video? we don't use only audio for english. [03:25:54] Sure, it may not be English. Luckily there are many Wikipedias. :-) [03:25:56] yeah, it's a hard thing to realize [03:26:13] Which consequently makes it a difficult thing to get development resources behind. [03:26:14] no, as in, not any written language [03:26:17] I think. [03:26:26] emphasis on the "any" [03:26:44] So we want to create a Wikipedia for people without any written language? [03:26:52] they have a surrogate [03:26:58] SignWriting? [03:27:02] apparently [03:27:21] like native american languages [03:27:25] With an unknown amount of public support. [03:27:33] weren't written before, now we've made some shit up and now they can be written [03:27:46] And no support from current written language bodies (such as the Unicode Consortium). As I understand it. [03:27:54] that sucks, yeah. [03:28:18] I don't think it's very difficult to see why this bug or these proposals stall. [03:28:21] For better or worse. [03:28:30] yeah, definitely [03:28:32] it's hard [03:28:41] Also, making some shit up isn't exactly how Wikimedia wikis operate. ;-) [03:28:42] lots of misunderstanding [03:28:55] don't we have an ojibewe one? [03:29:14] well, wikimedia didn't exactly make up signwriting. [03:29:22] that too [03:29:53] though it will probably gain use enormously as a result of being used for the wikipedia. [03:30:20] you really think that wikipedia affects adoption rates of languages ? [03:30:30] no, of the writing system [03:30:35] I know it's probably horribly offensive, but I imagine many people equate SignWriting with Klingon. [03:30:49] probably true [03:31:03] quite unfortunate. [03:31:08] (guess not: https://incubator.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wp/oj&goto=mainpage&uselang=en) [03:31:21] LeslieCarr: Wikipedia affects a lot of things. :-) [03:31:22] Elsie: but why not with Ojibwa? [03:31:33] I have no idea what Ojibwa is. [03:31:43] i don't think that our website has the influence over people's language/writing systems that you believe it does ... [03:31:47] language of the Anishinabe [03:31:56] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ojibwe_language [03:32:02] that [03:32:30] spoken language that wasn't written until relatively recently [03:32:55] s/spoken/signed/ and it's the same situation [03:33:01] I'm not sure making up writing systems is the best way to capture non-written languages. [03:33:42] well, you have to capture languages somehow, and if it is agreed upon, then it works. many use written ojibwe to keep the language going (through teaching it at schools) [03:33:58] we had an ojibwe course at U Mich that was written their own textbook [03:34:07] s/written/writting/ [03:34:16] writing [03:34:19] right [03:34:24] righting [03:34:27] :-) [03:34:32] we're not making up signwriting. it's been around for 40 years. (or are you talking about ojibwe?) [03:34:49] neither are "made up" any more than any other language [03:34:52] Age isn't really relevant. [03:35:05] Klingon is older. That's what a critic would say. [03:35:07] (and less so than klingon) [03:35:18] it almost certainly is more used than any other writing system for signed languages. [03:35:30] Hmm, maybe not older. "Klingon" vs. "Klingon language"... [03:35:36] fucking klingon, it's like a fucking godwin's law for any language discussion [03:35:42] that's not really saying much, though, I suppose [03:35:49] greg-g: heh [03:35:54] greg-g: It's particularly relevant to Wikimedia wikis given the history. [03:36:40] Anyway, not my battle to fight. We have a LangCom. :-) [03:36:52] sure, but as soon as you compare a language that is used by a stigmatized people to klingon, it kind of becomes irrelevant [03:37:08] * greg-g is channeling his ex gf [03:37:13] one would think that the aftermath of klingon wikipedia would be that we have a ground rule of "no projects that people won't actually find useful". [03:37:17] Is there evidence that SignWriting is actually used? [03:38:08] Are there Web sites written in it? [03:38:27] it's not really used online, afaik. [03:38:43] as it's not easy to add to a website. [03:38:50] Heh. [03:38:56] Perfect for Wikimedia, then. ;-) [03:39:00] but there's plenty of use offline [03:39:05] doesn't mean textbooks/etc don't use it [03:39:18] there is a world outside of the web ;) [03:39:23] Go on. [03:39:33] I... don't know much about it. [03:39:37] :-) [03:39:38] you could probably find a fairly large list of schools that have taught it to many students [03:39:57] http://www.signwriting.org/ [03:40:11] I only started vaguely following signwriting after noticing the attempts to start a wiki [03:40:18] huh [03:41:32] http://www.signwriting.org/cards/ [03:42:05] heh [03:43:01] http://www.signwriting.org/archive/docs5/sw0480-WhoUsesSignWriting.pdf [03:43:32] well then [03:44:34] All of the literature seems to be in English. [03:44:50] hm? [03:44:53] Not all. [03:44:55] http://www.signwriting.org/about/info/ [03:44:59] I was clicking through that. [03:45:34] http://www.signwriting.org/forums/sponsors/year/index.html [03:45:43] Year-end reports, etc. are written in English. [03:45:50] back in the day when I could do auslan [03:46:02] Elsie: there are computer tools to help that [03:46:11] http://www.signwriting.org/archive/docs6/sw0549-SW-YearEndReport-2008.pdf mentions the MediaWiki plugin. [03:46:36] the plugin was replaced by a gadget, I think. [03:47:11] or maybe just replaced temporarily for while it's on the incubator. I'm not sure. [03:47:12] signwriting is primarily used by people that can't speak, so you see it used less in places that people read [03:48:17] What does the ability to speak have to do with the ability to write? [03:51:44] signwriting is used by people that can't speak, so it used to reduce words into hand movements (unless you use manual sign language), its usage in the writing world is low because most people can still read. When its used for writing, its gennerally to help teach users the actions [03:52:22] um, I'm not sure that's correct [03:52:58] "reduce words to hand movements"? what does that mean? [03:54:08] basically one hand movement can used to spell out a word [03:54:09] p858snake|l: they're originally hand(/other) movements. how are they being "reduced"? [03:54:13] oh [03:54:25] instead of spelling each letter out manually which can also be done [03:54:40] I don't understand [03:55:22] you can do manual signlanguage which essentially is spelling the word out like normal but with special hand movements [03:55:22] "spell out a word"? [03:55:39] you mean Signed Exact English? [03:56:12] sometimes [03:56:39] Auslan (Australian Sign Language) calls it fingerspelling generally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auslan#Auslan_in_relation_to_English [03:56:59] (Btw I was someone that was never ment to walk or talk, and my mum is also a special needs teacher aide) [03:58:41] I don't understand how signwriting "reduces" a word into hand movements, when it's originally hand movements. [03:58:50] YairRand: http://www.auslan.org.au/dictionary/words/abattoir-1.html [03:59:00] (that was just the first word in the dictionary) [03:59:20] what about it? [04:00:43] YairRand: The most basic version of sign language is double handed manual, where you use motions to spell out each letter, Or depending on the language set you using (eg: the entry I just linked) a motion or pattern of hand movements can indicate a complete world [04:01:42] does signing a spoken language's letters really count as a sign language? [04:02:05] yes [04:02:28] okay... but I can't imagine anyone would use signwriting for it. [04:02:29] that feels more like a sign transcription system than a language, per se [04:02:38] there are even different varients of it [04:02:44] but there's plenty of 'regular' languages that transcribe foreign words :) [04:03:46] Australia and New Zealand use the Brazilian variant iirc, and afaik America naturally has its own [04:04:09] a separate language [04:04:58] or were you referring to a separate fingerspelling system? [04:05:26] well the arguability of it is there, sure, whilst formally its probably not classed as a seperate language, many people still would [04:05:40] but enough of this, 2pm, I really should get up and shower [04:06:04] (I'm not sure how much of that conversation I understood...) [04:07:56] Elsie: How does one set up an RFC? [05:06:30] hrm, new feature suggestion --- make all http error code pages include kitties - http://theoldreader.com/kittens/ [05:09:34] have kitties as captchas http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/asirra/ [05:10:16] i agree [05:29:23] ...is flipping JS to right-to-left done manually? [05:30:05] YairRand: flipping JS? [05:30:17] you mean CSS? or….. something more scary sounding g:) [05:30:46] no, I mean JS. like elem.style.left = ... [05:30:54] ahh [05:31:02] yeah there's no auto flipping that i know of for that [05:31:10] you'll have to check manually :( [05:31:11] ugh [05:31:13] ho ve. [05:32:41] suddenly apparent potential work necessary for vertical writing support becomes much larger [05:42:33] I wonder if just setting $.cssProps.left='right' & such for rtl wikis has been considered... [06:10:23] yuvipanda: poke poke <- what's the most important things I should add to https://github.com/wikimedia/apps-android-commons/pull/41 ? [06:10:39] i wanna get that merged in soon so i can start on the next set of work based on it [06:21:59] I'm going to assume that a mediawiki rfc is started simply by creating a subpage of [Requests for comment] and then linking to it from there [06:34:42] there we go: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Vertical_writing_support [06:42:44] YairRand: sounds about right :) [06:42:47] ooh vertical writing [06:42:49] * brion reads [06:43:17] yay :) [06:43:55] YairRand: do we know which languages require vertical, and also which of those are LTR and which are RTL? [06:44:05] iirc mongolian is top-to-bottom, left-to-right [06:44:16] chinese/japanese in vertical mode are top-to-bottom, right-toleft [06:44:20] and i don't know about the sign languages :) [06:44:23] I think all the rtl vertical ones are also horizontally written [06:44:34] that simplifies things then :) [06:44:37] we can leave those horiz [06:45:10] wow this is gonna be fun to figure out how to make work :) [06:45:15] :) [06:45:24] last time i looked into this was years ago, IE was the only browser that (sort of) supported vertical text [06:45:33] and it wasn't quite matching the current css3 standard i think [06:46:10] it still doesn't, I think. ie uses "tb-lr" instead of "vertical-lr". [06:46:25] at least now it has a proper prefix [06:47:18] bah [06:49:10] YairRand: is there an editing widget for the sign writing stuff? i'll have to look all this up again, it's been a while :D [06:49:19] i see a lot of scary numbers in the text :D [06:49:33] an editing widget? [06:49:41] oh [06:49:55] I think User:Slevinski is working on one [06:52:34] nice [14:10:55] Hello, I installed mediawiki to /var/www/mediawiki-1.21-1/ Now I would like to have short urls like http://wiki/w/ .Should I move my installation according to this https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Short_URL#Moving_a_wiki_from_.2Fwiki_to_.2Fw ? Should I 'mv /var/www/mediawiki-1.21-1/ /var/www/w/' ? [14:11:13] Reading the manual confuses me in some places [14:13:18] Is this correct channel to ask, or should I move back to #mediawiki? [14:13:36] i need an bugzilla admin [14:15:33] *ping* Mark :-) [16:16:52] hello parent5446 [16:17:05] Hey [16:17:13] how's things? [16:17:33] hello [16:17:39] hey [16:17:41] Good, halfway through the week. Just saw that reading from MW patch. [16:18:17] yep looking at it now [16:18:57] yeah, i fixed some bugs and che [16:19:09] *checked that it works on linux [16:19:38] now i'm working on actually updating dump from changes since the last time [16:20:37] ah so I figured out what your problem was with mwxml2sql [16:20:50] so as it says in the usage notes (but I should remember no one actually every reads those) [16:21:06] if you don't specify a file template for output files, everything will be written to stdout interleaved [16:21:18] :/ [16:21:19] which is likely not what you want. if you do specify a file template e.g. [16:21:26] ooh [16:21:28] boringwiki.sql.gz [16:21:31] then [16:21:40] it will write one of those for page, one for text, one for revisions [16:22:13] anyways no need to worry about it now since you found another method [16:22:24] writing to stdout interleaved doesn't seem like reasonable default behavior to me [16:22:45] well it originates from earlier versions of the program where you could say 'I just want this table' [16:22:45] Welcome to MediaWiki [16:23:13] and then it was perfectly sensible behavior. But I could certainly change that now and have it refuse to write to stdout [16:23:45] insert lines are produced for each item as it's read from the dump so writing 'in order' on one stream is not going to happen. [16:24:23] right [16:27:07] parent5446: i noticed you accepted the Revision change i submitted yesterday, thanks [16:27:20] Yep, anytime. [16:28:09] ah you have +2 in core, that's right [16:31:08] if you don't have anything else, then i'll see you apergos tomorrow early and parent5446 on friday [16:31:23] I guess having the progress report show up on stderr is sometime a bit later? (I haven't played with the new version yet) [16:31:31] and then I don't have anything else after that [16:32:26] right, that doesn't work yet, but i think it should be mostly trivial [16:32:35] I expect it to be easy [16:32:56] all right, see you tomorrow at 4 my time then, keep up the good work! [16:33:23] i'll try, bye [16:33:52] Oh, also, I realized that I also will not be able to make Friday's meeting. [16:38:02] parent5446: if you want to meet at a later time on friday, i can do that [16:38:45] I'll be busy all day. :/ [16:39:19] ok, no problem, see you monday then [16:39:25] Yep, see you on Monday. [16:40:58] <^d> parent5446: I amended my search alternatives thing to include your feedback. [16:42:06] ^d: Yep, I saw and left two minor comments. [16:47:40] <^d> parent5446: So, the create() works when $type = null and $wgSearchType = null and when $wgSearchTypeAlternatives = null (all of which are acceptable). [16:48:12] <^d> The only question I had was the null in the API. $wgSearchType can be null, so the first item in the alternatives array can be null, and the default is null. [16:48:53] Hmm I see the issue. [16:49:15] <^d> So, I was thinking of making it something like "database-backed" which is unlikely to ever be the name of a search engine class. [16:49:20] <^d> But would work for an API param. [16:50:35] I guess it could work, but idk, it makes me feel uneasy. :/ [16:51:04] Anyway, I have to get back to my house. I'll be back on IRC in about an hour. [20:48:10] thedj_: did you mean to reopen this bug via the bot, or is the bot being too zealous? https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17616