Finding Wikipedia in your language

Since yesterday, the www.wikipedia.org portal has a new feature. In addition to the long list of language names linking to the Wikipedia in that language, there is an inputbox right above it where you can enter a language name and it will redirect you to that Wikipedia. It accepts the native name (autonym), name in English, in your browser language and the language code. For example, you can enter "français", "French", "Frans" or "fr" and it will bring you to fr.wikipedia.org.

In case no Wikipedia exists (yet) in that language, it will go to the Wikimedia Incubator test wiki if that is started yet, and else it will show the "info page" inviting you to start that test wiki. For example, entering "Brahui" brings you to the Brahui Wikipedia and entering "Bini" brings you to the relevant info page.

This is still an early version:

• The language names coverage and the search itself will improve in the (near) future, and the Universal Language Selector might be used in the longer term for easier usage.
• The label "Find Wikipedia in language" is also only in English since there is no obvious language-neutral icon to use. A solution could be to add a translation of the label based on the browser language.
• It can probably be added to the other portals as well (i.e. for Wikibooks, Wikinews, ...).

Update: it did not display properly on small screens (mobile phones), it is now (temporarily) hidden there.

Any comments, ideas, problems are welcome,
Thanks,
Robin (SPQRobin)

Restarting this blog - news for February

It has been a long time since I made a blog post, and this is the first one that will be available through the Wikimedia Planet.

Since May last year, I've been voluntarily posting monthly reports of the Wikimedia language committee. Sometimes it included other relevant news, but I would like to extend my reporting to other things I do in the Wikimedia world, so that's why I'm restarting this blog. I, or occasionally a mysterious guest blogger, will probably write posts about news related to the LangCom, language support, Incubator, … 

I think this format of monthly updates is something that I am more likely to keep doing, rather than posts about a specific topic.

The following is what was up in February:

• On 1 February, three wikis were created: vep.wikipedia.org, pnb.wiktionary.org and mr.wikisource.org
• 1.19 deployment of course, which brings localized magic words and LanguageConverter to test wikis to Incubator
• I've added a WebFont for the Lontara script, which will be enabled tomorrow on the Buginese Wikipedia.
• For the Burmese language, which did already have WebFonts support, I submitted a bug to enable it on the Burmese Wikipedia.
• In the committee, I've proposed the approval for the Slovenian Wikiversity, currently an active part of the BetaWikiversity.
• Updated and improved some documentation on Meta related to requesting new wikis: merged several templates into one (hopefully easy to use) template.
• The Translate extension has been enabled on Incubator, which improves the translation process of our documentation there. If you enjoy translating, your help is very welcome :-)
• I'll probably participate in GsoC (I've been thinking about e.g. global preferences).
• Applied for a Wikimania scholarschip, and maybe I'll submit a presentation.
• Among other things, I'm working on Special:SearchWiki for Incubator, which should make it easier to find a wiki in your language.

Regards,

Robin (SPQRobin)

Inuktitut script

I made a conversion script for Inuktitut (between Syllabics and Latin script) in the MediaWiki software; to be used on the Inuktitut Wikipedia.

Gerard wrote a blog post about it.