Talk:Library Card platform

Library Card platform down for maintenance from 2.20pm UTC

Just a quick notice that the Library Card platform will be down for maintenance from ~2.20pm UTC. We expect the site to be back up within 30 minutes, but further delays are possible. I'll update here when the tool is back up. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 13:53, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

And we're back. Please let me know if anything doesn't appear to be working as intended. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 15:12, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Failed eligibility

Hi,

I created an account at wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org. The homepage shows me:

• 500+ edits ✔
• 6+ months editing ✖
• 10+ edits in the last month ✔
• No active blocks ✔

Why do I fail the "6+ months editing" criterion? I started editing the English Wikipedia in March 2005, and merged the accounts very early, in 2006. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 08:39, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

@Amire80: This is odd. It looks to me like your data should be accurate, but I can see that you're being flagged as ineligible. I've filed T274625. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:57, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 11:09, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Stream

What is a "Stream" exactly?

This word is used in three translatable messages and is not explained in the documentation for translators.

I guess it's something similar to "collection", but it would be nice to have a clearer explanation somewhere. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:58, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

It's actually exactly the same thing as a collection, we were just inconsistent with our naming. I've filed T275040 to tidy this up. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 16:00, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

"the implementation of EZProxy access" email

Hi,

I'm translating the app at translatewiki, and I noticed this very long message: "The Wikipedia Library is pleased to announce the implementation of EZProxy access and the Library Bundle" and so on, for several more paragraphs.

Its documentation says that it's an email. Is this email still sent to anyone? If it is, then it would be nice to split it to several messages to make translation easier. Putting each <p> element in one message would be OK.

If this email was sent once and isn't going to be sent again, this message must be removed from translatewiki.

There are several other similar long messages, but this one was the longest and the most suspect. However, the other long messages should also be split or removed.

Thanks! --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 18:08, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

@Amire80: Great catch, we had planned to remove this from the codebase once the email was sent, but it looks like that slipped us by. I've filed T275041. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 16:04, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

"Attempt to renew unapproved app"

Hi,

There's this message:

Attempt to renew unapproved app #{pk} has been denied

Does "app" mean "application"? If it does, can it be changed to "application"? These days, the word "app" is strongly identified with mobile phone apps, and it's quite confusing.

Thanks :) --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 09:00, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Good suggestion, I agree this is confusing. Filed T275042. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 16:07, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Gender

Is there any chance to support grammatical gender in the platform? There are a lot of messages that talk about applicants and coordinators in the second person (singular "you") and need different grammatical genders. There are also a bunch of messages that use the third person, and in English it's handled with "they", which is common in English, but not as easy to handle in Hebrew. There is no nice way to avoid it with language tricks in Hebrew, and I suspect it's needed for a lot of other languages. In MediaWiki this is handled nicely using user preferences and {{GENDER}}. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 09:10, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

@Amire80: I don't think we've considered this before now. Just so I understand correctly, the idea would be to allow users to specify their gender for the purposes of adjusting grammar in our strings depending on that preference? What happens in other tools if a user hasn't selected a preference for a language like Hebrew which doesn't have a good neutral option? Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 16:09, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

In MediaWiki core and extensions, it's very easy: logged-in users can set a gender preference, and then {{GENDER}} can be used to speak to people using correct pronouns and other grammatical forms. It works both for the current user (you) and when mentioning other users (he/she, but more often with verbs: "Mike deleted the page" and "Janet deleted the page" use different verb endings in Hebrew, Polish, and many other languages).

In Android and iOS apps it's not available, but in practice it's not needed there so frequently.

In Library Card, however, there are a lot of messages that would need this.

I'm not sure how OAuth works, but if you use Wikimedia account, perhaps you can get gender information from the account.

(In the world of apps outside Wikimedia, I know only one app that does it fairly well, and it's Facebook. Google and Twitter don't even try, even though they totally could and should do it.) --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 21:32, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Possibly mistaken message

Hi,

I might be wrong, but something looks wrong about this message:

{{PLURAL:GETTEXT|%(approved_count)s approved applications.|%(counter)s approved applications.}}

Is it correct that it's %(approved_count)s in the first part, but %(counter)s in the second? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 09:15, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

If I'm reading the code correctly, counter is equal to approved_count, so this is just an issue of code readability - it seems to function as expected from the users' point of view. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 16:12, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Samwalton9 (WMF), if they are equal, can it be the same variable? :) Otherwise it's a bit confusing to translators.

Also, is the first part really singular? It says "approved applications"; if it's 1, is it right that it says "1 approved applications"? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 21:25, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

access(es)

The word "access(es)" appears in a message. It's quite weird because as an English noun it's usually only singular.

Perhaps it can be changed to something like "access grants"? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 10:46, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

This makes sense - filed T275043. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 16:21, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

URL for Sign up as a coordinator

Hi,

There's this message:

The Wikipedia Library team will process this application. Want to help? <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Library/Coordinators/Signup">Sign up as a coordinator.</a>

Does it have to point to the English Wikipedia?

If the translators can change it to the Wikipedia in their language, it should be documented. Better yet, it should fetch the URL automatically if it's available, so that translators wouldn't have to deal with it at all. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 11:08, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Subject guide

There's this message: "See subject guide on Meta-Wiki"

Is it a link? Where does it link exactly? The documentation in po doesn't give any examples. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 11:22, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

@Amire80: It goes to one of the links on The Wikipedia Library/Collections. We're going to rework how this feature behaves, and almost certainly the text along with it, as part of the design improvements so I won't file a ticket for this right now. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 16:25, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

access, which you can access

There's this message:

This resource is part of our <a href="%(about)s">Library Bundle</a> access, which you can access if you meet our minimum eligibility criteria. Log in to find out if you are eligible.

The words "access, which you can access" sound a bit weird. Perhaps it can simply say "our Library Bundle, which you can access"? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 12:45, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Agreed - filed T275044. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 16:28, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Messages ending in a backslash

I found a couple of messages that begin with a lot of spaces and end with a backslash. At least that's how they show on translatewiki:

• https://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:Translations&message=Wikimedia%3AWikipedia-library-e5f1cb-You+meet+the+el%2Fhe
• https://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:Translations&message=Wikimedia%3AWikipedia-library-668d97-It+looks+like+y%2Fhe

Unless there's a strong reason to keep these spaces and backslashes, it would be nice to remove them to make the translators' work easier.

Thanks! --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 20:37, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Ah yep, this is a quirk of Django's localisation processes and is a quick fix. I've filed T275045. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 16:45, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Tiny suggestions about design improvement on the profile page

When I click on my username, and then "Profile", I see two large buttons at the top: "My Library" and "My applications". A couple of comments about them:

• The capitalization must be consistent. Either "My Library" and "My Applications" or "My library" and "My applications". Whatever the designers decide is fine.
• The caption on the "My Library" button appears under the folder icon and moved to the left. The caption on the "My applications" button is aligned with the button title, and appears to the right from the page icon. This should also be consistent, and whatever the designers decide is fine.

Thanks :) --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:41, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Library Card platform/Translation subpages

Hello,

There are many pages starting with “Library Card platform/Translation/”, created by @AVasanth (WMF) in February 2019 and translated through Translate extension. Why these translations did not happen on Translatewiki.net? Have they been used by the past? Have they still been used? Else, can we delete them? -- Pols12 (talk) 01:49, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

@Pols12: All great questions and even better timing. We had a short-lived project to have these strings translated here. We decided that was the wrong approach, and just last week we merged the content to be translated on Translatewiki (T273877). All of these subpages can be deleted! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 13:51, 26 April 2021 (UTC)