Template talk:Babel

Findbox not a good idea
I don't think this Findbox thing can work. It's basically just an end run-around WP:TGS that allows all of the POV junk to work just as before. We shouldn't have templates reaching into userspace like that. Besides, this is Babel-X, so it should just be looking for Babel boxes located in main templatespace; no reason to delve into over a dozen userspace-hosted archives. It doesn't make sense. The whole thing is just very cross-namespace. The point of WP:TGS is to keep that inappropriate userbox content in userspace, but with findbox, that simply ain't so. -- Cyde↔Weys 05:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * ANY of the babel templates can 'reach into userspace'. Something like, ' ', works just fine. Thus 'findbox' is not allowing people to 'reach into userspace'... only helping to locate things there. I do not believe 'namespace crossing' is really an issue as the primary concern has been that we not present these 'disputed viewpoint' userboxes as things 'officially sanctioned' by Wikimedia. Keeping them in the template namespace was considered to create an incorrect impression of such 'official sanction' and thus they were moved to user space. That's the 'point' of WP:TGS... not 'to avoid namespace crossing'. Listing the locations of all the 'germanized' userboxes on some central page in an 'official' namespace like Wikipedia: or Template: would similarly be creating an 'impression of endorsement' and be a problem... creating a method of automatically locating the boxes was intended (amongst other things) to reduce the appearance of 'official sanction' by making such a list unneccessary. --CBD 11:58, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * If someone is using the example that you gave then it makes sense because they are specifically asking for something in userspace. But having the template for Babel boxes go digging through over a dozen bits in userspace is just counter-inuitive.  The difference is between the userspace being supplied by the user as a parameter and the userspace being hardcoded into the template text as it is with findbox.  -- Cyde↔Weys  19:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Why? What is 'bad' about it? Yes, 'the difference is between the userspace being supplied by the user and hardcoded in the template'... and? So what? What is 'wrong' with that? You have accurately described the intended purpose of the 'findbox' template... why is making things easier for users a 'bad idea'? Should we recode things so that they have to type instead of just  ? Everything you said is true, I just don't see why it would suggest that a change is needed. --CBD 00:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It's enough to make me reconsider my long-standing opposition to WP:AUM and those of you familiar with that case—and my involvement therein—will understand how much that means. I have mentioned in other places my prototype replacement for this template, which I think would help matters considerably. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 06:42, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The 'findbox' methodology does not appear to be noticably more 'draining on server resources' than the previous Babel-X, or the babel templates in general... all of which have always been meta-templates. Because it relies largely on parser-functions the degree of template nesting is really not as great as it might appear from the length of the logic. I know you are familiar with WP:PERF... why wouldn't that apply here? My personal guide has always been that if I can detect a performance hit then I adjust the way the template works / where it is used to eliminate or minimize that. I have redesigned several of my templates for such reasons. See or  for examples of things I had to rework. (Note: Those who think findbox is extreme may wish to skip these for the sake of their sanity). In this case I haven't even seen a detectable performance hit yet... and Babel-X is exclusively used on low traffic pages in the user space. --CBD 11:58, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd just like to note that this change is probably breaking many user pages right now. (see User:Shayl/Sandbox for an example) I don't know what other users have been doing, but I have been replacing text such as "confused" with "User:MiraLuka/Userboxes/User confused", and this no longer works. — Shayl talk 06:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It's not hard to fix though, they just need to put in the actual location of the template prefaced by a semicolon. Yeah, I guess it's an inconvenience, but it'd be even more of an inconvenience leaving this thing with the userspace-snatching and then trying to fix it later on.  This old Findbox system was going to lead to conflicts anyway; it resolves collisions merely by the order of the priority list of userspace archives; who decides that order?  What happens when a guy who is listed further up in the priority list creates a template with the same name but a different functionality?  Suddenly a bunch of userpages will change and it will be almost impossible to notice, because the old template won't have been edited; indeed, the only thing that will have changed is that there is now a new template, which couldn't possibly have been on anyone's watchlist before it was created.  Getting rid of Findbox actually gives users a lot more control over exactly how their userpage is displayed.  -- Cyde↔Weys  06:53, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It seems you have a valid argument there, but I would ask how people will know how to fix it, and even that they need to fix it. I think that the majority of people seeing a redlinked userbox will simply delete the link from their page. — Shayl talk 07:03, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * No, the 'amount of control' does not change. Users can still link directly to specific pages if they are worried about someone adding a different box with the same name. worked just fine with 'findbox' included too. In any case, this is a hypothetical future problem... which I think is unlikely to come up very often. --CBD 10:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Commons
Is there a reason why this template hasn't found its way over to the Commons, where they are still using the old Babel-1, babel-2, etc templates? lensovet 21:45, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * We're "still using the old Babel-1, babel-2, etc templates" here too. I have been working to transition towards a single babel template for a while now, but it has to be something which is accepted by the community / non-disruptive. Most people haven't even noticed that all of the old versions except the most heavily used (Babel-2 through Babel-6) have been converted or redirected to this template, because the results are the same. A version of this template can be found on Meta, but it hasn't really taken off there. I think eventually we'll get down to just one 'babel' template on most projects, but it could take a while. --CBD 17:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Anything stopping me from opening commons:Template:Babel and copying this template's code into it? lensovet 17:36, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Went ahead and copied the template onto the commons, updated it for cats/links, and changed all the Babel-N templates to redirects. They only went up to 18 or so there anyway. Looks and works great. lensovet 01:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:DEUTSCH breaks this
As a result of WP:DEUTSCH, this no longer works since the templates don't follow the formula. Can we write some sort of regexp that would look for "User:" and then NOT add the to it, simply adding curly brackets around the parameter? —lensovet–talk – 06:32, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * See the 'findbox' discussion above and . That's a method of locating userboxes with various different naming structures like you describe. --CBD 01:25, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

User templates with custom options
I don't get how this can work with user templates that have custom options. Take for example: User:Llama man/Userboxes/Birthday (:Llama man/Userboxes/Birthday), where you need to add an extra | to insert another parameter. Pink moon 1287 (email • talk • user) 13:42, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The short answer is that it doesn't. Userboxes which require parameters have to be called independently. So you might use a babel box for most of your userboxes and then include any boxes with parameters beneath it. --CBD 23:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I pondered a bit more and added a 'special-boxes' parameter which can handle these. So if you include, |special-boxes= it will now include that box at the bottom of the list. --CBD 22:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

More options please
Can we get changes so that Babel recognizes all the same parameters that userboxtop recognizes. I at least want to allow for a transparent background.

On a related note, I nest my user box groups. However, the margin-left:1em; part causes problems. I would like to shut the margin-left part off when the box is nested. This is the only way I use Babel. So that option would apply to it too. Will (Talk - contribs) 08:39, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I added 'textcolor' and 'extra-css'. All of the other features of 'userboxtop' were already present in this template. Setting 'left=0' will suppress the left margin. --CBD 14:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

th interwiki
Please add th:แม่แบบ:บาเบล for interwiki link. Thanks --Jutiphan | Talk  - 06:07, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Done. Proto ::  ►  18:18, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Edit request
In the table with the yellow bars containing the examples, one userbox has been moved through Userbox migration. It should be removed, or replaced somehow. - Zero1328 Talk? 09:30, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * ✅ - Harryboyles 10:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Please don't include 0-level usercats.
Please see the March 7 2007 UCfD. Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 00:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Change id="userboxes" to class="userboxes"
To coincide with a recent change to Template:Userboxtop (see discussion), I'd like to request that the  markup be replaced with. This allows the same CSS classes to be used for identifying both Babel boxes and generic userbox containers. The change to Template:Userboxtop was requested to allow user pages to be XHTML valid when using multiple userbox containers. This allows the use of standard XHTML validation tools and enables scripts to be written that can show and hide userboxes using DHTML techniques. Retaining a unique attribute as a class instead of an id allows users who want to do so to still hide these boxes using personal CSS.

In the process of getting the change made to Template:Userboxtop, an exhaustive search was made of the  namespace to see if anyone was currently using the   id in their personal CSS. I was unable to find anyone using it, so the change to the other template was deemed safe and this one should be as well.

In addition, this change should also be made to Babel-N; I'm going to request the change there too and point to the discussion here. Mike Dillon 00:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, as in the case of Template:Userboxtop, the  attribute should be removed as well. Mike Dillon 00:57, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


 * editprotected done. CMummert · talk 16:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki links
editprotected Please remove the interwiki link to the bulgarian (bg) template. It does not at all compare to this one, and is functionally different in many respects. It belongs to another group of similar templates. These two groups should imho not be merged unless functionality has been made almost identical. --Purodha Blissenbach 14:02, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
 * In what way do you believe they differ? I've been looking at the bg template and this one, and they both transclude User x for each x that's given as a parameter (the bgwiki will transclude a Bulgarian equivalent if one's available instead, resulting in similar functionality), resulting in more-or-less the same box. I've tested  on both enwiki and bgwiki (previewing rather than saving), and it came out with basically the same result, so as far as I can tell, the functionality is'' identical. Why don't you think the interwiki is valid? --ais523 08:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * (I suspect the reason that this template is creating redlinks on your bgwiki userpage is that the relevant Babel userboxes don't exist on bgwiki.) --ais523 08:19, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

This might actually be a good chance to include more interwiki links. It looks like bg:Шаблон:Вавилон has quite a few more interwikis than the English version, likely due to the fact that this one is protected. It looks like Purodha Blissenbach actually entered most of the ones on the Bulgarian version recently. Mike Dillon 01:59, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I can't tell exactly what is being requested. The easiest thing would be for you to make a list of all the interwikis that should be in the template, and I will copy it in. Please put up another editprotected at that time. CMummert · talk 13:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

editprotected The request is exactly to remove the  interwiki link. These templates do not compare, even if some rudimentary functionality indeed overlaps. Do NOT import interwiki links from the Bulgarian template, please, so as not to create a big mess. --Purodha Blissenbach 15:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * removed. CMummert · talk 22:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I still can't see how these are different. I looked at the source of bg:Шаблон:Вавилон and it seems almost identical to our template. Can you be more specific about the differences? Mike Dillon 23:48, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Volapük Babel link
editprotected

Please add a link to the Volapük Babel template (which was simply copied and pasted from here, so it has precisely the same functionality). It is here. Thanks! --Smeira 12:41, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ Done --ais523 12:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Akan, Esperanto Upper Sorbian, Udmurt, Wuu, Classical Chinese, and some more interwiki links
Please add: ak:Template:Babel ang:Template:Babel ar:قالب:Babel az:Şablon:Babel bn:Template:Babel bo:Template:Babel bpy:মডেল:Babel ce:Шаблон:Бабел cr:Template:Babel cs:Šablona:Babel da:Skabelon:Babel eo:Ŝablono:Babel es:Plantilla:Babel-X fa:الگو:Babel gv:Template:Babel he:תבנית:Babel hi:साँचा:Babel-X hsb:Předłoha:Babel is:Snið:Málkassi-X ja:Template:Babel kk:Үлгі:Babel km:Template:Babel la:Formula:Babel-X lb:Template:Babel-X lg:Template:Babel lmo:Template:Babel mn:Template:Babel mr:साचा:Babel new:Template:Babel no:Mal:Babel os:Шаблон:Babel pap:Template:Babel pl:Szablon:Babel pt:Predefinição:Babel sco:Template:Babel se:Template:Babel sh:Template:Babel sl:Predloga:Babilon sq:Stampa:Babel sr:Шаблон:Babel sw:Template:Babel tg:Шаблон:Babel tl:Template:Babel tr:Şablon:Babil ug:Template:Babel vi:Tiêu bản:Babel war:Template:Babel wuu:Template:Babel yi:מוסטער:באבעל zh-classical:Template:Babel zh-min-nan:Template:Babel

thank you! --Purodha Blissenbach 21:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Yes check.svg|20px]] Done. I also switched the template to use a /doc subpage so future interwikis can easily be added. Cheers. --MZMcBride 21:22, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Koine Greek (ke)
The category was deleted but it's still a valid parameter for the template -- Kimon talk 01:20, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

How to use this template with userboxes taking parameters?
I'm using this template, and in a shortened form it looks like this: How do I get the User contrib template to work here? I thought using the ! template would do the trick as used above, but it doesn't seem so.

This method also doesn't work:

&mdash; Northgrove 02:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)


 * This used to work fine, but now I have two templates on my user page that aren't transcluded properly due to the use of the ! template. Has something changed recently? I can't seem to find anything in the history or related changes for either template... Also, you are missing the wikipedia/Donor template from the above babel boxes. ~ Paul T +/C 23:40, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, I made my examples more minimalistic to not clutter this page too much, but it seems I forgot to take the donor part out in the process. I've fixed that now. But yes, the problem remains. &mdash; Northgrove 22:07, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Found a workaround. Not ideal, but it works:   I'm still not sure why the original behavior broke, but this will work in the interim. ~ Paul T +/C 17:23, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

The default message
Is it a joke? WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN  it seems the winds have stopped...  22:52, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

edit this page -> view source
The "how to"-guide states that you should click "edit this page", but since it's protected it says "view source". I was going to change that snippet of text but, umm, the page was protected.. Axelv (talk) 06:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey, nevermind. I found the /doc page. Axelv (talk) 06:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia: ?
What about boxes from the Wikipedia namespace? –xeno talk 04:16, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Passing multiple paramaters to included user boxes
How can you pass multiple paramaters to included user boxes? doesn't work. ··gracefool&#9786; 06:01, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Fix italian error on this babelthing
From my user talk: editprotected On this babelbox →→→→, the phrase Questo utente può contribuire a livello professionale in Italiano. is grammatically correct, but it sounds awful. Please, can an admin change it to Questo utente può contribuire con un italiano a livello professionale? The i of italian stands minuscule for the italian grammar rules. Thanks :) P.s.: take a look in my UP, i'm italian ;) --Vale maio (talk) 22:35, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Done, but you could have done that yourself since the actual template lives at User it-5. :) Ciao, Amalthea  23:07, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, as I usually say, l'importante è che sia stato fatto (the important is the work done, or something similar) :). Thank you! --Vale maio (talk) 23:16, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

!
I can't get this to work.... -- Smjg (talk) 18:14, 7 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm having the same problem. I want to integrate  into my Babel box by using , but it doesn't seem to be working. --Ixfd64 (talk) 18:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


 * This presumably broke with a change to the parser. I'll remove the mention of it from the docs. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:36, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Is this still Not A Thing, or did it return? If it's not, why is it still mentioned in the documentation? If it *is*, a more thorough explanation (or a link to one) would be great! — ELLIOTTCABLE (talk) 09:57, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Request for edit
Please remove the message on top saying "This user cannot read or write any languages. Assisstance is required." (Who added that anyway? It was the inspiration for the joke userbox.


 * diff from when this was added. I'm not sure how useful it is, I wouldn't mind if it was removed however. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 12:12, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * If this were to be removed, I'd like it replaced with something along the lines of You haven't set up any languages. If you require help doing this, see this page for help. Microchip08  21:46, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a reasonable idea. ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:13, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Aww. I liked the old message; I had it up on my userpage for years.  I guess I can switch to  though. -- Soap Talk/Contributions 20:39, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Edit request
Editprotected Please add this: sv:Mall:Babel ...to Template:Babel/doc. / Hey Mid  (contributions) 22:27, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * You can do it yourself. Part of the reason for documentation subpages in the first place was so that changes such as this could be made by anyone to a protected template. The documentation subpage here is not protected, and I'm not sure that any are. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:15, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Ahh, I'm so stupid again! Thanks for pointing it out. / Hey Mid  (contributions) 09:13, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Specify variables for the templates
Is it possible to somehow specify like a or  variable in a template I put in this Babel template? / Hey Mid  (contributions) 13:52, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Not any more. It used to be possible, but a change in how the MediaWiki parser handles templates broke that. Fixing it would require a fundamental rewrite of the code AFAIK. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 09:39, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Babel extension
The Babel extension was enabled recently, so wouldn't it make sense to replace this with ? --Yair rand (talk) 04:30, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Probably eventually, but first various template clashes should be addressed. See for example output of  . See also mw:Thread:Extension_talk:Babel/Case_sensative_and_clashes_with_existing_user_templates. --Jarekt (talk) 18:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Error in it-1
Hi, I'm using the template with and the result displays a double un (Questo utente può contribuire con un un livello elementare in italiano). I don't know where I can fix that, since Template:User it-1 has different text.--Morel (talk) 12:27, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Probably here?--Morel (talk) 12:32, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit request
Add a shadow parameter by inserting  like this: Then the shadow can be enabled by putting. benzband ( talk ) 13:48, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you could put your proposed code on the /sandbox and test it works properly? Please reactivate request when ready. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:57, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Aye, produces the box on the right.  benzband  ( talk ) 15:11, 24 May 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅ -- WOSlinker (talk) 15:17, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
 * . benzband  ( talk ) 15:54, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

categories
The doc of this template is adding the template to a bunch of categories because of the demonstrations used. The template is now in Category:ru-N among others. How can this be stopped? Liam987 (talk)  18:05, 12 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Category suppression might contain helpful information. Hyacinth (talk) 05:57, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Another use case: I want the Babel box both on my user page and my talk page, but I don't want both to be categorized. A parameter for category suppression would be nice. - Soulkeeper (talk) 17:32, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Supercats
See Template_talk:User_iso15924 and Template_talk:User_en. Hyacinth (talk) 06:47, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

It appears that this template still creates some redundant categories, such as with, which creates both Cat:User simple and Cat:User simple-3. Hyacinth (talk) 12:03, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Edit request

 * Issue: when Babel is used, it adds Category:User en-N automatically. (The user only can op out by setting nocat=true). This is wrong, as the user does not add Babel to state that he or she is native English speaker, he or she does so to specify (other) languages and levels.
 * Change: please remove this code:
 * Effect: The category (now 48000 pages) will be filled only with those who opted in by explicitly stating . -DePiep (talk) 11:03, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:53, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * For what it is worth: now the cat has ~30000 users listed. -DePiep (talk) 22:16, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: remove supercat from userboxes with level
I propose to remove any parent category from userboxes when levels are used.

As User:Hyacinth pointed out here, some userboxes add a parent category. But since any page in a category is member of any parent category (or supercat), this adding is redundant.

Example: when using User et-3 on a userpage, that page is added to Category:User et-3 and to parent Category:User et. The parent one should go. -DePiep (talk) 11:31, 14 October 2012 (UTC)


 * A complete list is in Category:Language user templates. -DePiep (talk) 12:21, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem with this is that it will make the userboxes inconsistent with the  technique (see mw:Extension:Babel):   categorises into    . -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:59, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I understand that adds those categories, but further does not depend on them. Is there any other Wiki dependency (i.e. any WP structure that somehow of requires both cats to exist)? Or is it just for users eyes & clicks? -DePiep (talk) 07:53, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Edit request
The line  has an extra pipe (highlighted in red) that should be removed. Dlrohrer 2003  20:16, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * True; . -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:26, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Dlrohrer  2003  21:36, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Families of languages
So far, Babel has been designed for individual languages. However, with a good knowledge of some languages in a family of languages, one can usually read texts written in related languages and their dialects. Because of a certain proliferation of dialects, I would now be forced to state some 20 Dutch and German dialects, as well as Scandinavian and Frysian languages, and also some ten Romanic languages, almost all of them at level-1. I notice similar problems in the West of Africa, and I must assume they are there for native speakers of one of the Slavic languages. So please extend or change the Babel system such that it becomes possible to indicate families of languages without having to state all the family members one by one. DrMennoWolters (talk) 09:47, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The babel userboxes should be consistent with the  technique (see mw:Extension:Babel). Are these dialects are provided within that? -- Red rose64 (talk) 15:39, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I am not aware that your link has anything to do with dialects. DrMennoWolters (talk) 16:06, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The idea is that something like should behave similarly to   If one form provides more codes than the other, that's an inconsistency. -- Red rose64 (talk) 16:52, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I am not discussing any difference between the techniques of Babel and #Babel, whatever they may be. What I am saying is that with my knowledge of Dutch, English and German (which is not unusual in Europe), I am able to understand texts in Frysian, Saksisch, Limburgs, Vlaams, Dansk, Norsk, Svensk and a number of dialects that are spoken in parts of Germany. However, I don't want to state all these dialects and related languages on my user page. Babel and #Babel should offer a general solution for this problem, even if the problem does not rise in the English language. DrMennoWolters (talk) 22:17, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Since there are a lot of different Wikipedias, which must recognose the same language codes as each other, there's nothing we can safely do on English Wikipedia, so it needs to be altered centrally. You would need to file a feature request at bugzilla. At the first few menus, select "Product: MediaWiki extensions" and "Component: Babel". -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:00, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I second this - User:Matthew Relucio — Preceding undated comment added 01:20, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Capitalisation of categories
A few days ago I did a big tidyup of uncategorised categories, and found many "User xx" type categories which had no parent category. I added parent categs for dozens of them, and noticed that some seemed to be wrongly capitalised. So I nominated them at WP:CFD/S for speedy renaming:


 * Category:User En-3 to Category:User en-3
 * Category:User Zh-1 to Category:User zh-1
 * Category:User AF-1 to Category:User af-1
 * Category:User BG-3 to Category:User bg-3
 * Category:User en-GB to Category:User en-gb
 * Category:User Zh to Category:User zh
 * Category:User En to Category:User en
 * Category:User Hi to Category:User hi
 * Category:User BG to Category:User bg

However, it now seems that at least one of them is intended to in uppercase. In the section above it seems that "User BG" relates to bitmap graphics rather to the Bulgarian language of Category:User bg.

Are there any other such clashes in this list? -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:04, 20 February 2014 (UTC)


 * That would require some bot work to find out definitively. You would have to go through the whole two lists of language codes (here and here) to check which have existing categories. Then you'd have to find out whether those categories are for the correct language name - this might be possible by searching for the language name in the category wikitext and flagging pages that don't contain it for human inspection. And if someone is willing to take the trouble to do that, then we may as well check whether we have any template clashes either, so that this template can be switched to use the #babel parser function without changing people's languages around. I'd ask at WP:Bot requests and see what people there say. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 13:08, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Too much work for me. I am not a Babel specialist; I was just trying to clean uncategorised categories. So I have taken an easier path. I have deleted the empty categories, and will remove the speedy tags from the others. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:41, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I've been attempting a little bot work of my own, and I've managed to assemble a list of duplicate babel categories. This list is from the database dump taken on February 3, 2014, so changes since then are not reflected. (Mostly that's the categories you deleted, but there could be other creations or deletions.)
 * Category:User AF-1, Category:User af-1
 * Category:User AF, Category:User af
 * Category:User BG-3, Category:User bg-3
 * Category:User BG, Category:User bg
 * Category:User CSS, Category:User css
 * Category:User DE-3, Category:User de-3
 * Category:User DE, Category:User de
 * Category:User En-3, Category:User EN-3, Category:User en-3
 * Category:User En, Category:User EN, Category:User en
 * Category:User Hi-N, Category:User hi-N
 * Category:User Hi, Category:User hi
 * Category:User IT-N, Category:User it-N
 * Category:User IT, Category:User it
 * Category:User NL-N, Category:User nl-N
 * Category:User NL, Category:User nl
 * Category:User ar-3, Category:User Ar-3
 * Category:User ar, Category:User Ar
 * Category:User en-GB-N, Category:User en-gb-N
 * Category:User en-GB, Category:User en-gb
 * Category:User ur-3, Category:User Ur-3
 * Category:User ur, Category:User Ur
 * Category:User yi-1, Category:User Yi-1
 * Category:User yi, Category:User Yi
 * Category:User zh-1, Category:User Zh-1
 * Category:User zh, Category:User Zh
 * Hope this is of some use. :) — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 10:28, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Aha, I believe I have just found the culprit behind these incorrectly-capitalised categories. See User:Babel AutoCreate and its contributions. This is probably worth filing a bug over, or it's going to be an endless struggle trying to delete categories that have been created by the bot after users who don't know any better use capitals in their #babel invocations. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 14:20, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I've just blocked the bot - I noticed that it had recreated Category:User Yi, which I deleted the other day. (The correct category is at Category:User yi.) It would be nice to have it create legitimate new categories for rarer languages that users add to #babel, but at this point it seems to be doing more harm than good to our category system. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 09:12, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 9 July 2014
100 is a bad way to go, and creates a bit more inclusion than necessary. I've modulized this to Module:Babel, and the exact code for invocation is currently on the sandbox. I've tested every parameter and added a couple of random users' babel calls to Template:Babel/testcases, and everything works as expected.

If this request is accepted and fulfilled by an admin, can the admin please also permanently template-protect the module that implements this template? If a template editor fulfills this request, I'll just go to WP:RPP. moluɐɯ 13:23, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. I object to the module on the grounds there is no need for it to be limited to 100 calls via a module.  .  Please fix the module so it can do an unlimited number of calls. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 13:29, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The module should work now to perform an unlimited number of calls. moluɐɯ 13:36, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Seems to work fine on the testcases page, but of little use reading Lua modules. I have no further objection to this at this time. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 13:40, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm briefly deactivating my own request, because I seem to have forgotten a parameter. I'll reactivate when I make sure everything is fine. moluɐɯ 13:47, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I apologize about that. I've added the parameter (luckily it wasn't a hard one), and updated the test cases page to include it. I also went over the diff a couple more times and found a problem with another parameter. That is now fixed as well. Everything still works as expected. moluɐɯ 13:55, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:15, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Parameter "date"
The code  gives whats on the right side. It could be done in a better way. Instead of using  it could use   and that will call "File:Crystal Clear app date D.png" (with correct number for that day). So, the number in the image to the left will be correct, not just the text. /Hangsna (talk) 22:02, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 6 January 2015
I went ahead and improved the raw semantics of how the module works. Removed several extraneous assignments and methods to improve the code. I added several comments to the module as well. The one functionality change made is that the colspan attribute in the header and footer are now dynamic (currently technically limited to 10).

The new code to replace this is on Module:Babel/sandbox, and it is performing exactly as expected.

mol uɐɯ  18:18, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅. Do let me know of any problems &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:47, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Added code for in a parameter
Hallo. I just added some code to the module sandbox. The code enable to put the parser function  into a parameter. I works very fine and I tested this code in three other wikipedias. 

I use a little bit tricky code during the use of the module and template.

But I don't know, why some categories are at the end of this discussion page now. In the other wikis, where I added the code, there are not such categories in the template and discussion pages. Greetings --Tlustulimu (talk) 13:14, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
 * What's the  for? -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:46, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I've commented out the code in the OP's comment that was displaying the userboxes and causing the incorrect categorization. DexDor(talk) 07:47, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Simple English levels
I've been trying to tidy up some categories and came across the hierarchy, which seems a bit of a mess. My personal view is that it may not be very meaningful to talk about levels of reading Simple English, there's a definite skill to writing it and so it is meaningful to talk of levels of skill, even if the text should be tweaked to reflect the fact that it is about content creation. I've got no problem with the templates existing. However, per Categories_for_discussion/User/Archive/February_2008 there seems to be a consensus against level categories of Simple English and has been deleted 9 times. So there needs to be some kind of reconciliation between the two - I had a look to see if this has been attempted before and couldn't find anything other than above which suggests part of the problem is that some of the templates are generating both parent and daughter categories. I've knocked off some -N's but I get nervous going any deeper - could someone take a look? Le Deluge (talk) 03:05, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * We should not be deciding this locally, since the babel system is supposed to be the same across all Wikipedias. Thus, if  works at simple: it must work in the same way here. If we want language level categories to be removed, we should ask the devs to take them out of the Babel extension. -- Red rose64 (talk) 00:26, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Programming languages
It would be neat if this template supported programming language proficiencies as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Niedzielski (talk • contribs) 15:11, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Removing the footer
Is there a way to remove the footer so that it doesn't appear? I've been trying to use Template:Babel-N to get rid of it via a custom footer, but I haven't had any success so far. Zupotachyon (talk) 18:57, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Hatting a Babel table
Is there a way to hat the Babel table? I know that you can do so with a userbox table but I was wondering if something to the same effect could also be achieved with Babel. Zupotachyon (talk) 19:05, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Redirected categories
Category:User en-GB, Category:User pt-BR, Category:User zh-Hans and Category:User zh-Hant are all redirects to alternate capitalisations; however many user pages are in them and will not move over despite correcting the capitalisation on their pages. Can someone with the know-how take a look at these pages and see if they can spot where the template has gone wrong. Timrollpickering (talk) 08:54, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Like I keep posting, it's not templates but part of the MediaWiki software. -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:24, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 10 April 2017
For each language box, change the the text "This user" (Dieser Benutzer, Cet utilisateur, etc) into a wikilink to the user's page on that wiki.

For example, taking code 'FR-3' as an example: the text inside the box is now:

After the change:

Grab the pagename, and if it doesn't match "User:" + someUserId, then output the text as above.

If it does match, then 'someUserId' is a UserId; in that case, output this text instead:

Note: Even though a fr-wiki user page would normally have the prefix 'Utilisateur:', I note that in fact, 'User:' works there, and also works on all foreign wikis that I have checked. So the prefix 'User:' can remain fixed in the link, irrespective of what language prefix it follows. Mathglot (talk) 23:41, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. This is a nontrivial change and requires consensus. – Train2104 (t • c) 00:48, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It can't be done as a change to Template:Babel, since that is merely a wrapper. You would need to change the individual langauge templates. There are typically five to seven for each language, for example: Template:User fr-0; Template:User fr-1; Template:User fr-2; Template:User fr-3; Template:User fr-4; Template:User fr-5; and Template:User fr. There are also sets for approximately 320 different languages, so you are proposing that a change be made to each one of something like two thousand individual templates.
 * As regards the fact that "User:" works on French Wikipedia, this is because the system language of the MediaWiki software is English, so English terms for namespaces are understood by all Wikis in all languages. Each one is locally configured to accept localised terms as aliases for the English terms. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 08:59, 11 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the response. It's not worth changing hundreds of templates just to have some convenient links.  Would've been a nice improvement, and I imagined a different underlying design that would've made it easy; but alas, no. Oh, well.  Thanks for the explanation of the aliases; I kind of intuited that, but was nice to hear that that's actually how it works. Mathglot (talk) 09:11, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Error in gl-N
The text for native level Galician is missing a word. It's displayed as "Este ten o galego coma lingua nai", when it should be "Este usuario ten o galego coma lingua nai". As it is right now, it would be like saying "This has Galician as a native language" in English. Could an admin correct it? --DaniRivas (talk) 12:49, 3 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Padlock-pink-open.svg Not done: According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details.
 * It's Template:User gl-N which needs editing, and it isn't protected. gl 0-4 already contain usuario.
 * Yes check.svg Done, just spotted how new your account is - and I wouldn't be so cruel as to force someone to dive into templates so soon. If you create your userpage on meta: it'll magically appear on all the wiki projects where you don't already have a userpage. Hope you enjoy your time on the wiki. Thanks for spotting the error. Regards, Cabayi (talk) 13:52, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

I see, thanks a lot for your time.--DaniRivas (talk) 17:14, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

"Other Wikis" Documentation Inaccurate
The "Use on other wikis" section claims: The page you are now reading is the actual Babel template. If you click "edit this page", you will see a bunch of computer code that makes the Babel boxes work. What you're now reading is just documentation for that code, transcluded inside " " tags so it doesn't interfere with the computer code.

In order to have Babel boxes on another Wikimedia project, just copy this page to that project. Click "view source" and copy all the contents, including the computer code. Create a page called "Template:Babel" on the other Wikimedia project and put the content into it. But the actual source of the Babel page consists only of. Someone who knows more than I about the structure of lua modules and how they work on wikis should update this section with accurate info/instructions. Is it enough to simply copy over the Module:Babel page, or are there other important things that it depends on as well? NotTheInferno (talk) 09:36, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Italicization
Why are the texts of some Babel boxes italicized and some not? (see my userpage; and the documentation page). It's not super aesthetically pleasing; is there an easy fix to this? – Gormflaith (talk) 15:02, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Instead of (which is the old method), use   (the new way). See mw:Extension:Babel. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 18:18, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Alright, thanks for the advice! – Gormflaith (talk) 22:01, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Wiki language
Hi, I'm trying to change the wikilanguage entry on my version of the template (eg Template:User wiki lang-3) but I can't seem to find other versions of wiki or wikilanguage that work (trying wiki-2 gives the redlink Template:User wiki-2, for example). Here's the code that I'm using (in plaintext):

en


 * 1) Is there something I'm doing wrong? Have the parameters been updated to something else?
 * 2) Is it necessary to change the order of the parameters or is that taken care of when invoking the extension?
 * 3) Has the template simply not been updated or are there template redirects in use?

Thanks in advance. Techhead7890 (talk) 08:42, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The old template and the newer   parser function are for human languages, such as English, French and German - not for computer languages. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 11:48, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Hello, I understand the primary point of the template is indeed languages, but it was previously supported in the past (well, many years ago). As I mentioned, writing the above code returns a redlinked template (for most numbers), not an error in babel itself. (I have since discovered that the only reason why Template:User wiki-3 works is that it is indeed a template redirect to the current title)
 * Given that, has the support for indicating familiarity with markup discontinued since then? If so, would there be any meaning in changing the template be edited to reflect that? Techhead7890 (talk) 12:38, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Put simply: if the template doesn't exist, you get a redlink. Complicated version: the template tries to convert its parameters into the names of templates, which are assumed to exist. Only the templates for human languages were set up with the full 0...5 set. Moral: don't rely on something doing what it wasn't designed to do. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 18:41, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 22 August 2018
Parameter to suppress categories in userboxes yes is not supported by Module:Babel. It seems from this edit of Template:Babel, that it was supported some time ago.

I've added support of parameter "nocat". The new code is on Module:Babel/sandbox, and it is performing as expected. Note, that in new testcase page is added to Category:User pas and Category:User haskell, but not added to Category:User java and Category:User bash. My changes also include a small refactoring: extraction of function. —⁠andrybak (talk) 15:27, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:57, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 11 September 2019: parameter
Please change line 28 of the module source code, which currently reads: border = (bordercolor or '#99B3FF') .. ' solid ' .. (args.solid or 1)..'px' to border = (args.bordercolor or '#99B3FF') .. ' solid ' .. (args.solid or 1)..'px' While my facility with Lua is limited, I believe the use of the  parameter in the Babel template is currently ignored by the parser without this change, which matches my experience while recently adding the template to my user page and finding that said parameter had no effect for either hex code or named CSS color values. —JewelleL57 (talk) 21:15, 11 September 2019 (UTC) PAGE ]]) 14:45, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done. --Ahecht ([[User talk:Ahecht|TALK

Align parameter has no effect
I'm trying to have the template align to the left rather than right of the page, but using the  parameter described here or the more intuitive   has no effect on the alignment of the template. No idea what the problem is and it's not a matter of priority, but it would be nice if this could be fixed. 5225C (talk • contributions) 13:59, 27 December 2020 (UTC)


 * , Here are examples:,  , and . Deutsch should on the left, español should be on the right, and English is using the default. It seems to be working on my side. I have fixed the misleading documentation: Special:Diff/996615349. —⁠andrybak (talk) 17:48, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I suspect it might be the formatting I've used on my userpage (columns) that could be causing the issue, but it is certainly not working for me. Thanks anyways! 5225C (talk &bull; contributions) 00:57, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , I've looked at your user page. Try adding margin-left:0; to your usage of Babel. —⁠andrybak (talk) 15:14, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, the CSS option has fixed my problem. 5225C (talk &bull; contributions) 22:43, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, if the end result with Babel is not satisfactory, you can always replace its invocation with separate invocations of corresponding templates:, , and so on—just add the prefix  to the language code. —⁠andrybak (talk) 16:18, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Babel -> Babel
I feel like we should put the link display of Babel as Babel. --ItssTej (talk) 18:06, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Why? -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 19:32, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Seems cleaner. --ItssTej (talk) 21:04, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 4 July 2021
I would not add or remove anything, I would just like to copy the source for the Babel language 'boxes'. I'm currently dealing with not being able to put another language in the Babel in my User page, for it has no template yet. I would have to create a template for that language, and it would really help a lot to have the source. Matthew Relucio (talk) 01:18, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The template is run with a lua module which can be found at: Module:Babel. Terasail [✉️] 01:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

CSS-4
Is it correct for  to output

? I was expecting cascading style sheet, not Southern Ohlone. Clicking on Southern Ohlone in the babel box takes the user to Category:User css, which mentions cascading style sheet at the top, suggesting that this is a bug. Seen in the wild here. – Novem Linguae (talk) 02:25, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * That is correct. See mw:Extension:Babel - it's the ISO 639-3 code: those codes are for spoken languages, and css is a valid language code. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 17:19, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. In the diff provided, the user should probably be doing something like  instead of invoking babel. In my sandbox, that renders correctly as cascading style sheet.
 * There's probably still a bug here though. Southern Ohlone babel box users are being put into the cascading style sheets category, Category:User css. Pretty tiny bug though. – Novem Linguae (talk) 20:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

If there are any of them, and you can agree on what category name to use given that the standard is occupied, we can work around that with an edit to MediaWiki:Babel-category-override. I've created Template:User CSS-4 so  now works as expected.

It looks like there aren't any legitimate speakers of Southern Ohlone right now, so there's no need to do anything, although probably the least bad thing to do is rename "User css-X" to "User CSS-X" since CSS is properly in all caps as an acronym and leave "user css-x" for Southern Ohlone. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:54, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I fixed three uses in the wild that clearly intended Cascading Style Sheets. None I can find intended Southern Ohlone. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:57, 18 February 2024 (UTC)