Template talk:Expand language

improving template
pinging you at your request. My earlier post: " Right now the link for corresponding article has a switch so that it calls Wikidata information where the article is not specified. I would like the same behavior to happen for the creation of the machine translation link at translate.google.com." Basically, if there is not an article name specified, I want there to be a Google translate link generated based on the title in the foreign language at wikidata. (Currently, if no title is specified, no machine translation link is added.) This behavior already exists elsewhere in the template, just trying to add it for the machine translation as well. Calliopejen1 (talk) 13:34, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 * thoughts? Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:00, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
 * , this might need a feature that is not yet available in order to implement it. I got a response at Module talk:Wd to a question I posed there, regarding a subtask that I believe would be necessary in order to implement your request. I'm still looking around for other methods that might work; perhaps  will have an idea. Mathglot (talk) 05:45, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

That one went stale, but I re-upped with this discussion. Adding User:Calliopejen1. Mathglot (talk) 04:50, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Proposal to merge "Science" and "Technology" topic categories
For most languages, the "Technology" topic category is the least populous topic category. The category has 0–5 pages for all languages except Chinese, where it has 25 pages.

This action is NOT a request to edit this template. Instead, I am opening this topic for discussion. If the change is implemented, it would require fixing the templates and categories for every individual language.

Numberguy6 (talk) 16:23, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Not opposed. Mathglot (talk) 04:17, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

A music subcat
Hi,. I've reverted your edit of 03:33, 5 March 2023 to Template:Expand language/howto which added a new 'music' row to the #Topics_and_categorization table regardless whether a 'music' subcat existed for the language, and generating a red "unknown topic code" error in the middle cell of the row in every Expand_LangName template that had at least one subcat, such as for example, at Expand Serbian, Expand Lithuanian, Expand Quechua, Expand Western Frisian, and at a couple hundred others. The reason is, because that type of change requires additional groundwork to make it work, if your goal is to make 'music' into a new, standard subcat for every one of them. But there are other approaches for adding it if it's only for a few of the languages, for example. These are explained in the "Adding a new topic and subcategory" section on every one of the template doc pages, for example, at Template:Expand Serbian. Some of it may be intricate, may involve coding at the page you touched, the doc pages, code at individual templates like Expand Serbian, creation of categories, and other places, and sometimes there is more than one way to approach it. So why don't you have a look at the linked doc section first, and then let's discuss what your use case is, and figure out the best way to proceed. Mathglot (talk) 04:38, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Broken anchors in "Adding a new topic"
, this edit of yours at 03:30, 11 July 2023 doesn't appear to do what you intended. It results in the display of visible wikicode in section "Adding a new topic and subcategory" on the doc pages of a couple hundred Expand_language templates. You can see the effect by going to Template:Expand French, expanding the collapsed "view details" bar: notice the wikicode by searching for "subst:anchor" in plaintext. I don't have time to delve into this right now, can you please have a look? If the previous version was broken before you got there, please leave details about what you are seeing. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 07:41, 7 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I just manually transcluded anchor to fix the problem that my previous edit to this template by automatically transcluding the previous template, caused for some reason. Thank you for notifying me about that problem. PK2 (talk) 11:08, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅. Yes, that solved it. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 20:16, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

More than three languages
I wonder why this template is limited to three languages (specified via,   and  ). For José María Bermúdez de Castro, I identified four languages from which translation might be useful, but I can't specify them in a single Expand language template. I don't see a good reason for this – a couple more languages in the list wouldn't clutter the page; in fact, quite the opposite, if people instead add separate templates because they can't do it in one, that clutters the page. So I'd suggest to add some more numbered  and   parameters. Joriki (talk) 12:55, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Who would benefit from that? And do you have an actual use case for this? Some users question whether this template should exist at all, because they believe that nobody ever expands an article based on even one language (I'm not one of them). I'd be opposed to adding more langcodes, however. Instead, why not just add multiple expand templates, and enclose them in a collapsed Multiple issues template? Then they'll be compact, and you can specify a dozen languages, if you wish to. Mathglot (talk) 02:19, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Guidelines for this template's use
We should establish a list of guidelines for articles where expand-language should be used, and where it shouldn't. See User talk:Numberguy6. For all of my additions in the past few months, my guideline has been that the other-language article is at least three times the size of the English article. Numberguy6 (talk) 15:51, 12 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I would also beg that the template is only added when there are reasonably good footnotes or inline references on the non-English article. It's a huge waste of everyone's time for someone to translate from another wiki only for another editor to remove the additions as unverifiable. -- asilvering (talk) 22:19, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
 * As long as it would be informational only, I wouldn't object, but I'd disagree with making it part of any instruction or guideline. The reason is, that anyone doing good-faith translation (by which I mean, they understand both languages, and are not just blindly passing stuff through a translator program) will understand the other language article sufficiently as well as sources in the other language to make the right calls. Sourced or not, every editor is still subject to the sourcing requirements on en-wiki, and responsible for very edit they publish, regardless how broken the original might have been; if you publish it and it's wrong or unsourced, then that's on you. I translate from fr-wiki all the time, and I don't want anyone telling me not to translate something just because the original is crap, or because it's unsourced. (Fr-wiki stuff is often badly sourced.) I will make sure when translating, that what I publish is properly sourced, or I won't publish it. That's on me.
 * The way you phrased it, if you think about the flip side, it kind of sounds like you're saying that if there are good footnotes and inline references in the original, then it is okay to translate it. But that's not sufficient, and it isn't okay. Once again, in the case of fr-wiki, the sources can be good, but not verify the content. So, just because the original has seemingly good references, that is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for you to just translate it, keeping the original references, and publish it here without ever checking whether they really verify the content or not (or if they even exist anymore).
 * The translators I am familiar with at en-wiki are serious editors with a good command of policy, and understand how to create new articles here responsibly based on translated content. They don't need additional verbiage in a template to tell them how or when to translate. I'm not opposed to having "rules of thumb" like, say, "triple the English article size", analogous to the way that WP:SIZESPLIT has a table suggesting when an article should or shouldn't be split based on the size of the article. But importantly, WP:SIZESPLIT is part of an information page, and is neither policy, nor guideline. In other words, you are free to ignore it. If the kind of rules that are being proposed here are of an "Information page"-nature, like SIZESPLIT is, then I think it's fine to create something like that. But putting it in anything like an actual guideline would be WP:INSTRUCTIONCREEP, imho. Mathglot (talk) 01:52, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I think you might be experiencing something a bit like survivorship bias about the translators you're familiar with - ie, that you're a good one, therefore you mostly only know and work with other good ones. On the flip side, at AfC and when going through maintenance tags I see approximately zero of those translators. I have no doubt whatsoever that the "translated the text, didn't think about anything else" type of translations far outnumber the type you describe. Very many of these are newbies who could become excellent editors who think they are helpfully addressing a maintenance tag and are unaware they've stepped onto a verifiability landmine; having their contributions removed isn't a welcoming start. -- asilvering (talk) 18:56, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Lol; that's fair criticism, you're right, I probably have a kind of tunnel vision in this regard. I'm uncertain if you are implying that just having the template there at all is encouraging the "translated, didn't think" group to undertake a translation that they otherwise wouldn't have, had the template not been there in the first place? I hadn't considered that possibility before, and if that's what you meant and there's support for the idea, there's an approach that would certainly be a bit unusual but might work if we got consensus for it: namely, don't show the template to newer editors (using parser conditionals testing for extended confirmed, and css  ). (Such things are unusual, but not unprecedented; for example, template orphan turns itself off and becomes invisible after a several-month timeout, iirc.)
 * Leaving that idea aside for the moment, and getting back to considering more normal approaches, I fear that wording changes in guidelines would only hamper the long-term, senior editors who are serious about following P&G, without affecting the "didn't think" group who won't care a fig about any of that. I think a size recommendation of the type mentioned in the OP by User:Numberguy6 are okay, as far as including them here in the template, (or at WP:TRANSLATION) if there's consensus for it, and it would be good to get more opinions here about that. Or, is there a better way? Mathglot (talk) 19:26, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Size increased to 100% per MOS and accessibility guidelines
In case there is any need for discussion here, this is a note that I have increased the size of the text in this template to 100% of normal (from 95%). My edit summary was: "Fix too small font per MOS:FONTSIZE. The hidden-begin class normally sets font-size to 95%, and this template contains small tags, which makes the font-size too small. Also, when used in Template:multiple issues, indenting and shrinking this text makes it inconsistent with the other messages." The last bit was what brought me here initially; the indenting combined with the smaller size and then the tiny size looked pretty bad. Discussion is welcome. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:07, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Slovene Wikipedia, not Slovenian
The language code sl is still given the name Slovenian at Module:Language/data/ISO_639-2 per https://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php.

However, Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_September_25 ended a unanimous consensus to use the name Slovene Wikipedia. The categories have been moved to Category:Articles needing translation from Slovene Wikipedia & subcats, but are empty.

I have updated Expand Slovene with, which seems to be correct according to the /doc here, but this does not seem to make any difference. The template still displays "Slovenian" and looks for e.g. Special:WhatLinksHere/Category:Articles needing translation from Slovenian Wikipedia / Special:WhatLinksHere/Category:Biography articles needing translation from Slovenian Wikipedia rather than "Slovene Wikipedia".

Do we need to revert the category moves, or can the template be modified to generate categories using "Slovene", please? – Fayenatic  L ondon 08:29, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
 * * Pppery * it has begun... 04:18, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Equivalent template in other Wikis
Are there versions of this template for use in other Wikis, for articles that could be expanded from English? Irtapil (talk) 21:14, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are many. Click on "Wikidata item" on the Template page and scroll down to see links to this template on other languages' Wikipedias. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:24, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

N'Ko language
After a speedy move to Category:Articles needing translation from N'Ko Wikipedia, the article Madina-Oula using expand language with parameter  is still looking for the old category name with diacritic Category:Articles needing translation from N’Ko Wikipedia, see.

Expand N'Ko also exists but is not currently used.

Code nqo or N'Ko language are not listed at meta:Table_of_Wikimedia_projects.

are you able to assist, please? – Fayenatic  L ondon 12:46, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * * Pppery * it has begun... 15:39, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you, that resolves the immediate need. But if somebody uses expand language again (with ) rather than Expand N'Ko, will it still be looking for the old category? – Fayenatic  L ondon 15:57, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, in theory, and Slovenian has the same problem. I think it's better that that bridge be crossed when it happens, though. * Pppery * it has begun... 16:19, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Multiple topic categories
A lot of articles fit into multiple topic categories. For example: Editors have different preferences for which articles belong where, and so it is very confusing to people trying to go through the categories. Numberguy6 (talk) 20:42, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Articles about athletes could fall into "bio" and "sport".
 * Articles about elections could fall into "gov" and "hist".
 * Articles about natural disasters could fall into "hist" and "sci".