Last modified: 2005-07-04 13:29:35 UTC
I translated the page http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Ipboptions into Swedish, ''2 timmar,1 dag,3 dagar,1 vecka,2 veckor,1 månad,3 månader,6 månader,1 år,aldrig''. When after this trying to block a vandal using the new drop down-feature, blocking didn't work. I got no error message, and it looked like all was well - but the block could not be found in the block log, and the vandal continued to destroy pages and spread graffity. Luckily, it was me who tried to perform the block; it took me a minute or two to understand where the problem was, revert the file to the original version and then perform the block. It seems the file at http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Ipboptions has two functions; it serves as both the text that is displayed in the drop down list at http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Blockip, but at the same time it contains the parameters that the software understands. Me as a person who went there to translate, I didn't realise - OK I had the thought for a split second that maybe this can not be changed, but when I say my translations in the drop-down menue at http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Blockip I assumed that the file only contained info for the display on that page, not actual parameters for blocking. I can easily imagine people at other non-English Wikipedias doing the same mistake, but the admin who tries to block not being aware of the translated file that causes the problem. In this situation, one easily gets too stressed about the block not working to realise that it probably should work to try and write the blocking time manually, as we did before 1.5. Not being a tech person, I am still brave enough to suggest keeping technical parameters that look like they can be translated but in reality can not, out of the MediaWiki-pages. Not everyone who translates those files is a programmer. I suppose it might take a while before a technical solution lets us have the drop-down menu in our different languages. That is IMO not so much of a problem, but information about this potential problem should probably be sent out to the different non-English Wikipedias that have upgraded to 1.5. For those who are not yet upgraded, I think a comment in the file that tells that these parameters can at the moment not be translated should do the trick.
this _should_ be translatable, or at least, it's meant to be. it may need to be changed to include the english message as well, something like "1 dag:1 day,3 dagar:3 days". i'll try to have a look at this today.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 1651 ***