Adding the log for the Language Engineering office hour held on 8th May 2013
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Time: 1700-1800 UTC
Channel: #wikimedia-office
Timestamps are in Indian Standard Time (IST)
[22:32]
=== Wikimedia Language Engineering Office Hour - Start ===
[22:32]
Hello, Welcome to the office hour of the Wikimedia Language Engineering Team.
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My name is Runa and I am the Outreach and QA coordinator for our team.
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nice to meet you, Runa arrbee
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The other members of our team present today are: aharoni alolita Nikerabbit pginer siebrand
[22:34] * siebrand greets you.
[22:34]
Nice to meet you too odder :)
[22:34]
hi there
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Our last office hour was held on April 10 2013
[22:34]
siebrand: [[Hooked on a Feeling]] (and now I'll stop)
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The logs are at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2013-04-10
[22:34]
hi all
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I'll be logging today as well.
[22:35] * IH|away is now known as Ironholds
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In today's session we will briefly talk about some of the projects that we have been recently working on
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Also we'll talk about our participation in Google Summer of Code (GSoC)
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And Outreach Program for Women (OPW)
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After that we would be happy to answer any questions
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If you'd like to send in your questions before the Q&A, please send them to me as a private message.
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lmit 36
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As I mentioned before, we are the Wikimedia Language Engineering Team.
[22:38] * sucheta waves
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Hello all!
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We work on enabling Language tools for MediaWiki and Wikimedia projects to provide internationalization and localization support for more than 300 languages
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Our current focus currently is on:
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1. developing the modified features for Universal Language Selector and preparing it for deployment,
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2. outreach activities, and
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3. summer projects
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First topic of discussion: ULS - changes
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The Universal Language Selector aka ULS is a tool to configure language settings
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It replaces Narayam and WebFonts to provide a unified tool
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It also adds user interface language selection
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At the moment we are working on two things after we implemented the last design changes
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1. We are fixing bugs, and
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2. we are building integration tests with the Wikimedia QA team
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We are planning to make ULS available to all Wikimedia projects
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We can hopefully communicate a deployment plan within the next two weeks
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So the following is provisional
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ULS will be on every wiki in one of two ways:
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1. As a cog icon in the interlanguage links section of the sidebar menu in wikis that use interlanguage links
[22:45] * edsanders|away is now known as edsanders
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Those are all language versions of Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikivoyage, Wikinews, Wikisource
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You can see this in action at: http://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Special:Version
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Unfortunately beta labs has a caching issue
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So you may see
instead of "Languages"
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Or no cog icon on some pages while not logged in
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We reported it as a bug: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/48203
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2. For non-interlanguage wikis the ULS is accessible in the personal toolbar
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This is how it is already available on Meta-Wiki, Wikidata.org and translatewiki.net
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It can also be tested at: http://commons.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Special:Version
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We currently envision the rollout in 5 phases over 5 weeks
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As we get closer to the actual dates we will communicate with the wiki communities involved in the first few phases
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We will broadcast about the progress on the blog, wikitech-ambassadors, and wikitech-l
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siebrand: Would you like to add anything more about this?
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I could add a lot, but this is the most important.
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We have room for questions if more details is neede.
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+d
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Alright. Thanks.
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Moving on
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Second topic of discussion: MLEB - Release
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A new version of the MediaWiki Language Extension Bundle (MLEB) was released in the last week of April 2013
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From this version onwards MLEB can only be used with MediaWiki version 1.20.4 or above
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Announcement and Release Notes are here: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-i18n/2013-April/000677.html
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The next release of MLEB is scheduled during the last week of May 2013
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aharoni: Anything to add about this?
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A couple of things:
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1. We'd love to hear more feedback about MLEB. We know that people are downloading it, and we received a couple of bug reports about it. We'd love to hear more feedback - positive and constructively negative.
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2. I am thinking of ways to improve the pre-release testing of MLEB, and I'd love to hear ideas about it.
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You can write to us on the mediawiki-i18n list or even file bugs.
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or ping us on #mediawiki-i18n
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Thanks aharoni
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Third topic of discussion: Maven Program
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We have started working on a handbook for the participants of the Maven program
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A rough draft is available here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Language_tools/Language_Team_Plan/Maven_Handbook
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This effort is in progress and we hope to build this together with the Language Maven team members
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Some of the Maven team members are here today too: mirontoli Nemo_bis :)
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That brings us to the last topic of discussion: GSoC and OPW
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We had mentioned in our last office hour that we are participating in GSoC and OPW this year
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hello :)
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We received quite a few interesting proposals and we are at present evaluating them
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We are looking forward to an exciting summer of code :)
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People who are not eligible for GSoC or OPW or somehow miss the bus can still start to participate in our other projects
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A list of these projects can be found here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mentorship_programs/Possible_projects#Internationalization_and_localization
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That concludes the topics on the agenda.
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what is GSoC & OPW?
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We now move on to Q and A
[23:06] Barras Base-w
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Base-w: Google Summer of Code and Outreach Program for Women
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thanks
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Is there a link to the project ideas for GSoC/OPW put forward by the Language Engineering team?
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sankarshan: yes
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:D
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arrbee: question not about the above, but it was suggested this is a good place to ask: I'm adding a stylized '?' icon to core for a particular feature and need to find out if an RTL version is also required. Who/where would be the best place to ask for this, and future queries?
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sankarshan: It was pasted 5 mins ago: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mentorship_programs/Possible_projects#Internationalization_and_localization
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siebrand, thank you.
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hi ebernhardson ;)
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sankarshan: Actually that's the list of projects that DIDN'T make the OPW/GSoC list.
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Nikerabbit: hi :)
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ebernhardson: aharoni would be the person to seek
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sankarshan: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mentorship_programs/Possible_projects#Championing_i18n are the projects that did make the list.
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siebrand, thank you. again :)
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arrbee: alright i will drop an email, thanks!
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sankarshan: arrbee can always follow up by email with you...
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;)
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siebrand: sankarshan: The page was indeed here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2013#Championing_i18n . But there is a re-org there.
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ebernhardson: It's good to have a reversed question mark (؟) in languages written in the Arabic script - Arabic, Persian, Pashto, Urdu.
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But it's definitely not needed for Hebrew.
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sankarshan: siebrand: qgil may be able to point you to the earlier version of the list (if it still exists)
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arrbee, Alright. I will figure that out. Thanks for the links. Most interesting.
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It's probably in the page history. sankarshan: Want me to look that up?
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(i.e. out of the page history)
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ebernhardson: (And don't confuse it with the Spanish question mark - ¿)
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hi, what do you need/
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aharoni: ok, excelent info. I will talk to our designer about having one made. Would you suggest then having 3 icons, forward, reversed, and spanish?
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aharoni: if it matters, the use case is an icon which brings up a tooltip
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ebernhardson: A special icon is not needed for Spanish. Both questions marks are used in that language, and the regular one is OK.
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siebrand, Nope. I'll do that off-IRC, thank you for the offer.
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ebernhardson: so two icons are enough - Arabic (؟) and regular (?).
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One more thing: We would be having a Language Engineering presence at the Amsterdam Hackathon.
[23:16] Nikerabbit Nischayn22|Away
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me, siebrand and pginer
[23:17] * siebrand at your service.
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ebernhardson: actually, Greek uses ";" as a question mark and Armenian uses "՞", but better ask people who actually know these languages what to do with them. I think that a regular "?" will be OK for them.
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aharoni: ok wonderfull, any suggestions on who to ping regarding armenian and greek, perhaps there is a list somewhere of who is fluent in which languages?
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qgil: I think no one answered you yet. There was a possible need for an original list of proposed GSoC/OPW projects, before they were assessed - then 10, IIRC, later brought back to 4 or 5. I think sankarshan has enough information now to find it himself.
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ebernhardson: Are you certain you need an icon, and cannot use CSS and message key contents?
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hmm, I would imagine that ? is pretty universal icon for "help" but I haven't checked what other sites do
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ebernhardson: That would be the most flexible way.
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siebrand, sankarshan the original proposal came from email by arrbee with alolita CCed. I have it if you need it.
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ebernhardson: try English Wikipedia talk pages of articles about these languages, and also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:User_el and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:User_am
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qgil: Oh, didn't know that, but I'm almost certain we prepared it on-wiki, too.
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at least youtube uses (?) symbol for all languages on quick check
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siebrand: hmm, i suppose it is possible css could do the trick along with a wfMessage(), When we initially put it together with (?) rather than an icon it looked a bit bland but perhaps css can clean that up
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we also have such icon in translate extension which does not have rtl or other versions
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yes - "?" should be pretty universal. "؟" for Arabic is a nice bonus, not a strong requirement.
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more questions?
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We have another 5 minutes
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:)
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IIRC we use a ? icon for WebFonts, Translate and Narayam, too, but if we make the effort once, we can just use it everywhere (and add it to Agora, right?)
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would make sense
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hmm. I suppose if its not a requirement, and other major internation sites use it, i would lean twords the embedded icon vs wfMessage() + css which i think provides a better look and feel, Since this is going in core I will talk to a designer and have the arabic one put together
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I've seen ‽ used recently in CentralAuth. Made me frown :)
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hah
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:D
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ebernhardson: also ask for svg in case he/she makes a new one
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Nikerabbit: will do
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ebernhardson: Do not ask, require, as it is needed for high res screens.
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SVG
ok, gotcha :)
[23:28] Nikerabbit Nischayn22|Away
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We are down to our last minute now.
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But we will be around on #mediawiki-i18n
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So please feel free to continue discussions on that channel :)
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If nothing changes, then our next office hour is on June 12th
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arrbee, is this office hour already over?
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We will be making all announcements well ahead of that date
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Micru: In another minute.
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can i ask a question?
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Micru: Sure, please go ahead
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(if it takes longer we'll have to move to #mediawiki-i18n)
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what are the plans for machine translation integration? Is there something defined or still in drafting stage?
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Nikerabbit: would you like to answer that?
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mmm
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Micru: basically we are relying on services done by other people
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and there aren't that many which are good and free
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but the Translate extension does have support for calling them in the translator interface
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I was referring to Erik's email from last week
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http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-April/125350.html
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at this stage there are no concrete plans
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(but I will be attending a course about machine translation and Apertium next week, so who knows...)
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ah, that is great! I am planning to set up a meeting with some Apertium people, would you like to participate in the meeting?
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it would be online
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Micru: yes
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Nikerabbit, I will send you the details
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Micru: Nikerabbit : We are now overtime. Don't want to keep anyone waiting if they are scheduled to use this channel :)
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that is fine!
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thanks for answering my question! :)
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Thank you everyone for coming and for the questions. Please do write to us your thoughts about our work or things you'd like to see in internationalization.
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Micru: most welcome :)
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I'll be posting the logs shortly.
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=== Wikimedia Language Engineering Office Hour - End ===
[[Category:Language Engineering]]
[[Category:IRC office hours logs]]