| Pginer-WMF | |
| May 26 2017, 10:26 AM |
| F8260269: Screen Shot 2017-06-02 at 3.35.19 PM.png | |
| Jun 2 2017, 11:38 AM |
| F8186268: too-many-dots.png | |
| May 26 2017, 10:26 AM |
The description of the "Page edits" and "Logged action" filters in the "Type of change" group end with four dots ("...."). This is arguably justified but optional in English, and it's confusing translators.
Please change the descriptions in both filters to three dots instead.
| Status | Subtype | Assigned | Task | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resolved | • DannyH | T171977 Annual Plan 2017-2018, Audiences 5: Increase current editor retention and engagement | |||
| Resolved | • DannyH | T171981 Annual Plan 2017-2018, Audiences 5, Goal 2: Give better ways to monitor contributions | |||
| Resolved | • jmatazzoni | T157642 Graduate New Filters UX out of beta on Recent Changes on ALL wikis | |||
| Resolved | • jmatazzoni | T144458 Launch ERI RC page features as a Beta Feature to all wikis | |||
| Resolved | Mooeypoo | T144448 Build all front-end elements for the new Recent Changes (RC) Page user interface | |||
| Resolved | • Catrope | T166377 Change four-dot ellipses to three-dots in 2 filter descriptions |
I think what's there is actually correct. It's not a four-dot ellipses, it's three dots plus a period. (A lot of publications would insert a space after the first dot to clarify that, like so. ... )
Now, a person could argue that these aren't sentences, so that rule doesn't apply. But everywhere on the page we've ended the description texts with a period. So. ...
Who can decide on a style point like this?
I've read a bit more about it, and seems several English style guides capture this use. It may just feel weird to me because in in Spanish the final period is omitted when the sentence ends with an ellipsis.
Given that this is very language-dependent, I can think on recommending using the language-specific Wikipedia's manual of style as a reference if it exist for the language, but the ultimate decision is on the translators for those UI messages. In the case of the English Wikipedia manual of style it seems to discourage the use of final periods after an ellipsis:
Place terminal punctuation after an ellipsis only if it is textually important (as is often the case with exclamation marks and question marks and rarely with periods).
Translators are supposed to follow the manual of style for the language they work on on TranslateWiki. The source language is English, which is the standard interface for English users. We provide those English interface messages, so we also have to follow the English Wikipedia manual of style. Most of time, Wikipedia in a given language define the manual of style for all project in this language.
Only 2 messages are defined with ....
I would have been confused like Pau, because the Spanish case is also the French case. :)
Based on this rule, let's change it in English and hope others follow suit.
Place terminal punctuation after an ellipsis only if it is textually important (as is often the case with exclamation marks and question marks and rarely with periods).
I'll update the description to make the change. Is there a need for a special note to translators, or will the change naturally ripple through the system?
Changes in the source messages get them automatically marked as outdated, and translators will be able to find and update them.
In the case of filters' description, ellipses indicate the continuation of a list of actions, implying that there might be a full list of actions somewhere. However, it's not the case when you can click on the ellipses to expand and see the full content. I would avoid using ellipses here altogether.
Based on the fact that most translators have adapted the messages to their language, I don't think this change will have a lot of impact on translators backlog.
Change 356513 had a related patch set uploaded (by Catrope; owner: Catrope):
[mediawiki/core@master] Change "...." (four dots) to "..." (three dots) in the only two messages that use it
Change 356513 merged by jenkins-bot:
[mediawiki/core@master] Change "...." (four dots) to "..." (three dots) in the only two messages that use it
Checked in betalabs - three dots are displayed for two filters:
QA Recommendation: Resolve