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Provide a way to filter Wikidata's recent changes for language-dependent content in specific languages
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It often happens that an user makes an edit on Wikidata which may require understanding of a particular language to review and possibly revert. Such language-dependent content includes item labels, descriptions and aliases.

It would be helpful if there was a way to filter the recent changes list for changes to language-dependent content in a specific set of languages (that the patroller is comfortable reading and reviewing), perhaps with the language in which Wikidata is displayed to the user pre-selected as default. That way it would be easier for users of a minority language to review each others' changes, and discuss when they disagree.

Event Timeline

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptAug 2 2016, 11:07 AM

I last week I spent more time reviewing the recent changes page and found that when it comes to labels and site links to languages I don't speak, I'm unable to make a quality decision.
It would be really great if I could focus my reviewing on the languages that I do speak.

thiemowmde triaged this task as Low priority.Sep 1 2016, 2:51 PM
thiemowmde added a subscriber: Lydia_Pintscher.
Tbayer added subscribers: Jura1, Tbayer.EditedApr 17 2017, 8:31 PM

I think the basic idea behind this is great, it would fill a real need. But since the language used by an editor when making a change is not stored with that edit (and may be problematic to store because of privacy reasons), it seems difficult to implement as written ("filter Wikidata's recent changes by the language used by the person making the change").

Because of this, I'm going to modify the task description to focus on the language of the content rather than the editor. Namely, it appears we can draw a distinction between language-dependent and language-agnostic content on Wikidata. In particular, language-dependent content includes an item's label, description and aliases. For these, Wikibase stores the language in a machine-readable form in the edit summary (e.g. wbsetdescription-set:1|es for an edit of the Spanish description of an item using the standard edit interface; although some bots and tools may use alternative forms). So we want patrollers to be able to focus on recent changes to language-dependent content in a particular set of languages.

Arguably, edits affecting sitelinks to a Wikipedia in a particular language also belong in this category; they are mentioned in T43686 .

(@Jura1 just made a related proposal on the Project Chat page [edit: updated link], in the context of description edits from the mobile apps.)

Tbayer renamed this task from Provide a way to filter Wikidata's recent changes by the language used by the person making the change. to Provide a way to filter Wikidata's recent changes for language-dependent content in specific languages.Apr 17 2017, 8:37 PM
Tbayer updated the task description. (Show Details)
Elitre added a subscriber: Elitre.Apr 18 2017, 9:11 AM
ChristianKl added a comment.EditedApr 25 2017, 9:37 AM

From a privacy standpoint, I don't see why the language of an editor should be a secret. It's valuable information that helps other users to connect with the user.

If I review language-agnostic content from users with whom I share no common language, my only choice is to revert the content or let it stand. I have no opportunity to explain the user why I reverted his edits. I would expect to allow non-English speaking people to focus on engaging with people with they share a common language to help them integrate themselves into Wikidata.

In many cases the references that a person uses are also in their own language.

Of course, I would also appreciate if a limited version of this request gets implemented that only focuses on the language specific content (label/description/alias).

IKhitron added a subscriber: IKhitron.

There are now two tools which do something like this:

Restricted Application added a project: Growth-Team. · View Herald TranscriptMay 26 2019, 10:54 AM