TranslateWiki.net - BetaWiki to Translate WikiMedia

BetaWiki is both a translation and testing platform for MediaWiki. It’s used as an infrastructure for facilitating localization of the MediaWiki project and all of its extensions. It identifies the most relevant messages for MediaWiki as well as extensions used by the Wikimedia Foundation. Betawiki supports ‘gettext’ and .po files which means it can be used by professional translators without any programming knowledge. Users can participate in the effort in their language and they can start new language translations as well. Currently, Betawiki receives updates on more than 70 languages each month. The site already aids in over 140 localisations of MediaWiki and its extensions.

“Betawiki serves two purposes:

1. Platform for an extension which provides framework for translating MediaWiki, its extensions and other projects.

2. Testing platform for the developers who run it.

This wiki is not part of the Wikimedia Foundation projects. It is run by Nike and Siebrand, who both are MediaWiki developers. The translation functionality is provided by an extension. This wiki contains experimental code, and/or can be broken occasionally. Please be patient, problems are usually dealt with quickly.”

This is an important project as a large percentage of the world doesn’t speak English and therefore do not have access to the same information as English speakers. BetaWiki allows translators to contribute their knowledge to the Wikimedia project.

How will BetaWiki recruit more translators? How easy is it for them to adopt to the wiki tools and format?