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This wiki started in July 2007 and has two goals: Internationalization and Localization for all of Wikia's wikis – we currently have more than 6,000!

What does this mean? – Internationalization (commonly abbreviated as the numeronyms i18n or I18n or I18N) refers to general multiple language support, especially regarding software interfaces. Localization (abbreviated as L10n or l10n) means customization to a specific region, its language, date and currency formats, and other needs in a more detailed way. Please read Wikipedia's article for a more complete explanation.

Although many of our needs are shared with other wiki users, Wikia also has many specialized interfaces that are not part of the standard MediaWiki installation – we want to be sure that everything is translated for our users in every language!

We will also coordinate some other translation issues relating to some basic default pages on Wikia here, e.g. standardized license templates.

Get started:

1. You will need a user account and should have some experience using Wikia. For example, you should be comfortable editing the MediaWiki namespace and you understand how Wikia is different from the default MediaWiki or from Wikipedia (different skins, several extensions, etc). It is preferred that you are already an admin on one of Wikia's wikis.
2. Your e-mail address should be confirmed in your preferences. Please "enable e-mail from other users" so that staff can contact you directly for translation of new messages.
3. Please request sysop rights for this wiki here).
4. Look up the list of maintainers and add yourself for a specific language.
5. Please also make your user page "blue", perhaps with a link to your "home wiki" and a note about the language you maintain. This makes internal discussion within the Internationalization Team much easier :-)
6. Read and follow the guide to translation.

Questions:

• Please use the forum to discuss, or poke Rieke ;-)
• You could also join the IRC channel at #wikia to ask for help, of course.

Relevant to know:

• This wiki intentionally uses the default values for all MediaWiki messages. Therefore the sidebar is not adapted, and the wiki's style is not changed through CSS or JS.
• English is the source language for all messages and the reference version therefore. It should only rarely be changed. If you want to make major changes to the English messages, please discuss first.
• Use Special:Allpages to browse this wiki's content. Category:Browse is our top category.

Other resources:

• Betawiki is a general I18N project for all MediaWiki projects.
• #mediawiki-i18n is an IRC channel for discussing I18N issues.
• TranslateWiki is a wikia for all other translation issues.

See also:

• New skin message translation on Central Wikia (more or less outdated, can be removed soon)