Guidance for Linguistic Scribes

Translating the Wiki
The first thing you have to note is that to receive contributor tiers for translating the Wikia, you need to go to The Keep and look into the Embassy (currently closed). There you will see the tasks listed that you can do to receive contributor tiers. Other translations are not guaranteed to give you contributor tiers, but are nonetheless welcomed, of course.

If there is no translation of the Wiki into your language and you want to request a translation or volunteer to create a new translation, then go to the discussion Trello Card.

Please read all steps before you start translating or start a new language Wiki, because the initial setup can get complicated. If you do not know how to handle templates and the .css sheets, you can ask someone to do the initial setup for you.

Check if there is a plan for your language
First, check if there is already a Wiki for your language. So far there are ones for German, Russian, and French.

Is there a translation in progress?
If there is not yet a Wiki for the language you wish to translate to, you have to create it.

If there already is a Wiki for your language you can start by copying information from this Wikia to the corresponding page of the Wikia in your language and begin translating (Step 3).

Creating a new language Wikia
To create a wiki you look to the top left of your page, next to the Wikia logo. You will find a "Start a wiki" button. Click it. A dialogue will open that takes you through the 4 simple steps to create a Wiki.

The name of your Wiki should be "HabitRPG".

It is vital that you choose the right language option from the dropdown menu, otherwise there will be trouble with language linking later.

Once you have created the new Wiki you will be looking at its front page.

Initial Setup
Your first job will be to make the front page look sort of like the original HabitRPG Wikia front page. This means you have to adjust the Theme, Wordmark, FavIcon, Templates, Colour set, Top Menu, Wikia.css (and Common.css) and upload a few pictures that are used on the front page.

Language Linking
For this step you need to contact an admin of the original English Wiki. This is best done on the Wiki Translation Trello Board here. From here on a request will be sent to the Wikia staff that links the new language Wikia to the English one.

Preparation + Copying
The first thing you have to do is navigate to the location where you want the translated page to appear. To do this, you first go to the front page of the target language Wikia and look at the address bar, which will say:

xx.habitrpg.wikia.com/wiki/HabitRPG_Wiki -- "xx" being the language code of the target language.

We will use the Pets page as an example. The source language (English) page is: habitrpg.wikia.com/wiki/Pets The target language (here German) page is: de.habitrpg.wikia.com/wiki/Haustiere You will notice that only the language code and the text after the "/wiki/" changed. The text after the "/wiki/" defines where the translated page will be created. This is the location that you have to navigate to.

Once there you will be staring at an empty page with a "create" button where you normally see an "edit" button. Press the "create" button. You have now entered the Editor.

With the editor open, you now need the source language text (the English page). To get the text, you have to open another browser/window/tab, navigate to the page you want to translate, and click "edit".

You should now have both editors open. Copy the source code of the English page to the target language Wikia page and publish.

''NOTE: Sometimes copying in visual mode is preferable (if pictures within tables are involved, or a lot of templates, as it is the case with the Class pages). But generally you will copy the source.'' Example: Look at the /wiki/Pets editor. To the top right you will locate two tabs. One saying "Visual" one saying "Source". Click on the "Source" tab. The screen will be filled with the source code of the page which you will either understand or not - it does not matter. Copy everything. Once you have copied the source code, you can close this browser/window/tab, it is no longer needed. Change to the /wiki/Haustiere editor. If you are not already in source mode, go to it. Paste the source code, write a summary of your edit ("created" or something) and publish. This might look terrible, but that is acceptable for now.

The next step is to move all required images and templates from the english Wikia to the target language Wikia. Templates can sometimes be skipped, if they contain no important information.

After this step the pages should look nearly identical.

Translation
The process of actually translating the pages is what you are here for. The following pages are the first that should be translated and maintained on any translation Wikia: - Front page - Class_System -Warrior -Mage -Rogue -Healer - Pets - Mounts You should add the following template to every page you translate: Translation
 * An important thing to note is what terms to translate or what terms to leave as they are. "Feature" is a word that is often present in other languages as well. "Daily" and "To-Do" might prove a challenge.
 * Another equally important guideline is to stick to the existing vocabulary. If there is a name for something already, reuse that word. Do not invent new words for the same thing. Your translation might not sound as good in your head, but for usability it is necessary to refer to the same thing with the same word. If you really think you have a better solution, discuss it first.

Step 3.3: Add language links
When your work is done, add a language link at the bottom of each translated page as well as its English counterpart. To learn how this is done, read Help:Interlanguage_links.

Example: [en:Guidance for Linguists] (would link to this page from another language)

Example: [de:Leitfaden für Übersetzer] (would link to the German page)