Commit was proposed, please do planning for deploy.

Can't find your patch in Gerrit.

After some various changes, current mode for Wikikidata 'Mainpage' is "single page for any languages" (with automated substitution translated version related with UI language).

Are you sure this is the current mode for all languages? I found MediaWiki:Mainpage/is, at least, which currently contains “Wikidata:Forsíða/is”, and Wikidata:Forsíða/is is a separate page, not a redirect.

I think the safer approach would be to first go through [a search for prefix:MediaWiki/mainpage](https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?search=prefix%3AMediaWiki%3AMainpage) and delete each page found there after verifying that the page given by the message content is only a redirect to the main page, so that the message will fall back to the generic version. Then, once there are no more such message pages, we’ll know that it’s safe to remove 'mainpage' from $wgForceUIMsgAsContentMsg.

@Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE - you are right. See result of fast check: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/User:Kaganer/fix-mainpage

Proposed change will lead to an unrecoverable problem for the variants zh-*** - switch for language options what is available in "Wikidata:Main_Page/Content/zh" will be not available on the "Wikidata:Main_Page", but only in "Wikidata:Main_Page/zh"

Please note, that current mode is also with incomplete functionality for zh-*** - main template is swithed, but sections that called through template based on {{int:Lang}}, is not swithed.

Change 790706 had a related patch set uploaded (by Stang; author: Stang):

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] wikidata: Remove 'mainpage' from wgForceUIMsgAsContentMsg

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/790706

In T184386#7917902, @Stang wrote:

Need to verify if all targets includes in subpages under MediaWiki:Mainpage could be replaced by a redirect to Wikidata:Main_Page. IMO current logic for handling zh-* looks fine.

Nope. As example, for 'ckb'

• configured pagename Wikidata:دەستپێک - and this page has own separate wiki-code
• this is not identical with the Wikidata:Main_Page/Content/ckb.

For next step is needed some further research and community consultations.

This really needs to be changed. There are hundreds of languages (approximately 350) where the main page is completely broken, e.g.

• https://www.wikidata.org/?uselang=ig
• https://www.wikidata.org/?uselang=sm
• https://www.wikidata.org/?uselang=sms
• https://www.wikidata.org/?uselang=mni
• https://www.wikidata.org/?uselang=mnw

There are plenty of other multilingual wikis which have a translatable main page without using this option:

• mediawiki.org
• meta.wikimedia.org
• incubator.wikimedia.org
• wikifunctions.org
• wikisource.org
• foundation.wikimedia.org
• outreach.wikimedia.org
• wikimania.wikimedia.org

There aren't many which do use this and they all have broken main pages in the majority of languages:

• Wikidata
• Commons
• Wikispecies

Of the subpages of MediaWiki:Mainpage, 92 contain "Wikidata:Main Page" or another page which redirects to it and 27 point to a page which is the same as the translatable main page.

23 are using the pre-2014 main page design and still haven't been updated a decade later.

The only ones which use the 2014 main page design but aren't identical to the translatable page are bn, ckb/ku-arab and or.

Change 790706 abandoned by Stang:

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] wikidata: Remove 'mainpage' from wgForceUIMsgAsContentMsg

Reason:

doing by someone else

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/790706

Change #405738 abandoned by Hashar:

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] Wikidata config: Removing 'mainpage' from $wgForceUIMsgAsContentMsg array

Reason:

6 years old empty change

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/405738

Change #1085922 had a related patch set uploaded (by Ladsgroup; author: Amir Sarabadani):

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] Remove 'mainpage' from $wgForceUIMsgAsContentMsg for Wikidata

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1085922

In T184386#3928235, @Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE wrote:

After some various changes, current mode for Wikikidata 'Mainpage' is "single page for any languages" (with automated substitution translated version related with UI language).

Are you sure this is the current mode for all languages? I found MediaWiki:Mainpage/is, at least, which currently contains “Wikidata:Forsíða/is”, and Wikidata:Forsíða/is is a separate page, not a redirect.

I think the safer approach would be to first go through [a search for prefix:MediaWiki/mainpage](https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?search=prefix%3AMediaWiki%3AMainpage) and delete each page found there after verifying that the page given by the message content is only a redirect to the main page, so that the message will fall back to the generic version. Then, once there are no more such message pages, we’ll know that it’s safe to remove 'mainpage' from $wgForceUIMsgAsContentMsg.

I haven’t kept up with this ticket, but as far as I can tell, we still have some pages in this situation. MediaWiki:Mainpage/ilo points at Wikidata:Umuna a Panid, which is different from Wikidata:Main Page?uselang=ilo. (The text is similar, but not identical, so probably translated independently.) MediaWiki:Mainpage/diq points at Wikidata:Pera Seri, which is a fully translated page, whereas Wikidata:Main Page?uselang=diq is not translated at all – so if we deploy the above config change, if I understand correctly, Zaza (diq) speakers lose access to the fully translated main page and will instead have to translate it from scratch (unless they happen to know the translated version and copy the translations from there manually).

In T184386#10286214, @Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE wrote:

I haven’t kept up with this ticket, but as far as I can tell, we still have some pages in this situation. MediaWiki:Mainpage/ilo points at Wikidata:Umuna a Panid, which is different from Wikidata:Main Page?uselang=ilo. (The text is similar, but not identical, so probably translated independently.) MediaWiki:Mainpage/diq points at Wikidata:Pera Seri, which is a fully translated page, whereas Wikidata:Main Page?uselang=diq is not translated at all – so if we deploy the above config change, if I understand correctly, Zaza (diq) speakers lose access to the fully translated main page and will instead have to translate it from scratch (unless they happen to know the translated version and copy the translations from there manually).

Added some more information about this and the impact of the config change to the commit message.

Change #1085922 merged by jenkins-bot:

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] Remove 'mainpage' from $wgForceUIMsgAsContentMsg for Wikidata

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1085922

Deployed, and https://www.wikidata.org/?uselang=ig looks mostly sensible now; the main page link in the sidebar is still wrong (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Ihu_mbụ), but I think that’s just caching and will hopefully resolve itself later. (Edit: It has indeed resolved itself.)