How translations behave

Two questions come up a lot once a wiki speaks many languages. Which translations stay forever, and what does a visitor see when a word has none yet?

Imported words and community words

Every translated string remembers where it came from. That memory is the whole trick: it lets the wiki refresh official text without throwing away a fix somebody made by hand.

The two live side by side. Imported words follow the game; community words follow the people who care about getting them right.

What a visitor sees when a word is missing

A translation is almost never finished, and that is fine. The wiki falls back quietly, trying each of these in order:

1. The visitor’s own language.
2. If empty, the wiki’s main language.
3. If empty too, English.
4. And if even that is empty, the built-in text the code ships with.

Because there is always a last step, a reader always sees real words. Never a hole, never a raw key.

Running an import again is safe

Re-run an import as many times as you like. It refreshes the imported words to the newest values and leaves every community word untouched.