On 3/19/08, DanTMan <dan_the_man(a)telus.net>
wrote:
Quite simply... Cache...
Wikipedia runs behind squid, and that allows all anon visitors to view
the exact same page cached by squid instead of needing to make MediaWiki
recreate the page each and every time another person wants it.
Because of the cache, the browser language isn't used. If the cache were
removed, Wikipedia would likely bog down to a halt. So language
preferences are only honored for logged in users who aren't affected by
cache.
Hmm. Any thoughts of at least caching a few of the most popular
languages and serving those as necessary? Or hell, even just English -
it's by far the most understood lingua franca, and people can even
just learn the English interface once, and they'll be ok on all the
other wikipedias.
I doubt that serving interface text according to browser language is a
high priority, given the usually reasonable assumption that people
don't register an account on a project where they can't read the
language. If you are that determined, then the uselang hack works well
enough.
Brianna
--
They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment: