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. ~Daniel Friesen(Dantman) of: -The Gaiapedia (http://gaia.wikia.com) -Wikia ACG on Wikia.com (http://wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_ACG) -and Wiki-Tools.com (http://wiki-tools.com) Steve Bennett wrote:

The same was proposed by ChemicalBit on Meta some days ago <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metapub#Default_language_interface_.28Meta_and_other_project.29__depending_on_user.27s_browser_preference>. My comment there was: For example, I am active on Low Saxon Wikipedia. Low Saxon is a minority language with almost no technical support. There's no Windows or Internet Explorer in Low Saxon and no Firefox and only very few other programs. And very, very few websites, who use the browser's preference for presenting Low Saxon content instead of some other language (actually I know none at all and I would say, I know almost the whole net if we speak about Low Saxon content). Cause of that, there are even among native Low Saxons very few who have 'nds' as their browser's preference language. This would mean, that 95 % of all natives would get the Low Saxon Wikipedia with German, Dutch or English interface. But for multilingual projects, this would be appropiate. If I again look from the perspective of Low Saxon, this would be the first website(s) on the net which would set an incentive to set your browser to 'nds' preference. In any case browser's preference would be more appropiate than 'english first'. Steve Bennett hett schreven: