[Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2

[Samuel Klein]

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 10:20 PM, John Vandenberg <jayvdb at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 5:48 AM, Aryeh Gregor
> <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 2:50 PM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Who cares if people click them a lot?  The space they formally
>>> occupied is filled with nothing now.
>>
>> Interface clutter is not psychologically free.  Empty space is better
>> than space filled with mostly-useless controls.  Whether these
>> particular controls are worth it I don't know, but the general
>> principle of hiding seldom-used things is sound.
>
> They are not "mostly-useless controls"; they are there because
> _building_ content _in every language_ is our mission.
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects
>
> Missing interwikis are a valuable cue that a block is missing.

Yes, this.

The list of available languages is a key part of a page, not a
navigation nicety.

They used to be available at the top of an article by default, until
that started taking up a few inches of screen space across the board.
We could still use a small bit of text reading  "also in N other
languages" that is similarly prominent: above-the-fold, near the top
of the page.

SJ