On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 2:51 PM, Max max@koehler-kn.de wrote:
*> If there is a very specific 'right font', why aren't we using it as a webfont?* I think webfonts are amazing, and we should definitely use them. However, even with webfonts using a font stack is a good idea. What if the user has an old browser that doesn't support webfonts? What if the user chose not to download font files to save bandwidth? In those cases we still want to do our best to ensure a decent reading experience, which isn't always possible with the default fallbacks. Our font stack would look something like this: 'Fancy pants Webfont Pro', DejaVu Sans, Arial, sans-serif;
The answer to "why aren't we using webfonts" is that we're not resourced to implement a homegrown delivery system that scales to Wikimedia-size traffic without a performance hit. Previous webfonts delivery that we've done for localization and accessibility has been rocky on the performance front, and it's not realistic for us right now to implement a system that delivers webfonts for all text to all users. (And we can't rely on TypeKit or Google webfonts system like many other sites).