Hello,
The Discovery team recently updated the
wikipedia.org portal page to detect
what the visitor's browser's preferred language(s) are and then arrange the
language links around the globe to match those language preferences.
Earlier this year, we ran a successful A/B test
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia.org_Portal_A/B_testing#A.2FB_test:_browser_language_detection_.28completed.29>
that proved promoting our visitor's preferred languages resulted in
increased visibility and interest into these projects. Also, the display of
'*The Free Encyclopedia*' phrase is now localized to the visitor's first
preferred browser language. If there isn't a translation available, the
phrase will be displayed in English (view a screenshot
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AWikipedia_portal_top_10_links_re-sort.png>)
as it currently is today.
Additionally, a new A/B test
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia.org_Portal_A/B_testing#A.2FB_test:_languages_by_article_count_.28in_progress.29>
will kick
off this week to determine if the listing of languages by article count can
be displayed in a more modern and streamlined way without decreasing usage
of the links. Our goal is to promote easy scrolling through the long list
of languages by article count, but in a dropdown format while also
providing greater discovery of the sister wiki project links.
More information on past and future work can be found on the wiki page
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia.org_Portal> as well as the sprint
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/discovery-portal-sprint/> and backlog
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/discovery-portal-backlog/> boards. We're
always interested in receiving constructive feedback from the community: if
you have a question or comment, please start a discussion on the talk page
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Wikipedia.org_Portal>.
Cheers,
Deb
--
Deb Tankersley
Product Manager, Discovery
Wikimedia Foundation