The Cunctator wrote:
The primary objection is that this hasn't really been discussed.
It's been nothing _but_ discussed for months.
That said:
- There isn't a clear picture of what overall policy this fits in with;
Naming standards: every encyclopedia wiki in the project is at {languagecode}.wikipedia.(com|org) except the English one.
- Whether whatever that overall policy is well-thought out and correct;
Well, it sounds rather reasonable to me.
- What the consequences of the change from a usability perspective have not
been delineated;
URLs are deliberately being preserved. User interface isn't any different. One-time cookie change requires users to push the "login" button.
Front page not yet changed; new front page may make some people want to change their bookmarks if they wanted the English encyclopedic front page specifically.
- "A new intro page can later be set up at convenience" is probably not how
we want to do this;
Oh?
- There are real, concrete benefits to having a default and preferred
interface/language;
Which are?
In other words, the pros and cons of such an act should be explicitly and clearly listed. There are many reasons that www.google.com, www.dmoz.org, etc. (which all have multilanguage settings) have English as the default, and it's not just that the servers are US-based).
Once that's done, we can weigh priorities.
I personally think a better focus right now for the developers is to work on maximum integration of the different language wikis. If the backend is better integrated, frontend issues become easier to deal with.
If I'd just spent the 30 seconds to make the change without telling you, I'd have a lot more time to focus on such things. ;)
A big question that we are in the process of resolving now is whether we want to think of Wikipedia as a single project that has multiple translations, or as a bunch of largely independent projects specific to particular nations and language sets. I think the first conception is healthier and more productive over the long term. We really should think about this issue before we take broad actions that touch upon it.
"Translations" is an odd choice of words.
The *user interface of the program* is 'translated' from a central source, but the encyclopedia articles aren't. Ideally they should all contain the same (maximal quality, maximal amount of) information by cross-pollination: new material added in any one language can be taken over to the others. That's not a one-way street, and doesn't have to be achieved by "translation".
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)