Hi, I'm changing the subject line because as Thomas wrote there are two separate
issues here: How to rank the 10 largest, and how to rank all the rest.
As I pointed out in the
wikisource.org Scriptorium discussion, I do not understand why
Thomas sees the current arrangement as "clutter." Thomas also calls the ranking
a "hall of fame" and doesn't see the justification for it.
I don't think either point is justified. The current arrangement for the full list of
languages is similar to the lists on other project portals such as Wikipedia or Wiktionary
(but also formatted a bit more nicely than the others). None of them consider it clutter.
In fact, you don't even see it until you scroll down.
As far as ranking, why even rank the top 10 or give them a special display? Why not just a
simple alphabetical list and that's it for the portal, if a "hall of fame"
is to be avoided? I suggest an alternative rationale: The point of ranking is not a
"hall of fame" but to give visitors an idea of how developed each
language-project is and how much material it contains. People find this sort of thing
interesting even for languages they don't speak (and certainly for those they do
speak); it serves to give them a picture of what Wikisource really is, in all of its
colorful variety.
In addition, there is nothing wrong with giving due credit to languages that have flowered
through lots of hard work by volunteer contributors (whether we call this a "hall of
fame" or not).
To my mind these are the justifications for displaying the top ten in a special way, and
also the reason for ranking the rest. Why is it important to give an idea of the
size/content of a Wikisource for a language spoken by hundreds of millions, but not for a
smaller one? Let the portal provide for all.
An additional suggestion: The alphabetical list that Thomas created
(
http://wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page_alt) is another useful tool, but not the only one.
It could be added to the current Main page easily as an additional alternative to the
numbered lists, rather than in place of them. I'll create an example of that now on
the actual Main Page portal since it doesn't disrupt any of the current content
there.
Dovi