Why can't MediaWiki do like all major sites' software, and allow setting
the interface language without requiring the user to establish an account?
Observe the bottom of e.g.,
http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.flickr.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
Each has a language selector that doesn't require login.
http://www.couchsurfing.org/
even puts it right at top.
Yes, patient users can set their language preference in Preferences.
But what about read-only sites? I.e., What should one suggest on
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Preventing_access#Restrict_account_cre…
to say to users who wish to view in a different language?
Painfully suffix "?uselang=..." to the end of each URL they browse?
One might argue "users will confuse MediaWiki uselang= with
XX.wikipedia.org languages" ... well they haven't yet with the language
choice in Preferences.
I'm not saying rip it out of Preferences. I'm saying add an additional
way to set it for even non-logged in users, just like the aforementioned
"real websites" do.
Also consider the current accessibility up until the point the user has
managed to register an account and finally set his/her language
preference... all of which has to be somehow accomplished in the "dark"
of the default language, unless he/she knows to add the magic
uselang=... to MediaWiki URLs every step of the way.
Please don't suggest an add-on for such basic functionality.
OK, I filed
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33677