This has probably been discussed before, but why does mediawiki (or at least, wikipedia) default to showing the interface in the language of the wikipedia, rather than in the language of the browser? E.g., when I visit ru.wikipedia.org, common sense dictates that the interface should be shown in English, the language defined in my browser preferences. Sure, I can change it by creating an account and defining my preferences, but even that is difficult enough on a foreign language Wikipedia, and extremely difficult for a non-Roman script.
What's the thinking here?
Steve
Quite simply... Cache... Wikipedia runs behind squid, and that allows all anon visitors to view the exact same page cached by squid instead of needing to make MediaWiki recreate the page each and every time another person wants it. Because of the cache, the browser language isn't used. If the cache were removed, Wikipedia would likely bog down to a halt. So language preferences are only honored for logged in users who aren't affected by cache.
~Daniel Friesen(Dantman) of: -The Gaiapedia (http://gaia.wikia.com) -Wikia ACG on Wikia.com (http://wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_ACG) -and Wiki-Tools.com (http://wiki-tools.com)
Steve Bennett wrote:
This has probably been discussed before, but why does mediawiki (or at least, wikipedia) default to showing the interface in the language of the wikipedia, rather than in the language of the browser? E.g., when I visit ru.wikipedia.org, common sense dictates that the interface should be shown in English, the language defined in my browser preferences. Sure, I can change it by creating an account and defining my preferences, but even that is difficult enough on a foreign language Wikipedia, and extremely difficult for a non-Roman script.
What's the thinking here?
Steve
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On 3/19/08, DanTMan dan_the_man@telus.net wrote:
Quite simply... Cache... Wikipedia runs behind squid, and that allows all anon visitors to view the exact same page cached by squid instead of needing to make MediaWiki recreate the page each and every time another person wants it. Because of the cache, the browser language isn't used. If the cache were removed, Wikipedia would likely bog down to a halt. So language preferences are only honored for logged in users who aren't affected by cache.
Hmm. Any thoughts of at least caching a few of the most popular languages and serving those as necessary? Or hell, even just English - it's by far the most understood lingua franca, and people can even just learn the English interface once, and they'll be ok on all the other wikipedias.
Steve
"Steve Bennett" stevagewp@gmail.com writes:
Hmm. Any thoughts of at least caching a few of the most popular languages and serving those as necessary? Or hell, even just English - it's by far the most understood lingua franca, and people can even just learn the English interface once, and they'll be ok on all the other wikipedias.
Just add ?uselang=en to the end of the URL.
On 19/03/2008, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/19/08, DanTMan dan_the_man@telus.net wrote:
Quite simply... Cache... Wikipedia runs behind squid, and that allows all anon visitors to view the exact same page cached by squid instead of needing to make MediaWiki recreate the page each and every time another person wants it. Because of the cache, the browser language isn't used. If the cache were removed, Wikipedia would likely bog down to a halt. So language preferences are only honored for logged in users who aren't affected by cache.
Hmm. Any thoughts of at least caching a few of the most popular languages and serving those as necessary? Or hell, even just English - it's by far the most understood lingua franca, and people can even just learn the English interface once, and they'll be ok on all the other wikipedias.
I doubt that serving interface text according to browser language is a high priority, given the usually reasonable assumption that people don't register an account on a project where they can't read the language. If you are that determined, then the uselang hack works well enough.
Brianna
On 3/19/08, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
I doubt that serving interface text according to browser language is a high priority, given the usually reasonable assumption that people don't register an account on a project where they can't read the
I'm not talking about registering an account, I'm talking about browsing while unregistered. The language thing makes it tough to perform interwiki maintenance.
I guess a lot of this will go away with SUL?
language. If you are that determined, then the uselang hack works well enough.
Maybe with a greasemonkey script.
Steve
Many people, for example expats, may be using computers where the browser default language is not the language they would prefer. For example, I know there is at least one person at my university here in Arizona who edits the Chinese Wikipedia regularly. If he were to do it from any of the public computers at school (the libraries or computing commons, for instance), that does not mean he would want to read the interface in English. That would be an extra hassle.
For the most part, the vast majority of people going to a Wikipedia are going to want to see the interface in that language. Get over it.
Mark
On 19/03/2008, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/19/08, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
I doubt that serving interface text according to browser language is a high priority, given the usually reasonable assumption that people don't register an account on a project where they can't read the
I'm not talking about registering an account, I'm talking about browsing while unregistered. The language thing makes it tough to perform interwiki maintenance.
I guess a lot of this will go away with SUL?
language. If you are that determined, then the uselang hack works well enough.
Maybe with a greasemonkey script.
Steve
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 1:53 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Many people, for example expats, may be using computers where the browser default language is not the language they would prefer. For example, I know there is at least one person at my university here in Arizona who edits the Chinese Wikipedia regularly. If he were to do it from any of the public computers at school (the libraries or computing commons, for instance), that does not mean he would want to read the interface in English. That would be an extra hassle.
But that logic doesn't apply to multilingual wikis like Commons, and since you mention Chinese, it doesn't apply to languages with multiple variants either. If he *did* use an OS configured to traditional Chinese, it would be nice if it showed up as that instead of simplified if he didn't log in, and vice versa. The question is worth thinking about in that regard.
The same was proposed by ChemicalBit on Meta some days ago http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metapub#Default_language_interface_.28Meta_and_other_project.29__depending_on_user.27s_browser_preference. My comment there was:
For example, I am active on Low Saxon Wikipedia. Low Saxon is a minority language with almost no technical support. There's no Windows or Internet Explorer in Low Saxon and no Firefox and only very few other programs. And very, very few websites, who use the browser's preference for presenting Low Saxon content instead of some other language (actually I know none at all and I would say, I know almost the whole net if we speak about Low Saxon content). Cause of that, there are even among native Low Saxons very few who have 'nds' as their browser's preference language. This would mean, that 95 % of all natives would get the Low Saxon Wikipedia with German, Dutch or English interface. But for multilingual projects, this would be appropiate. If I again look from the perspective of Low Saxon, this would be the first website(s) on the net which would set an incentive to set your browser to 'nds' preference. In any case browser's preference would be more appropiate than 'english first'.
Steve Bennett hett schreven:
This has probably been discussed before, but why does mediawiki (or at least, wikipedia) default to showing the interface in the language of the wikipedia, rather than in the language of the browser? E.g., when I visit ru.wikipedia.org, common sense dictates that the interface should be shown in English, the language defined in my browser preferences. Sure, I can change it by creating an account and defining my preferences, but even that is difficult enough on a foreign language Wikipedia, and extremely difficult for a non-Roman script.
What's the thinking here?
Steve
Marcus Buck schreef:
Steve Bennett hett schreven:
You do have an NDS mail client then? ;)
I do think considering a user's default language is a good idea, but not for all wikis. Multilingual wikis like Commons, Meta and MW.org should do this, but one-language wikis like the Wikipedias shouldn't:all the articles on nl.wikipedia.org are in Dutch anyway, so people who don't speak Dutch have no reason to use English interface messages; they can't read the articles anyway (the exception is of course adding interlanguage links, but then there's SUL, as we said earlier).
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
Relevant feature request: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3665
-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]
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