[Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2

[David Gerard]

On 5 June 2010 01:03, Howie Fung <hfung at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> First, some background on the problem we're addressing and the design
> principle that we used.  Every situation is unique, but in the case of
> the interwikilinks, we believe the sheer number of language links,
> especially within the context of an information-heavy page, makes users
> "numb" to the list.  When people see large collections of things, they
> tend to group them all together as one object and not identify the
> individual parts that make the whole.


"We believe" = no data, then?

In a list of language links, people will immediately notice the one
that they can read: their own language, i.e. the one they're looking
for.


>  While we did not explicitly test for this
> during our usability studies (e.g., it wasn't included as a major design
> question), we did exercise judgement in identifying this as a problem,
> based partly on the applying the above design principle to the site,
> partly on the data.


You've just said it was on "judgement" and *not at all* on any data.


> Thank you for your input.


This is implemented in each wiki's [[MediaWiki:vector.css]]. As such,
if a wiki votes to reverse this interface change, and your proposed
"compromise" solution - will they be able to do so, or will the
Foundation impose the change upon them regardless? i.e., is this
content control by the WMF? I ask based on the preremptory tone used
by Trevor Parscal in reverting the original change.


- d.