[Foundation-l] deployment of Vector to other languages -

[Mark Williamson]

Speaking of which, I'd like to use this opportunity to re-express my
EXTREME dissatisfaction with the hidden-by-default interwiki links.
This almost defeats the entire purpose of interwikis - that is, to let
people know that the article exists in their language as well. If my
native language is Afrikaans, for example, it's not reasonable for me
to "assume" that every article I view in en.wp is also available in
that language, so it will always be a pleasant surprise to see a link
there. However, if it's not shown by default, I'll probably just miss
it every time. This new "feature" is potentially extremely harmful to
many non-English Wikipedias.

Mark

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Amir E. Aharoni
<amir.aharoni at mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
> I have a few questions about the deployment of Vector in Wikipedias in
> other languages.
>
> 1. When does the Foundation plan to perform the switch?
>
> 2. At least two major features which were not included in the Beta,
> were enabled in the English Wikipedia: the new search box with "Go"
> and "Search" buttons and the collapsible sidebar which hides
> interlanguage links by default. A significant number of users in
> en.wikipedia expressed their dissatisfaction with them and with the
> fact that they were introduced by surprise. They are still not a part
> of the Beta in other languages. Will they be enabled in other
> languages when they are switched to Vector?
>
> 3. Did anyone consider appointing "Vector migration czars" in
> Wikipedias in other languages? Because despite what some people might
> think, quite a lot of speakers of other languages don't bother looking
> at en.wikipedia and WMF blogs and mailing lists. I wrote a little
> about the good (IMHO) and the bad (IMHO) features about Vector in the
> Village Pumps of Wikipedias in languages that i know - Hebrew, Russian
> and Catalan. I can report that there are a couple of JavaScript gurus
> in he.wikipedia who have a positive attitude towards Vector and who
> gradually adapt the gadgets to it, and there are a few other JS gurus
> who hate Vector and who don't want to bother about it and recommend
> everyone to stay with Monobook. (Although my attitude may seem
> negative, i actually belong to the first camp.) The situation is
> similar in the Russian Wikipedia.
>
> 4. Finally, does the Foundation plan to gather any other feedback from
> other language Wikipedias except the "Beta retention rate"?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> --
> אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> Amir Elisha Aharoni
>
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
>
> "We're living in pieces,
>  I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
>
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