[OSM-dev] "Available Languages" on wiki. and real estate

[Tobias Knerr]

On 08.11.2012 19:03, Jeff Meyer wrote:
> https://trac.openstreetmap.org/ticket/4675
> 
> Now... to figure out how to do this...

As I've commented on the ticket, this might not be the best point in
time for fine-tuning the visual aspect of the translations. There has
been discussion about using the MediaWiki Translate extension for better
handling of translations and installation of this extension is scheduled
for the next software upgrade:
http://wiki.osm.org/Talk:Wiki_Translation#Translate_extension

More generally, though, I feel slightly uncomfortable with your
suggestions to free "valuable real estate" or even collapse the list by
default. Most of our wiki content is not available in all languages, and
realistically will never be. (Many pages are not even expected to be
translated, such as proposals.) So switching between languages will
inevitably happen quite often for every user who wants to neither miss
out on a lot of wiki content nor go English only.

Yes, it makes sense to think about a language link redesign. However, it
should not be based on the premise that these aren't important, and for
practical reasons I would prefer to wait until the technical foundations
of the translation system are in place.

Tobias