Universal språkväljare/Kompakta språklänkar

This page is a translated version of the page Universal Language Selector/Compact Language Links and the translation is 49% complete.

Då användare på Wikimedias projekt skriver mer och mer innehåll på fler och fler språk växer sig den mellanspråkliga listan i sidospalten större. Artiklar som "Barack Obama" eller "Solen" har fler än 200 länkar, och det blir ett problem för användare som behöver byta mellan olika språk. Det finns inget enkelt sätt att hitta ett språk i en sån lång lista. Med kompakta språklänkar kortas listan som visas i börjar ner genom att visa ett antal språk som användaren troligen är intresserad av och användaren kan tillgå resten i en separat panel som enkelt låter en söka efter språk.

De kompakta språklänkarna är en del av Universell språkväljare (ULS) - tillägget som erbjuder språkval och tillgång till diverse språkrelaterade inställningar. ULS har använts på alla Wikimedias wikier sedan 2013. Kompakta språklänkar har varit tillgängliga som en separat betafunktion sedan 2014 då den skapades i ett OPW-projekt.

Hur funkar det?

 
Skärmdump av kompakta språklänkar

Kompakta språklänkar kan sättas på och stängas av i inställningarna under Inställningar -> Utseende -> Språk. Det kan också stängas av på alla wikier i Extension:GlobalPreferences . Den inställningen rullas för tillfället ut till användare över Wikimedias alla wikier i flera steg.

Med kompakta språklänkar visas från början en kortare lista över relevanta språk. Urvalet baseras på dina tidigare språkval, dina webbläsarinställningar, din plats, och egenskapar hos artiklar du läst. Du kan läsa mer om urvalet i Vanliga frågor: Hur bestämmer man vilket språk som först visas i den kompakta listan?.

 
Skärmdump av kompakta språklänkar som också visar ett utmärkt artikelmärke.

I slutet av listan finns det en indikator av antalet språk som sidan finns på. Klickar man på den visas resten av språken. Det går att söka i den efter språknamn på valfritt språk, och dessutom så hanterar den stavfel. Det går också att söka efter språkkoder.

Du kommer också kunna se märken som "Utvald artikel" i språkdialogen.

Vanliga frågor

Varför behövs den här funktionen?

Listan över mellanspråkliga länkar är väldigt lång på många artiklar. Det är svårt för många människor att hitta språket de letar efter i en lista på tio objekt, och på många artiklar finns det fler än hundra objekt. Flerspråkiga användare som ofta byter mellan olika språk måste varje gång leta efter sitt språk i en potentiellt väldigt lång lista över språk.

Vissa projekt har globala anpassningar för språklistan. Till exempel så lägger flera Wikipediaversioner vissa språk längst upp i listan, vissa visar andra språk i fettext, andra har finesser som prioriterar språk efter användarens önskemål, osv.

Idéer för en global funktion har dykt upp sedan tidigast 2010.

Hur kan jag välja vilka språk som visas för mig?

Tryck helt enkelt bara på dem i panelen som öppnas när du trycker på "X fler"-knappen.

Varje gång du trycker på ett språk läggs den till i listan över språk som visas i början av den kompakta listan.

Du kan också lägga till språk som du vill i dina webbläsarinställningar.

Jag har använt kompakta språklänkar som en beta-funktion. Vilka ändringar kommer jag få se?

Du ska inte se någon skillnad på de mellanspråkliga länkarna. Du ska däremot se att kompakta språklänkar inte längre visas som en alternativ under betafunktioner. Du kommer stället se en ny inställning under Inställningar -> Utseende -> Språk, där rutan "Använd en kompakt språklista" kan bockas i.

Jag testade kompakta språklänkar tidigare och stängde sen av den. Nu är den tillbaka. Hur stänger jag av den?

 
Skärmdump av inställningarna under utseende för att aktivera kompakta språklänkar

Gå till Inställningar -> Utseende -> Språk. Här ser du en ruta som säger "Använd en kompakt språklista". Bocka ur rutan och spara inställningarna. (Se bild.)

Hur många språk visas i den kompakta listan?

Mellan 7 och 9 språk visas för det mesta i den första kompakta listan. Storleken baseras på två faktorer.

  1. Making enough room for the number of languages people may need. During our research on different language-related projects we have asked participants about the languages they speak and 9 was a limit very rarely exceeded. For example, for Innehållsöversättning , from 187 responses 85% of the users spoke 4 languages or less. This also seems consistent with research on multilingual editors.
  2. The list had to be short enough to be processed quickly and easily, and communicate the idea that this article is available in other languages. While a person's working memory can be different from human to human, "7 ± 2" is a a common design guideline that suggests we may be providing a short enough list for people to process.

Isn't it easier to find the needed language when all the languages are shown?

Our research showed that finding a language using a compact list requires less effort than going through a long flat list.

Even if the needed language doesn't appear in the initial list, it is easier to find it using the panel and the search box than to find it in the long list with all the languages.

After the language is clicked once, it will always be shown with the highest priority in the initial short list. Most users access a small set of languages repeatedly, and the long list requires that they search for them every single time, so having the frequent languages appear automatically saves a lot of time.

Some users find it convenient to search for the language they need using the "Find in page" function that can be found in many browsers, but various estimates put the number of web users who are aware of this feature at about 10—20%.[1] In addition, the "Find in page" feature can match similar words in the content, it is not able to correct for typos or consider alternative ways to refer to a language including ISO codes, different scripts, etc. All these capabilities are provided by the search box in the pop-up language selection panel.

How do you decide which languages are shown to me in the initial compact list?

The main factor for choosing the languages are the selections of the user. This means that you can select the languages you want the most by simply clicking on them. If you are interested in reading the article in Japanese, once you select it, a link to the Japanese language will be surfaced for easier access next time.

The first time, due to the lack of previous choices by yourself, the language selection is based on other factors. Here's the complete and ordered list of the criteria according to which the languages for the initial compact list are selected:

  1. The languages on which the user clicked in the language selector panel previously.
  2. The languages of your web browser. This is configurable by you.
  3. The languages defined in your Babel box.
  4. Geographic information, which is based on the CLDR Territory-Language information. If the information for your country there is not precise, you can contribute to it.
  5. Languages that are used in the page's content with the lang attribute. This attribute is added by various "lang" templates in Wikipedias in many languages, when mentioning the name of a foreign person or place—for example, in the English Wikipedia article Prague, the Czech name of the city ("Praha") is mentioned using the {{lang-cs}} template. Using any HTML element with the lang attribute would work as well (for example, <span lang="cs">Praha</span>).
  6. Featured articles.
  7. If the methods above didn't find 9 languages that would be relevant for the reader, some major world languages will be shown if articles in them are available: Chinese, English, French, Indonesian, etc.


I have a Babel box on my user page. Why don't I see the languages that I defined in it in the initial compact list?

Please check that you are logged in and that you are using the {{#babel:}} notation on your user page. See the documentation of the Babel extension. Many wikis have an old template that shows a Babel box, but these templates are implemented differently in each of them and cannot be used by Compact Language Links. The {{#babel:}} notation allows adding a Babel box in a uniform way across all wikis, and has a similar appearance in all of them.

If you have a Babel box using the {{#babel:}} notation on your user page and you still don't see the languages that you specified in it in the initial compact language list, this may be a software bug. Please report it at the project talk page.

Technical notes:

  • The BabelMainCategory variable must be set up for your wiki in the InitialiseSettings.php file. It is already set up for many Wikimedia wikis, but not for all of them.
  • It is possible to wrap the {{#babel:}} notation in a template. This will work for Compact Language Links, too. This was done, for example, in the {{Babel}} template in Russian Wikipedia.

Will the languages that I have in a Babel box on my global user page appear in all the wikis?

Yes, they will appear in every wiki in which you don't have a local user page.

A local user page in a wiki will override your global Babel box.

Does this feature prioritize major world languages and discriminate against smaller ones?

No, absolutely not. This is neither the intention, nor the effect.

The feature makes the best effort to auto-adapt itself to every user. The languages that are shown in the initial short list with the highest priority are taken from each user's previous choices, browser settings, and location. Some major world languages are shown only as the last fallback with the lowest priority.

In fact, thanks to respecting user preferences and using geolocation, it may make some smaller languages more prominent. Indeed, the clicks on links to all languages, especially the smaller ones, have grown since the feature was made available to anonymous users.

How about languages that are not tied to any territory, such as Esperanto? Won't this feature hurt the traffic to projects in these languages?

Links to all languages are available, but shown in the panel that appears when you click the "More" button, and our research shows that they are easier to find in this panel than in the long list. A user who clicks any language in the panel once, will see this language in the initial list after that.

We are watching the effect of this feature on the clicks on the links and on the traffic to all the projects. As of late 2017, over a year has already passed since the enabling of the feature on some major languages, such as Russian, Spanish and Chinese, and the number of clicks on the links, and the traffic to them, have not gone down in any language.

Furthermore, in all the languages we have observed that the percent of people who entered the project in that language through interlanguage links from other languages has grown considerably, likely because the links are now easier to find. Here are the metrics from some languages. See also the full statistics for all the languages.

Månad albanska tjeckiska danska esperanto lettiska
juni 2016 1,0655% 0,3677% 0,6002% 2,9999% 1,1672%
juli 2016 2,4419% 0,4902% 0,9998% 4,4019% 1,8306%
augusti 2016 3,7557% 0,5454% 0,9916% 4,4966% 2,5281%
juni 2017 5,4297% 0,8780% 1.5400% 12.9971% 4.3209%
Growth juni 2016–juni 2017 409,5970% 138,7526% 156,5756% 333,2539% 270,1848%

Hur ändrar jag språkinställningar i min webbläsare?

(Notera att webbläsarversioner uppdateras flera gånger om året, och dessa instruktioner kan vara utdaterade. Om du vet att detta uppnås på ett annat sätt i en nyare version av din webbläsare än det som står här, får du gärna redigera den här sidan och uppdatera instruktionerna.)

Du kan ändra språkinställningarna i din webbläsare. var bara medveten om att detta kan påverka ditt digitala fingeravtryck och kan ha en negativ inverkan på din integritet.[2] Om du ändå vill göra det, följ dessa instruktioner:

Mozilla Firefox 58

(Menyn med tre streck) → Inställningar → Språk → Välj språk att lägga till...

Google Chrome 64

(Menyn med tre prickar) → Inställningar → Avancerat Språk → Lägg till språk

Microsoft Internet Explorer 10

  • Windows 7: (kugghjulet) → Internetinställningar → Generellt → Språk → Lägg till
  • Windows 8: (kugghjulet) → Internetalternativ → Generellt → Språk → Ange språkinställningar → Lägg till språk

Microsoft Internet Explorer 11

(Kugghjulet) → Internetinställningar → Allmänt → Språk → Ställ in språkinställningar → Lägg till språk

Microsoft Edge Legacy

Man kan inte göra detta i webbläsaren utan det får man göra i operativsystemet. Gå till datorns Systeminställningar, och sedan: Tid och språk → Region & språk → Lägg till språk

Microsoft Edge 79

(Tre punkt-ikonen) → Inställningar → Språk → Lägg till språk

Opera 49

Meny → Inställningar → Webbläsare → Språk → Föredragna språk → Lägg till språk

Varför grupperas språk efter kontinent?

När språklistan är för lång delas listan in i kontinenter för bättre visualisering. Annars skulle listan bli för lång. Uppdelningen efter kontinent är rätt godtycklig; det blir däremot en ganska balanserad gruppering. Uppdelningar efter språkfamilj, till exempel, skulle bli mycket sämre balanserad, med tanke på att vissa språkfamiljer bara omfattar ett språk medan andra omfattar flera tiotals.

Varför sorteras inte språken i alfabetisk ordning?

Språknamn skrivs med olika skriftsystem. Därav kan de inte sorteras i alfabetisk ordning.

Efter den första grupperingen efter kontinent, grupperas språk ytterligare efter skriftsystem, och inom varje skriftsystem sorteras de i alfabetisk ordning.

Efterforskning visar på att folk för det mesta hittar sitt språk genom sökrutan och inte genom att skrolla igenom hela listan.

Varför skrivs språknamnen på det egna språket och inte på wikis språk?

Därför att de flesta som använder mellanspråkliga länkar inte nödvändigtvis vet vad språket de letar efter heter på wikins språk.

Det går att söka efter språket du letat efter på ditt språk, och alla andra, i sökrutan längst upp i panelen.

Why does the search box and full languages list appear in a separate panel?

We considered that it (a) allowed the user to focus on their languages of interest (the initially visible provides enough room to include the number of languages most of our uses speak), and (b) it allowed us to provide advanced searching capabilities to facilitate the selection. Searching was the most common method for users to find their language during our research, and providing flexible search made it easier to support the cases where the language you are looking for was not in the initial list. You can search for a language based on the name in another language, making typos or using the ISO codes. This allows searching even if you don't know how is the language's name is written in that language and if cannot type in that language on your keyboard. For example, English speakers are often unable to type in Japanese, but they can search for the Japanese language by typing "japanese" and they don't have to type "日本語".

Although the tool does not show initially all the interlanguage links, the access to them is provided through a "continuation" pattern where it is quite clear how to access to the rest of the languages. Our research confirmed that users were able to figure out how to find their language when it was not present in the initial list (something that they need to do only once at most). We are monitoring the volume of inter-language navigation to identify any potential issues.


What are the feature's success metrics?

The essential success metric is that the number of clicks on interlanguage links doesn't go down. Also, we hope to see that it becomes easier for readers to find languages that are relevant to them.

The developers have started recording the total number of clicks on interlanguage clicks to each language every day in May 2016, before the enabling of the feature to anonymous users started. We are seeing that they started to go up several weeks after the deployment. As of December 2016, the percent of clicks on interlanguage links out of the number of pageviews in each language is higher than it was in May 2016, in Wikipedia in all languages.

The average growth in clicks across all languages from June 2016 until June 2017 is 90%. The average growth in traffic that comes using interlanguages into all the languages in the same period is 85%.

You can find more information about this data at the page Universal Language Selector/Compact Language Links/metrics/data .

No. This is a redesign of the interlanguage links only on the desktop website.

The mobile website (MobileFrontend) has its own design for displaying and sorting interlanguage links.

It's possible that the mobile and the desktop design will be brought closer to each other in the future, but there is no concrete plan for this at the moment.

How do you determine my location?

Your IP address is checked on the servers against a database that contains mappings from addresses to approximate locations. The results are stored in a cookie named GeoIP. ULS then reads this information and combines it with a list of languages spoken in each country of the world, which is maintained by the CLDR project of the Unicode Consortium. The page wikitech:Geolocation has some more information about this.

It is said that geolocation is used to determine the language selection. How important is this criteria?

Geolocation is not perfect, but that is neither the only nor the primary information source. It is used in addition to more reliable sources: your previous selections and browser languages. In any case, our data relies on CLDR and it is expected to improve over time and we encourage users to ask for improvements on it.

With geolocation, are you not enforcing certain languages, which would be contrary to the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation?

Geolocation is only one of the mechanisms used to guess the user's language. In fact, if suggestions include the languages of a region this can bring more visibility to them than the old list.

Besides, emphasizing these languages makes smaller languages more prominent in the areas where they are spoken.

How can I make the data about the languages spoken in my country more precise?

We suggest all people check the entries for their language in the CLDR Language-Territory database and update it if needed. All languages, including constructed languages like Esperanto, can be added to it if there is data about the number of speakers in a given country.

I use a VPN most of the time. The geolocation information is useless for me.

Geolocation is only one of the mechanisms used to guess the user's language. Your browser settings and previously selected languages will always be used.

Doesn't automatic personalization of the languages list make Wikimedia sites similar to commercial websites?

Wikimedia sites, like some other massively multilingual commercial sites, have to deal with the scalability in the number of languages it supports. Unlike how it is with commercial websites, Wikimedia's purpose is not to optimize the profit by market, but to make it possible for every human being to share in the sum of all knowledge, and this includes access to all languages.

Compact Language Links are designed to make access to all languages not only possible, but easier. Unlike how it is done on some commercial websites, no language is ever made inaccessible. Besides, the method for selecting the languages to show in the list is fully and openly documented right here on this page.


Most likely this happens because the display of the interlanguage links on the main page of your wiki is customized using the {{noexternallanglinks}} magic word. This was done in some Wikimedia wikis because there's a main page in all languages so the longest possible list of languages is shown, while the content of the main page itself is usually quite short.

With compact language links this customization shouldn't be needed on the main page, because the list is already compact and the languages are chosen automatically for each user, so the editors community in your wiki should consider removing it.

 
Screenshot of Compact Language Links interlanguage list with gray links shown by Content Translation for missing articles

The language lists that you see in gray are being shown by Innehållsöversättning which is a beta feature that you have enabled. The languages in gray indicate that the article you are viewing is not present in those languages and can be translated via Content Translation by clicking on the gray links.

Var kan jag ge återkoppling?

Du kan använda projektets diskussionssida eller rapportera problem på Phabricator med hjälp av #ULD-CompactLinks-projektet.

Vissa etiketter i min språkväljare är inte översatta på mitt språk. Var kan jag översätta dem?

Gå till Translatewiki.net , skapa ett konto och fullfölj översättning av följande två grupper:

Kända problem och funktionsönskningar

Se fullständig lista på Phabricator.

Se även

Referenser

  1. Do 90% of People Not Use Ctrl+F?, Blog of Metrics, Mozilla
  2. Läs Fielding, R.; Reschke, J. (juni 2014). "Browser Fingerprinting". Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content. IETF. p. 85. RFC 7231. Läst 16 juni 2018.