Re: Localized Pages

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

Felipe Contreras wrote:

> Well, I think we should add some translation but not say it is a very
> important feature
What do you mean? Should we hide this feature? If it is hidden and you 
have to search the site to find it, then how useful would it be for 
those who need it the most, who might never even find it?

> waht we can do is to design the site to use some parts
> international, some other local,
I think this is something that was already discussed. Basically, the 
content could be divided into two parts -- the gnome.org content 
(translated as much as possible if translation is wanted) and content 
targeted for the language/country in question (if you split the latter 
you have three parts). This locale-specific content could reside in 
subdirectories on local mirrors, but be linked from gnome.org and its 
mirrors.

> but not to put a list of languages on the
> front page but for example a link on the front page to another page with the
> whole list of languages or countries or both or whatever, so when I click
> español I go to intl.gnome.org/es, and inside there some links can go to
> www.gnome.com (in english). What do you think?
I think that hiding the language selection on its own page has its problems.
I can't tell if you were against the idea of automatic language 
detection with browser content negotiation, but if this is the case you 
have a problem with visitors that aren't fluent in English or don't even 
understand English and would be much better served with translated 
content. They might not even realize that they can get this very 
English-speaking site in another language by clicking on a link 
somewhere. If you have trouble understanding the site itself, you will 
have trouble finding that link to the page with language selection too.
If automatic language selection is instead used, but manual language 
selection still hidden on its own page, the problem will be those 
visitors who aren't satisfied by the automatic selection and would want 
the site in another language. They too would have to try to read and 
understand the contents (frustrating) and find the link to "correct" the 
language selection.
Even if this "language selection page" is to be found easily for 
everyone, having to go to, and load, a seperate page just to select 
another language or "correct" a language selection will put off some 
people on slow links.
That's why I'm advocating the use of content negotiation, because we 
already *have* the information about what language the visitor wants 
before he has even seen the gnome.org front page the first time. Why not 
make use for it in a clever way, instead of forcing the user to do this 
manually?
Even if this, as all preferences, can be set wrongly in some cases, I 
think that assuming that it is correct and serving as based on this 
information as default seems natural. In those few cases where the 
automatic language selection didn't cut it we have a simple way on the 
front page to select the wanted language manually. What's the problem 
with this strategy?

To summarize, I see no advantages with hiding language selection on its 
own page, but rather some usability problems, and I think that the use 
of automatic language selection, together with the providing of means 
for manual language selection directly on the front page and easily 
spotted solves some of this.

Christian