Universal Language Selector/Compact Language Links

As multilingual content grows, inter-language links become longer on Wikipedia articles. Articles such as "Barack Obama" or "Sun" have more than 200 links, and that becomes a problem for users who often switch among several languages. With the current list of inter-language links, users have to process a long list of languages looking for their languages of interest time after time. The language list can be made shorter by including only the languages which are relevant to the user using Compact Language Links.

Compact Language Links is part Universal Language Selector (ULS), the extension that provides several features for users to determine relevant language settings. ULS has been in use on all Wikimedia wikis since 2013. Compact Language Links was available as a separate beta-feature since 2014 as part of an OPW project.

How does it work
Compact Language Links is enabled using a setting that is available under Preferences -> Appearance.

This setting is currently being enabled for users across all Wikimedia wikis in several stages.

Using the Universal Language Selector a short list of the relevant languages for the user is displayed. This selection is based on geo-IP, previous choices and browser settings of the current user. The language the users are looking for will be there most of the times. You can read more about this selection at this FAQ: "How does Universal Language Selector determine which languages I may understand?".

At the bottom of the list there will be an indicator of the number of languages for which the articles exists and an option with the label "more" to access the rest of the languages. Clicking on more will open the language selection dialog. It provides a list of the rest of the languages that users can easily scan, and search. Users can search a language name in another language, using ISO codes or can even make typos and see a hint for an appropriate language name match.

Users will also be able to see badges like feature article inside this language dialog.

FAQ

 * I have been using Compact Links as a beta feature. What is the change I will see?
 * I tried Compact Language Links earlier and then turned off the beta feature. Now it is enabled again. How do I turn it off?
 * How many languages are generally shown in the compact list?
 * How do you decide which languages are relevant for me?
 * It is said that Geo-IP i.e. geographic information is used to determine the language selection. How important is this criteria?
 * Geo-IP is not perfect, but that is not used as the main information source just as a fallback for more reliable sources such as previous selections or browser language. in any case our data relies on CLDR so it is expected to improve over time and we encourage users to ask for improvements on it.
 * With Geo-IP are you not enforcing certain languages in certain geographic areas, which would be contrary to the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation?
 * Geo-IP is only a fallback mechanism used to guess the user's language. However, if suggestions include minor languages of a region this can bring more visibility to them than the usual list.
 * I use a VPN most of the times. The geo-IP information is useless for me.
 * Geo-IP is only a fallback mechanism used to guess the user's language. Previous selection and browser info are more reliable.
 * Why do I see some of the languages listed in the interlanguage links as gray?
 * Where can I provide feedback about Compact Language Links?
 * You can use the project talk page.
 * Geo-IP is only a fallback mechanism used to guess the user's language. Previous selection and browser info are more reliable.
 * Why do I see some of the languages listed in the interlanguage links as gray?
 * Where can I provide feedback about Compact Language Links?
 * You can use the project talk page.
 * You can use the project talk page.

Known issues and existing requests
See full list on Phabricator.


 * Previous choices not remembered cross-wiki. The preferred languages for the user are only remembered in the current wiki.
 * This beta feature is incompatible with the SidebarTranslate gadget. (Won't be fixed ULS-side.)