[Wikipedia-l] Re: Portals, flags, chaos

Mon Jan 10 23:29:39 UTC 2005

Pete/Pcb21 wrote:

> >Wikipedia is an attempt at making a real multilanguage
>
>> encyclopedia. 
>
>
> I agree this.
>
> I do think though that getting from that point to "we must have 
> www.wikipedia.org in N languages with virtually no content" is a leap 
> of faith more than a leap of logic.

One could take it as a "marketing opportunity" - think of Apple's
OS X install process, which also has the delicate task of getting
the user's language without causing confusion, rage, or worst of
all, a support call. :-)

It starts off with snappy music and flashy graphics, with floating
"Welcome" signs in different languages, then goes to a plain text
menu saying something "use XXX as the main language" written
in each language, with English at the top. (No flags, BTW.)

While a WP portal doesn't necessarily need music and animations,
a graphically-attractive portal should be able to get people more
excited about WP, while at the same time unobtrusively directing
them to the language of choice. As several people have observed,
most users should only ever see the portal once, so it's much
more about first impressions than daily use.

As an example of positive spin, I think even a parochial English
speaker would appreciate an encyclopedia whose material on Mexico
or Greece has been worked on and crosschecked by bilingual
natives of those places. (Yes, I know that argument has all kinds
of holes, but marketing is as much about emotional response as
logic.)

Another idea is to illustrate the portal with a collage built
from our featured pictures, particularly ones evoking different
parts of the globe. People are then choosing preferred language
while feeling, for a moment anyway, like citizens of the world.

Stan