Re: debian.org Language Subdomain Proposal
Hello Paul,
Am 30.07.19 um 07:47 schrieb Paul Wise:
> On Mon, Jul 29, 2019 at 9:44 PM Carsten Schoenert wrote:
>> Am 29.07.19 um 10:49 schrieb Bagas Sanjaya:
>>>
>>> I'm proposing to use language subdomains for debian.org (d.o) site.
>> does this solve any actual problem?
>
> There is a problem with Debian's use of content negotiation for
> support of multiple languages:
>
> The browser UI for choosing which language a website uses is overly
> complicated, hidden away in the preferences, isn't per-site
> configurable and for some people preferences are read-only. So
> basically language content negotiation may as well not exist, most
> folks will be stuck with what their browser reports.
>
> Thus there is no reliable way to give every visitor to your website
> the ability to choose their preferred language.
>
> Consequently almost the entire web abandoned using content negotiation
> for language selection and switched to menus on each website that use
> a different mechanism to select the language. Some use a cookie, some
> use top-level directories (example.com/en-us/...), some use
> subdomains, some use autodetection based on GeoIP, or a combination of
> factors.
>
> People have gotten used to selecting their language on the website
> they are using. When visiting the Debian website, they often complain
> that when they choose their preferred language via the Debian language
> footer, they get the right language in their first click, but
> subsequent clicks to other pages revert back to the language their
> browser set.
>
> Passing cookies for this could work easily, but discussing it a while
> ago we decided there could be GDPR issues. I seem to remember I worked
> out that via some Apache rewrite rules it would be possible to use the
> names of top-level directories to influence content negotiation, but I
> neglected to take notes about how. Using a subdomain could work in a
> similar way but I think it is more work because it means new languages
> mean new subdomains, which means DSA have to make changes.
>
> PS: related bug where Firefox folks refused to add a more
> user-friendly per-site configuration for this, because the site
> identity panel is reserved for security/privacy related matters:
>
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1545392
thanks for this in deep analyses and explanation!
Given that our websites will need some overhaul at all and we also need
to think about on lot of other things related to our websites and the
specific part of localization comes to this all on top we wont find a
quick solution (besides the work that is also needed to make this work).
Unfortunately we lacking a lot on people that are willing or can do the
work here. We would need a longish sprint to sort things more out and
create a plan how the wanted goals can get archived.
Never mind we should start collecting these kind of topics within some
sub site within the wiki. There we should also add your summarize!
--
Regards
Carsten Schoenert
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