Re: [WAI-IG] Serving my page in the right language

On Sat, 20 Mar 2004, Jesper Tverskov wrote:

> It is interesting that many of the more important web sites that could
> have used HTTP language accept header don't use it:

FWIW, when I was responsible for some multilingual content at a .int
site used throughout Europe[1], I set up language negotiation but
allowed users to override it:

/path/to/doc.html	<--	negotiated
/path/to/en/doc.html	<--	english
/path/to/de/doc.html	<--	german

etc.

I was living and working in Italy at the time, and so was occasionally
victim of idiots who detected the fact and served me Italian contents
regardless of my preference[2].  I had an Italian friend who worked
at a local branch of a multinational whose domain was ericsson.se,
and would sometimes be served swedish by the same idiots.

> Schweiz, http://www.admin.ch

One in six with a clue.  That one *is* language-negotiated.
It'll only present you with the multilingual crap if you _don't_
ask for one of the real swiss languages.

The others are almost certainly the usual case, as documented by Dilbert.

[1] Specifically, in high schools from Portugal to Russia,
    and from Ireland to Turkey.
[2] I read Italian, but not as fluently as English.

-- 
Nick Kew

Received on Saturday, 20 March 2004 18:12:02 UTC