Re: Language negotiation a failure?

Asmus Freytag, Wed, 09 Jan 2013 02:45:38 -0800:
> On 1/7/2013 9:23 AM, John Cowan wrote:
>> In Henri's case, given the choice of Finnish or English (which we will
>> say he reads equally well), he probably prefers Finnish on web servers
>> *in Finland*, but English on web servers elsewhere.  Current browser
>> dialog boxes do not accommodate such complicated preference notions.
> 
> It's not that uncommon a situation. In my case, I have two languages 
> that I would prefer over English, whenever they are the *main* 
> language of the content provider (their location would be a proxy for 
> that, but not necessarily  a perfect one). For all other cases, 
> English. And I would like search providers to give me "native" 
> results in those two languages, whenever the search term is in those 
> languages. I know, pipe dream.

Google offers content-negotiation between Nynorsk and Bokmål - at least 
for www.google.no. This might be a result of my requests for that back 
in time. Thus, if you delete cookies, you will get the page in Nynorsk, 
if you browser prefers it.

It is indeed true (as Henri says) that the Nynorsk version offers fewer 
features than the Bokmål version. But there is a link to the Bokmål 
version at www.google.no, so that is simple to "fix".

When it comes to Firefox, which is what Henri works on, then it comes 
in localized builds, unlike e.g. Safari, which contains all the 
localizations in the same build. Thus, for Firefox, there is *nothing* 
to configure since the Nynorsk version of Firefox comes with preference 
for Nynorsk preconfigured. SO in my view, Firefox has a very good story 
in this regard.

I have no doubt that Henri is serious and probably wants to do away 
with content language negotiation. My own perspective is that we should 
move in the opposite direction.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Wednesday, 9 January 2013 12:19:25 UTC