Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Reading/Allow user to pin/unpin specific languages

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Allow user to pin/unpin specific languages

• Problem: It can be difficult to quickly find languages relevant to you from the list of language versions. The Compact Language Links feature is supposed to solve this, but ironically it makes it even more difficult so I've disabled it globally. Currently, there are three ways for a user to make specific languages appear in the abbreviated list. All have serious problems:
  • One way is to configure your browser's language preferences. But more often than not, the reason you want to see a page in a certain language isn't necessarily that you comprehend that language; it just means you suspect that language version might have information you're seeking that can be extracted even if you're not fluent in it. Not only that, just because you want to visit certain language versions of WMF projects doesn't mean you want to read other sites in those languages, let alone tell every website you visit that you understand them, which has serious privacy concerns because it enables them to fingerprint you more easily.
  • Another is to list languages in a Babel box on your user page. This has similar problems: The reason you want to read certain language versions isn't necessarily that you understand them, and you have to publicly state your language skills, which is a potential privacy issue.
  • The other is to select a language from the list, which makes it appear in the compact list. But just because you wanted to read one article in a language doesn't mean you might want to read all other articles in that language. The inability to remove languages from the compact list renders it useless.
• Proposed solution: A "Pin" or "Unpin" button next to each language on the language selection panel. "Unpin" should appear next to not only user-pinned languages but also suggested ones based on geolocation or previous selection.
• Who would benefit: Readers
• More comments:
• Phabricator tickets: T188401 (partial)
• Proposer: Nardog (talk) 18:42, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Problem: It can be difficult to quickly find languages relevant to you from the list of language versions. The Compact Language Links feature is supposed to solve this, but ironically it makes it even more difficult so I've disabled it globally. Currently, there are three ways for a user to make specific languages appear in the abbreviated list. All have serious problems.

• One way is to configure your browser's language preferences. But more often than not, the reason you want to see a page in a certain language isn't necessarily that you comprehend that language; it just means you suspect that language version might have information you're seeking that can be extracted even if you're not fluent in it. Not only that, just because you want to visit certain language versions of WMF projects doesn't mean you want to read other sites in those languages, let alone tell every website you visit that you understand them, which has serious privacy concerns because it enables them to fingerprint you more easily.
• Another is to list languages in a Babel box on your user page. This has similar problems: The reason you want to read certain language versions isn't necessarily that you understand them, and you have to publicly state your language skills, which is a potential privacy issue.
• The other is to select a language from the list, which makes it appear in the compact list. But just because you wanted to read one article in a language doesn't mean you might want to read all other articles in that language. The inability to remove languages from the compact list renders it useless.

Proposed solution: A "Pin" or "Unpin" button next to each language on the language selection panel. "Unpin" should appear next to not only user-pinned languages but also suggested ones based on geolocation or previous selection.

Who would benefit: Readers

More comments:

Phabricator tickets: T188401 (partial)

Proposer: Nardog (talk) 18:42, 23 January 2023 (UTC)