Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2020 left sidebar update/Comparison

As you'd expect, non-encyclopaedia wikis have a wide variation.

Pelagic (talk) 00:11, 25 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We have 15 wikis with over a million articles, so I'm not about to summarise all of them, but here's a couple to start. Feel free to add to this table if you know of a major language that has a notable layout.

English terms in (brackets) – round brackets or parentheses if you prefer – are what I get if I set my interface language to en, they're not necessarily exact translations. For example, I read some of the French terms as "starting on Wikipedia" and "hazardous article" (just kidding about the second one!).

Search is suppressed in Vector and Timeless, but I've listed it here for completeness, since any changes to MediaWiki:Sidebar will affect the other skins.

Pelagic (talk) 00:11, 25 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese and Japanese wikipedias have Help as the second sidebar section, rather than contribute/participate. I've added zh to the table as an example. I'm no good with non-Latin scripts, so have only presented the en strings. Pelagic (talk) 01:34, 25 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish has one sidebar section (apart from the standard tools); interestingly one of their items is Páginas nuevas 'New pages' in addition to Cambios recientes 'Recent changes'. Pelagic (talk) 01:34, 25 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Polish has a separate section for About, Contact, Donate. They link to Main Categories rather than portals.
Nederlandish^{[just kidding]} has "Find a page" which links to a navigation portal that puts entry points to search, categories, portals, and lists all in the one place. Pelagic (talk) 02:38, 25 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sidebar items for the 15 wikis having over a million articles (according to the list at the foot of en-wp Main Page). The focus here is what's included, not the order, grouping, or exact name.

(1) "Bar"

(2) Italian sportello informazione looks more like our helpdesk rather than reference desk. Not sure about the Chinese one. I grouped Vietnamese "Help desk" here also.

(3) "Forum"

(4) "Tavern"

(5) "Introduction", not sure how similar this is to "first steps" on other wikis. It's also called "introductory course" on-page, looks a little like en-wp's "Wikipedia adventure"?

(6) "Announcements"

(7) "General discussion"