Steps to replicate the issue:
- Log in to Russian Wikipedia.
- Open an article on Russian Wikipedia that has more than 10 interwikis in Vector 2022.
- Scroll down to reach the table of contents (TOC) on the left.
- Notice that the TOC is difficult to reach because of the sidebar's length.
What happens?
Vector 2022, the newest skin, has been default on a lot of Wikis, but not yet on Russian Wikipedia. Some users previously complained that interwiki links were not visible on the left (which is intended behaviour, as they are moved to a collapsed menu at the top). That was a primary reason why Vector 2022 was not adopted as the default.
As a compromise to facilitate the deployment of Vector 2022 on Russian Wikipedia, the interwiki links were duplicated on the left sidebar two weeks ago by OVasileva (WMF) and SGrabarczuk (WMF). You can see an example here:
The problem is that these duplicated interwiki links do not collapse, and there is no option to disable them. Consequently, the TOC becomes nearly unreachable. On long articles, a user may have to scroll halfway down the page just to see the TOC:
What should have happened instead?
The duplicated interwiki links in the sidebar should not obstruct access to the TOC.
Suggested solutions:
A) Preferable: implement a limit where only a few languages are shown by default, with the rest collapsed under a "more" link. For example, on MediaWiki, the sidebar only displays 9 languages by default, with the rest collapsed:
B) Or add a toggle button to collapse/expand the interwiki section in the sidebar.
C) Or make the interwiki portlet scrollable independently of the article content (e.g., a fixed-height container with an internal scrollbar).
