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Don't guess my language

vitonsky.net

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Re: Don't guess my language

#101

Post by numpad0 »

avhception wrote: post #34
tapia wrote: post #23

I also hate the youtube "feature" that translates the titles of videos to your setting's language. This is so annoying. I can understand English and don't need these automatic translations.

My computer is set to English even though I'm German, and sometimes Youtube will treat me to this really uncanny machine voice with really weird phrases because it auto-translated some German video or advert. Lidl is worth it, ja!

idoundernotstandwhothisfeatureisdivisiblebytwoinproductionandi

just dislike video and move on. I'm guessing Google wants uploader penalized, and I do feel sorry but it's not my problem.

Re: Don't guess my language

#102

Post by knorker »

Also: Don't guess my units.

Why oh why does Google Maps think that "miles", "feet", and "yards" are words that have any meaning at all?

Only like a 20th of the world even knows what these obscure things are. Just because I'm currently located in a country that nominally uses these arcane units doesn't mean that I know what they are.

Oh you can change it to real units temporarily. But if you look away for a split second it changes it right back.

I'm LOGGED IN. How could you not remember?!

Re: Don't guess my language

#103

Post by pif »

mynegation wrote: post #98

Here is one big reason some sites do geolocation nevertheless: pricing and legal. Does not matter what language you speak - they still have to look up proper prices in your local currency and offer you country or region-specific deals and legal language. E.g. in Canada Quebec limits what kind of sales or raffles you can offer so websites prepare different site copy. Yes, there are French speaking people outside Quebe…

The article is not against geolocation: it is about guessing the language!

In your example, there's only one language available, and it depends on your location, and that is fine.

What is NOT fine is the general case, where several languages are available, and you have already chosen the one(s) you prefer, but the site decides to ignore your choice because reasons.

Re: Don't guess my language

#104

Post by j16sdiz »

sneak wrote: post #90
doix wrote: post #9

My biggest annoyance is with Google. They know who I am, they know I am traveling, they know my language preferences (English) and yet I still get language based on my location on certain pages. I let you track me Google, please use it for some good UX and not just advertising.

Sad fact: most people don’t go anywhere. People like us are an edge case.

One don't need to travel to be multilingual.

Many EU country have more than one official languages.

Most previous colony is bilingual.

Re: Don't guess my language

#105

Post by notepad0x90 »

Google is the biggest offender. If you have had legitimate use cases where you browsed sites or routed your traffic via a Cloud VM at different locations (or if you're one of those rare people like me that use a damn VPN!) you probably already know this. I have to memorize 'accept' (to accept their ToS prompt each time) and figure out how to change the language.

Re: Don't guess my language

#106

Post by j16sdiz »

mynegation wrote: post #98

Here is one big reason some sites do geolocation nevertheless: pricing and legal. Does not matter what language you speak - they still have to look up proper prices in your local currency and offer you country or region-specific deals and legal language. E.g. in Canada Quebec limits what kind of sales or raffles you can offer so websites prepare different site copy. Yes, there are French speaking people outside Quebe…

Quoted from TFA

> If you want to use GeoIP, fine — but only for currency, shipping, legal stuff, never for language

Re: Don't guess my language

#107

Post by diggan »

As someone who lives in Spain, but prefers to browse the web in English and has all my computing stuff setup in English, good look convincing the world to change this :) It's been utterly broken for as long as I can remember (back when I had a 56k modem) and it'll probably remain so.

It's a uphill battle where you cannot convince others, so the best thing you can do is figure out how to adjust your own setup to make it less of a hassle.

> Do it right or don’t do it at all.

I'm fairly sure we wouldn't have the internet nor the web if everyone thought like this. I personally also strive for making things as good, right and correct as possible, but obviously I cannot force others to think alike, especially for-profit businesses that don't really care about "correct", only about "good enough".

Re: Don't guess my language

#108

Post by FinnLobsien »

avhception wrote: post #100
FinnLobsien wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely hate this. I have the exact same thing. Even if the technology was good, I speak both languages and want to see the original. Why is it so hard to just add something as a setting/feature and offer it to people without forcing it on the user?

I wonder if Lidl or the other advertisers know and approve of this.

I mean it's probably somewhere, deep in the ToS but pretty sure if you showed that machine voice to the advertisers they wouldn't approve.

Re: Don't guess my language

#109

Post by benterix »

> No, “but the big websites do it” doesn’t make it right.

Also, it's only partially true, e.g. Amazon doesn't force the language at all, and while it presumes the country of delivery (which makes perfect sense as not all products are available everywhere), it explicitly nags me about it so I can change it with one click.

Re: Don't guess my language

#110

Post by diggan »

tough wrote: post #6
swiftcoder wrote: post #3

Yeah, this is has become of pet peeve of mine since moving to Spain. US sites that automatically redirect me to their Spanish site (which often doesn't have the actual article the original link pointed to!)

yeah tailscale/wireguard/vpn usually fixes this but then you have to -know- at which geo you want to operate. The internet has long been broken as a global field imho

> yeah tailscale/wireguard/vpn usually fixes this

It does not "fix" that at all, and breaks so many other things. I don't wanna see US/UK/Australian prices just because I happen to live in Spain but prefer English when browsing the web (literally same boat as parent).

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