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Slightly off topic, but does anyone else feel like the article title used here ("Paypal apologizes to Dropbox Alternative seafile") is a pretty big slap in the

Slightly off topic, but does anyone else feel like the article title used here ("Paypal apologizes to Dropbox Alternative seafile") is a pretty big slap in the face to Seafile? First off, why include "Dropbox Alternative"? Putting the competitor's name in an article title about the other company? Seems a bit odd/kind of putting down Seafile. That'd be like seeing "XYZ happens to Twitter alternative Facebook." Secondly, they didn't even capitalize Seafile's company name, but they did capitalize the competition's name (Dropbox). May not seem like much but it's pretty shitty, if you ask me. EDIT: I guess the 2nd point is more the fault of Google Translate. I still think the first point sticks. It's odd to have that in the title, it wouldn't be as weird if that was in the body of the article, though.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
I think this is standard journalism. I had no idea what Seafile is. Know I know. Lesser known companies get this treatment. "Intel in talks to buy mobile chip maker $unknown_company," for example. Its completely non-biased and a part of journalism. I don't see the controversy here.
- bluetidepro 10y ago
  It may be standard to include it in the actual article, but it's not standard to have that in the title. Totally degrades the company the article is about by listing their competitor first (capitalized, when they aren't even capitalized) in the title.
- arm 10y ago
  There was a previous article about them here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11944011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11944011
lucaspiller 10y ago
That's Google Translate, original article says Seafile with a captial-S.
TimWolla 10y ago
> Secondly, they didn't even capitalize Seafile's company name, but they did capitalize the competition's name (Dropbox). That was the fault of Google Translate, see the original: http://www.golem.de/news/sperrung-paypal-entschuldigt-sich-bei-dropbox-alternative-seafile-1606-121694.html http://www.golem.de/news/sperrung-paypal-entschuldigt-sich-b...
- mtgx 10y ago
  Well, that's weird. Why would Google Translate make it a non-capital letter in the translation when it used a capital one in the original document? I don't think that should be happening in any scenario? Is this Google's "unsupervised" AI running amok?
  - creshal 10y ago
    > Well, that's weird. Why would Google Translate make it a non-capital letter in the translation when it used a capital one in the original document? Because the German Language loves to put Capital Letters anywhere it feels like, which does not translate 1:1 to what would be appropriate in English Use. Google Translate seems to have a poor heuristic to detect names as such.
    - kybernetyk 10y ago
      >anywhere it feels like It's not as arbitrary as you make it out to be: Names, nouns and the beginnings of sentences are capitalised.
  - bagacrap 10y ago
    German capitalizes a lot of words that aren't capitalized in English. English capitalizes "American" but in Spanish it's americano. So no, you can't always preserve that aspect of translated text.
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    "All nouns are capitalized in German". So it probably needs to do this somehow to get decent translations. German also throws together multiple words, right? So maybe it detected "seafile" as a compound noun of "sea file".
Razengan 10y ago
Could be something to do with German and auto translate.
zhoutong 10y ago
The capitalization was lost in translation because in German all nouns are capitalized, whereas in English only proper nouns are capitalized. Perhaps Google Translate assumes "Seafile" to not be a proper noun, so it was downcased in English.
nopzor 10y ago
I don't think it's shitty. Firstly nobody knows who seafile is, so it's just clearer. Secondly, by comparing them to Dropbox they are also acknowledging that seafile is a "legit" file sharing company.
- markokrajnc 10y ago
  I agree. By adding "Dropbox alternative" everybody immediately knows what the company Seafile is doing...
  - dublinben 10y ago
    Like snooping on their users' files, and reporting them to the police? Because that's what Dropbox is doing, and is exactly the opposite of what Seafile is doing.
- nailer 10y ago
  'Cloud backup' or 'cloud file storage' (whichever is appropriate) would work without namedropping a competitor.
Disruptive_Dave 10y ago
I don't know anything about Seafile, but my little music startup was written up in Forbes once with "Spotify" in the title and we were quite pleased with that. Good SEO, great brand association. There are benefits to this situation.
dec0dedab0de 10y ago
No. I had never heard about seafile before the last article, and then i had assumed they were another megaupload style site pretending to be legit. Adding Dropbox alternative to the title framed them differently in my mind.
protomyth 10y ago
Can we ask the moderators to capitalize Seafile and drop the "Dropbox Alternative" at least from the HN headline?

drzaiusapelord 10y ago

I think this is standard journalism. I had no idea what Seafile is. Know I know. Lesser known companies get this treatment. "Intel in talks to buy mobile chip maker $unknown_company," for example. Its completely non-biased and a part of journalism. I don't see the controversy here.

bluetidepro 10y ago
It may be standard to include it in the actual article, but it's not standard to have that in the title. Totally degrades the company the article is about by listing their competitor first (capitalized, when they aren't even capitalized) in the title.
arm 10y ago
There was a previous article about them here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11944011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11944011

lucaspiller 10y ago

That's Google Translate, original article says Seafile with a captial-S.

TimWolla 10y ago

> Secondly, they didn't even capitalize Seafile's company name, but they did capitalize the competition's name (Dropbox). That was the fault of Google Translate, see the original: http://www.golem.de/news/sperrung-paypal-entschuldigt-sich-bei-dropbox-alternative-seafile-1606-121694.html http://www.golem.de/news/sperrung-paypal-entschuldigt-sich-b...

mtgx 10y ago
Well, that's weird. Why would Google Translate make it a non-capital letter in the translation when it used a capital one in the original document? I don't think that should be happening in any scenario? Is this Google's "unsupervised" AI running amok?
- creshal 10y ago
  > Well, that's weird. Why would Google Translate make it a non-capital letter in the translation when it used a capital one in the original document? Because the German Language loves to put Capital Letters anywhere it feels like, which does not translate 1:1 to what would be appropriate in English Use. Google Translate seems to have a poor heuristic to detect names as such.
  - kybernetyk 10y ago
    >anywhere it feels like It's not as arbitrary as you make it out to be: Names, nouns and the beginnings of sentences are capitalised.
- bagacrap 10y ago
  German capitalizes a lot of words that aren't capitalized in English. English capitalizes "American" but in Spanish it's americano. So no, you can't always preserve that aspect of translated text.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  "All nouns are capitalized in German". So it probably needs to do this somehow to get decent translations. German also throws together multiple words, right? So maybe it detected "seafile" as a compound noun of "sea file".

Razengan 10y ago

Could be something to do with German and auto translate.

zhoutong 10y ago

The capitalization was lost in translation because in German all nouns are capitalized, whereas in English only proper nouns are capitalized. Perhaps Google Translate assumes "Seafile" to not be a proper noun, so it was downcased in English.

nopzor 10y ago

I don't think it's shitty. Firstly nobody knows who seafile is, so it's just clearer. Secondly, by comparing them to Dropbox they are also acknowledging that seafile is a "legit" file sharing company.

markokrajnc 10y ago
I agree. By adding "Dropbox alternative" everybody immediately knows what the company Seafile is doing...
- dublinben 10y ago
  Like snooping on their users' files, and reporting them to the police? Because that's what Dropbox is doing, and is exactly the opposite of what Seafile is doing.
nailer 10y ago
'Cloud backup' or 'cloud file storage' (whichever is appropriate) would work without namedropping a competitor.

Disruptive_Dave 10y ago

I don't know anything about Seafile, but my little music startup was written up in Forbes once with "Spotify" in the title and we were quite pleased with that. Good SEO, great brand association. There are benefits to this situation.

dec0dedab0de 10y ago

No. I had never heard about seafile before the last article, and then i had assumed they were another megaupload style site pretending to be legit. Adding Dropbox alternative to the title framed them differently in my mind.

protomyth 10y ago

Can we ask the moderators to capitalize Seafile and drop the "Dropbox Alternative" at least from the HN headline?