7 ms·
Give us your service as-is
- gcp 9y agoMy personal frustration is that when things do get localized, the localization is sometimes outright wrong. Like, the person who's doing the localization didn't even do basic fact checking on what language a country speaks. I'd rather have access to the US English pages (which are useful) than a language I don't speak (which makes it clear your products are made by doofuses). Also why on earth does no-one respect Accept-Language and uses GeoIP instead? Do people in SV just never travel?
- Semaphor 9y agoYeah, I remember when EA's origin started. German IP? Well here is the website in German. The only way you can change it is using a VPN and connecting to a us or UK server. I think it took them a year to let you at least choose which language you want. At least if you wanted English, other languages still weren't available.
- bowlofpetunias 9y ago> what language a country speaks It starts with assuming country equals language. And even when they figure that out, they still use GeoIP. Try using various online services in the Brussels region for a laugh. It's ridiculous that internally operating corporations like Google or Facebook still haven't figured that shit out.
- gcp 9y agoYes, I should have written languages, my idea was that if they'd look it up they'd see it's plural for huge parts of the world, but nobody bothers. There's also the basic problem that just because people in country X speak Y and Z doesn't mean a user connecting with an IP that seems to originate from X necessarily speaks Y or Z.
- Eridrus 9y agoIs Accept-Language widely and correctly sent by browsers? I've seen some pretty weird Accept-Language strings getting sent by UAs, but I don't really know how accurate they are compared to GeoIP + Account Settings.
- onli 9y agoAll the big browsers do send a proper Accept-language string. It is configurable and uses OS settings as default. One can't really go wrong with that. Discovering Accept-Language was a small revelation. I had no idea on how to do the localization of a web project of mine, geo-ip sounded ridiculous to me (not configurable). And there it was, a sound solution already provided by the browser.
- phn 9y agoI don't know about accuracy, but please, put Accept-Language in front of location/GeoIP. It is frustrating when Google redirects to the country I'm in. I still speak the same languages even if I'm traveling!
- Eridrus 9y agoBut that's the thing, browsers regularly send Accept-Language, if it's overall less accurate than ip geolocation, then it's hard to prefer it.
- phn 9y agoWell, it generally mimics your OS settings, so why is it inaccurate? The worst case is pages displaying in the same language as the rest of my computer.
- Eridrus 9y agoThere's a long tail of mobile browsers out there. I also don't know how many people have OS settings that differ from their real language preference due to poor OS support for their language (e.g. what this article talks about - how many users run en-US to get features that Win10/Android/etc doesn't do well in their language) I mean, there are reasonable arguments either way here IMO and without actual data, e.g. how often users change their language from one or the other, it's hard to know what is better in the long tail. And obviously users should be able to change their preference if we get it wrong.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gambiting 9y agoYep, it's incredibly frustrating that even though I speak fluent English, and a product is available in English, I can't purchase/use the product, because I'm in the wrong region.
- gcp 9y agoPurchasing can be understandable. The laws for that do vary from country to country, and evolve over time (see VAT regulations in Europe). This will be tricky for smaller operators. But free services? Not so much. Yet, you'd think that companies like Microsoft and Google can deal with the sales as well, but they don't, at least not universally. Either through organizational incompetence or just plain indifference. Google will literally SPAM you with services they REFUSE to sell to you.
- bowlofpetunias 9y agoThe primary reason for not providing services in "rest of the world" is apparently "fuck you". The same applies to not respecting your language of choice. But the absolute worst is American companies (it's always American services, and not just because of US dominance) manipulating content based on GeoIP and giving me a shitty localized version of their service for no legal or commercial reason. It's infuriatingly patronizing.
- mcculley 9y agoDoes anyone have great examples of localization done right? I'm trying to build an internationalized web application right now and I am interested in best practices. Edited: I mean web applications that work well for international users (e.g., ltr and rtl direction, taking countries and languages into account, etc.).
- atomlib 9y agoPersonal names around the world https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names
- teddyh 9y agoOr the classic Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b...
- mamcx 9y agoProbably the biggest (+900 languages) is http://jw.org http://jw.org
- mcculley 9y agoWow. Thank you.
- fennomannic 9y agoSeparate issue, but I'm quite frustrated with countries being lumped together by geographic proximity regardless of culture and language. It's possible to drive from Helsinki to Saint Petersburg or Riga on a single tank, but as Dota matchmaking will thoroughly demonstrate, it might as well be a different planet.
- konschubert 9y agoI don't think the Russians will let you cross the border on a tank
- smacktoward 9y agoIt's true. Driving tanks across borders is their job!
- zeveb 9y agoThe page doesn't display without JavaScript, and it even breaks Firefox's Reader mode. Anyone have a link to the plain text? I'd kinda like to read the article as-is.
- cocktailpeanuts 9y agoThe reason it's not supported is not because "Fuck you", but because supporting a feature is not as easy as just rolling it out. What's important is what happens AFTER the rollout. Most people (like the author) have no idea what's going on behind the scenes and just think it would be a simple thing, and criticize the company based on this assumption. But I am sure these same people will be the ones who complain the most when the company does end up rolling out the half-baked features.
- mcguire 9y agoWell, yeah, on one hand, getting criticized for not serving some group of consumers is much easier to handle than off-the-wall support requests and complaints about poor support. But on the other hand, this is how most of the internet works, after all. No one is translating HN comments to Finnish real-time, right?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- netman21 9y agoWait until GDPR kicks in on May 25, 2018. ANY company that collects data on EU citizens (Name, phone number, email adress, geo location) will be required to comply or be subject to 20 million euro fines. So your Apple Store app that you offer for free because you use it to collect data? You must hire a Data Protection Officer (DPO)and be able to erase a user's data on request. I predict that will lead to blocking EU citizens from many services outright to avoid having to comply with an onerous regulation.
- tendersej 9y agoYeah, and giving up on the biggest and richest market in the world ? The companies that do will soon see competitors grab for the cake, while the others will clean up their act and maybe even improve how they treat their customers in the US and rest of the world (though I am not holding my breath for that one)