Translate option in Forum?

[pruus]

Is it an idea for the Forum to add a translation knob, button, when adding an issue, to translate it directly to English? Or a button on items in a different language to translate it to your own language. This will make the forum more useful. Also to reply to an issue. Just an Idea. Amazon does doe this to reviews. Very useful!

[GarryP]

Most modern web browsers have language translation functionalities, either built-in or available via a plug-in, so I don’t think adding translation functionality to the forums – if that is possible, it might not be an option – would be necessary for a lot of people.

Translating the text to English may obscure/remove some important details in the original text so I think it’s best that people post in the language which they are most comfortable with so their message comes over as it was originally intended.

(I know you haven’t suggested it but, I would especially not want automatic translation by default.)

[Gripsholm Lion]

Among the suite of browsers and versions which I have to maintain, I daily drive a "modern" browser which does not have any translation function and, for privacy reasons, may never do. Another has page-level local translation ("page-level" beause it relies on the lang attribute) and therefore that will not identify isolated text which doesn't align with the page's lang value. Again, privacy preservation is the reason given. None of the others has any translation.

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, Gripsholm Lion said:

I daily drive a "modern" browser which does not have any translation function and, for privacy reasons, may never do.

Firefox has a function which translates locally, which might avoid any privacy concern. Though, of course, there should be no privacy concerns when working in these public forums as anyone can see the information.

And you could, of course, use a different browser from your normal one just for the forums.

@pruus: Serif does not control the functions provided by the forums, which are developed and maintained by Invision, a separate and unrelated company. If you need translation, I would suggest looking at functions your browser might provide, either directly (Firefox, Chrome) or via an extension (Firefox, Chrome, others?).

 

[Gripsholm Lion]

Firefox's translation reads the lang value to bypass the need for preprocessing. And which browser I choose is entirely down to my particular needs and I'm not going to use another for just this website. Patronising suggestion, frankly.

On an English-language website, if people want the widest possible readership, the onus is on them to do the translation.

[pruus]

@walt.farrell thanks, I thought a function like on Amazon is fine for this forum, the user can translate it easy when adding a topic.

[walt.farrell]

48 minutes ago, Gripsholm Lion said:

And which browser I choose is entirely down to my particular needs

Of course that is true. My main thrust was that it is possible to use multiple browsers, and that using translation for these forums should not have privacy implications as everything posted here is available to the entire world, anyway.

Quote

On an English-language website, if people want the widest possible readership, the onus is on them to do the translation.

Serif encourages users to post in the language they are most comfortable using. And we are all also able to post our replies in the language we want to use, so sometimes a user posting in French will get an answer in Polish or German.

Or sometimes a user who doesn't read the posted language simply won't bother to respond at all if they don't feel like translating it.

I'm not sure that the forum software will ever provide a translation function. If it's needed, I would expect the browser to provide it, and the user to use a browser that does if they need it.

[walt.farrell]

21 minutes ago, pruus said:

I thought a function like on Amazon is fine for this forum

For me, Amazon gives English and Spanish. DeepL, Google Translate, and translation tools in the browsers are much more comprehensive.

[Gripsholm Lion]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Of course that is true. My main thrust was that it is possible to use multiple browsers, and that using translation for these forums should not have privacy implications as everything posted here is available to the entire world, anyway.

That's funny, telling a web dev of all people that it's possible to use multiple browsers. Again, patronising.

I have to spend some of my working time using many browsers, most of which I dislike intensely and would never use by choice. But I'm not one of those devs who develops only for Chrome [worst of the lot] and expects the world to lump it.

I never claimed that there is any privacy implication in this forum; and to imply that I was is unfair. I was just explaining one of the key rationales behind certain browser developers' decisions in this area, which means that translation in those browsers does not work as some people may expect.

[walt.farrell]

16 hours ago, Gripsholm Lion said:

That's funny, telling a web dev of all people that it's possible to use multiple browsers

And how am I to know what your profession is?

16 hours ago, Gripsholm Lion said:

I never claimed that there is any privacy implication in this forum; and to imply that I was is unfair

That was not completely clear, and my statements in that regard were to clarify why it might be reasonable to choose a different browser if you need the translation.  If it felt unfair, you have my apologies.