In my profile settings, I can choose my languages. A couple gripes with the web interface of this setting:

  • I have to hold down the Ctrl key to select multiple languages. While this was clear to me since I use this keyboard shortcut a lot in other contexts, this would definitely be confusing or unclear for most users.
  • This setting should be split into two. As of now, it determines what content you see, with all other content completely hidden…AND it determines what languages will appear in the language selector when making a post or comment. There should be separate settings for which languages are displayed and which appear in the language selector for a new post (because I don’t want any content to be hidden, but I want to be able to easily select English for any new comment). Or at least a setting for a default language for new comments.
  • imaqtpieAEnglish
    30·
    11 months ago

    Agreed, this is definitely an area that can be significantly improved. I like your suggestions

  • Mr.Mofu@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    18·
    11 months ago

    Honestly the language selection in general is just a bad idea/baddly executed. Until people told me that those where the reason 4/5s of posts and comments never showed up, I didnt know that these settings existed

    I then just marked all of them which took ages and ever since my experience has been so much better. If they really wanna have this feature, then all languages should be selected from the getgo. If someone wants a language gone they should opt out istead of opting into everything else first.

    If lemmy hides most of its content for someone new who doesn’t know about those settings, then people are less incline to stay on lemmy. So overall it seems badly executed. I hope its something they improve especially for new users going forward

    • Blaze@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      10·
      11 months ago

      Honestly the language selection in general is just a bad idea/baddly executed. Until people told me that those where the reason 4/5s of posts and comments never showed up, I didnt know that these settings existed

      That was a bug, nowadays the default behaviour is to have all languages displayed at account setup, the user can then change it afterwards it they want.

    • sugar_in_your_teaEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      You can just set “unspecified” instead. That’s equivalent to marking every one, and you won’t need to worry about languages added later.

        • sugar_in_your_teaEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          Really? Because I see foreign language posts with only that setting, and I miss posts without it. Maybe you accidentally set one other option as well?

  • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.mlEnglish
    17·
    11 months ago

    I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the devs acknowledge that it needs to be cleaned up.

    If you’re up for it, they’d probably appreciate helpful suggestions in the relevant issue or ticket on GitHub.

  • 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒆𝒍@lemmy.mlEnglish
    8·
    11 months ago

    also it would be nice if people would respect those settings while commenting and posting, not once I’ve seen English comment without language set and non English comments tagged as English

    • dingus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      11 months ago

      If I have to choose which language I am speaking for every single post, it becomes a bit ridiculous. It makes more sense to just have users set a language once and only change it when they wish to post in a different language than they normally do.

    • Blaze@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      3·
      11 months ago

      The easiest way I’ve seen it is to enforce it at the community level.

      Actually that makes me think I should probably do that in the communities I mod ha ha

    • Moonrise2473@lemmy.mlEnglish
      3·
      11 months ago

      From mobile it’s an incredible hassle to choose “English” hidden in a list with 5000 obscure languages. There should be an option to reduce the list to the 2-3 languages I can speak

      • vengefulgrapes@lemmy.todayOPEnglish
        3·
        11 months ago

        That’s what the language selector in Setting does. The problem is that it also limits the content you can view to only posts set as being in those languages.

        • Jomn@jlai.luEnglish
          3·
          11 months ago

          Honest question but do you really want to see content that is in languages that you don’t understand ?

          I still agree that the UI needs to be clearer though.

          • vengefulgrapes@lemmy.todayOPEnglish
            3·
            11 months ago

            I would like to at least be able to. I could always translate it if I wanted to know what it said. And if I saw that there were comments I couldn’t see, I know the curiosity would kill me. I just don’t like blocking myself off from seeing content that I know is there.

      • CallumWells@lemmy.mlEnglish
        21·
        11 months ago

        You can. I’ve reduced my language list down from the default of “every single one”. You should probably still keep “undetermined” selected as a “language”, otherwise a lot of stuff people haven’t actually tagged with a language won’t show up.

    • vengefulgrapes@lemmy.todayOPEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      I’m a computer science student, and I guess I forgot that I can just kinda…fix the problem, when it comes to open source software.

  • Feathercrown@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    11 months ago

    Lack of a default comment language is a big miss imo. I don’t want to have to select the same language I use for every comment every time I post one. Even if you did use multiple languages it would still be useful.