Feddit UK @feddit.uk juniper @feddit.uk 1y ago

[IMPORTANT] We need to apply the 'Undetermined' language option

UPDATE: Tom has now added the Undetermined language option to our instance. To make sure you can see the majority of Lemmy content from within your feddit.uk account, do the following:

Click your profile name - click settings - scroll down to the Languages box (not interface language) - hold down Ctrl (cmd on Mac) and select both English and Undetermined. On mobile browser: Tap the Languages box and make sure both are selected - scroll down and click save

You can also select any other languages which are beneficial to you.

If you don't see everything listed in the box, try refreshing the page.

Original Post

When viewing profile settings, you will see a box which says:

Warning: If you deselect Undetermined, you will not see most content.

On feddit.uk we currently have no selectable language option other than English. This means that (sometimes?) we will not see a lot of posts / comments on other instances / communities where the OP did not specifically select English before posting

See also: This Lemmy documentation under 'Setting up your profile'

• Languages: Select the languages that you speak to see only content in these languages. This is a new feature and many posts don't specify a language yet, so be sure to select "Undetermined" to see them.

Ideally, we need the ability to select English (or whatever language) AND undetermined - you can select multiple, as long as they are available.

When I view X community@instance from my lemmy.world account (with Undetermined language selected in profile settings), I can see all posts and comments. When I view the same community@instance from my feddit.uk account, there are missing posts and often 0 comments on everything. This needs addressing if possible!

64 comments

Other language options may be important in the future anyway. Say for example you are researching a trip to Madrid. You find some communities for Madrid but don’t see any posts because they are all in Spanish. If you could see them then you can always use a translation tool.

Granted for general browsing outside of that use case, I only want to see English.
- Yeh I've just enabled them all sorry about the confusion, didn't think selecting a language for the instance would be so restrictive.
  
  Thank you!
- This is a very good point. @[email protected] Is it possible for you to enable other languages for our users who are not natively English (someone below mentions being from Denmark) or who are multilingual / want to see posts in other languages? Each user individually can select whatever languages they want from the list, and will then be able to see posts across Lemmy in those languages.
  
  Also actually for non-English members of British Society who want to view content from their home country
Test.
Can probably unpin this now eh
- I would if I could. I cringe every time I see my handle at the top of the homepage.
  
  @[email protected] Could you un-feature my post now please? :)
  
  Haha yeh done!
Something I've just noticed, is that my posts show "English" against them. Does this mean anyone who has their language set to "undetermined" won't be able to see them? Will this affect community growth?
- I'm not sure. Sometimes, even if you post a comment without specifically selecting English beforehand, Lemmy autodetects it and puts English. To be honest with you I haven't managed to get my head around it. The language settings all seem very convoluted to me.
- If they only have it set to "Undetermined", then they probably won't see it. However you can select multiple languages. So if they have both "English" and "Undetermined" then they will see posts with either of those.
  
  In Jerboa I sometimes have issues where it won't let me comment and gives an error about language, but Jerboa doesn't let you select the language of your reply. On the website you can set the language and get around this error.
I went to my profile there and it didn't appear in the list or the select box, but refreshing the profile page populated the select box.
- I've added a tip to the post, cheers. The same thing happened to me on mobile browser.
It’s just not cached yet, if you give it time it should work. I experienced the same with ChatGPT sublemmy on another instance but now it works just fine.

Iv set my profile settings to English as I only want to see English content anyway and my issues with commenting and posting on other instances seems to have been fixed.
- I don't think it's anything to do with caching. It specifically says in settings and in the Lemmy documentation that if you don't select Undetermined, you won't see a lot of content. This isn't about posting or commenting it's about being able to see content. To be honest I am clueless about it all but it's not ideal if we can't see content on other instances / communities. I just felt it was worth bringing attention to in case it is an issue.
  
  Ah ffs I completely misread that box
  
  I read it as, if you select Undetermined you will not see most content, the double negative really threw me. So on the instance admin I selected our language as English which I'll change to undetermined now as it might explain a lot of the federation issue we've been having.
  
  Like I say, I had the same issue and it’s resolved itself without any changes on my part. I did have to wait a while but it did work.
  
  To add, this was prior to my issue posting on other instances which I have now also fixed by making my default language English globally.
- I'd love to be able to add more languages nonetheless. I'm from Denmark, but I can't really see much in the feddit.dk instance because I can't see things in Danish.
  
  Yeh sorry about that, have enabled all languages
  
  I've asked Tom if he can look to add more languages. :)
Wait, so instance admins can limit the languages? So someone from another country, on feddit.uk instance, can't select their native language and see the comments?
- Yep. This is essentially where I'm at. Can't see content on the feddit.dk instance because I can't select Danish. Everything has zero comments.
  
  For now, the solution might be to make a user on feddit.dk as more users in there probably want content in English than the other way around, but it's still iffy.
  
  @[email protected] I think that you might want to consider just enabling all the languages on the instance and then lemmings will have to set up for themselves which languages do they want to see
- I don't know how it works, honestly. I just noticed that a lot of the time I can't see posts / comments on external instances because of this Undetermined language issue and I think it needs figuring out by Tom so I made the post. I realise that this instance is only a few days old so it takes time to set up!
  
  Just to make sure: this is not because of your settings in your profile? You can't select "undetermined" there?
I'm not sure I follow. I see a list of numerous languages, and if I select them they don't stay selected. I tried to remove one language that uses an unfamiliar writing system but that didn't work either.

Also, I'm seeing all this interface in French, despite having set Opera to English as default, with French a third choice after German.

I'm a bit confused!
- There's two settings, one for 'Interface Language' and one for 'Languages' underneath. I think Interface Language needs setting to 'Browser Default'. Underneath is the Languages list. You should be able to click on Undetermined, then scroll down to English, hold down Ctrl and click that too. If there are any other languages that you want to see, hold down Ctrl and click those as well - for example selecting German should allow you to see posts/comments which have been written in German. Each time you select one, it should turn blue. Then scroll down and click Save - above the Delete Account button
  
  Thank you! I didn't spot the interface language, and I've set it to English, so now it's all a lot easier.
thank you for the heads up!
- You managed to comment! Any idea what the issue was?
  
  i spoke with tom, it was some other language setting, i have no idea lol
  
  but once he fixed the issue, i then went back to test if it was fixed on your post too
Is this something that mods also need to do for the communities?
- I'm afraid I have no idea, sorry! Hopefully someone else will know or you can find info online. I don't have a community of my own to check.

64 comments