[Feedback]Different languages under the same forum roof.

Pryotra·Feb 24, 2014·7 votes·655 views

With the indoctrination of EU servers, some may have noticed that there are other languages on the planet besides English. While some, like myself, might understand them, they simply won't get a fair shake when it comes to GD here. Rioters aren't going to really respond to possibly important issues if they don't understand, say, german, while English speakers that respond may not be understood by the poster of another language.

To help out our friends who only understand their native language, could you possibly use an auto translator like google translate for these posts? While I understand they are less than perfect, they are better than having them completely ignored. If you really fear misrepresentation, you could always have a footnote added saying "Translated to English from X. See original text?" with a link to the original post in its native language. This could go both ways as well, so that English posts could be translated over to whatever language a particular poster is familiar with.

Editing this in, to elaborate:

I agree that an auto translator is a poor choice, but like the poster before you, I don't want this to be an "English or GTFO" scenario. I would prefer that there was only 1 language on the planet so this wouldn't even be an issue, but of course we live in a world of plurals.

While I understand some other languages, not everyone else does. I don't want to exclude someone because they do not know a language. I figure that people can still have good ideas, even if they don't know my language.

If you have another solution, like Language mutations, I am more than willing to hear it. I did a quick google search, but didn't really come across anything. I should probably edit this into the OP...

###Proposed Solutions:

MXXIV proposed Language mutations:

Now with mutations, I meant "French board", "Spanish board", "Poland board" and so on. These languages are really common in the world of League of Legends. There might of course be boards for all languages - if the system is modular enough, it shoudn't matter. Just the general idea is splitting by language, not region. Just think about Switzerland - not a big country, yet there are 2 main languages slowly fading into each other. Or Canada: they speak French too! But they belong in North America, while France in Europe.

I can see this in many software help forums, where some non-english languages are present. A can imagine user being able to set languages he can understand and reply to. That would be really cool and advanced for people that speak 2 or more languages.

I personally think this would work well on sub communities like Help and Support, eSports, or other sub communities that might be better off being region specific. I would hesitate to do this to the whole forum, as now we are kinda defeating the purpose of the merge, and I don't want to exclude people based on whether or not they know English, which is the primary language for most Rioters.

18 Comments

Sneak DogFeb 24, 20143 votes

I don't think this is feasible. Have you tried translating things recently? Meanings often get bent entirely and as the post gets larger, it also gets more and more unreadible, not to mention spelling mistakes.

MackleDogeFeb 24, 20141 votes

That's why it is really only feasible as a small temporary solution (and one that if implemented should be optional) until Riot can find an effective way to handle the issue or declares an official stance on the matter as a company.

PryotraFeb 24, 20141 votes

While I get it isn't an ideal solution, as a temporary solution it goes miles. I fully am aware of how bad auto translation can be, but it is better than it was in past years, and is better than doing nothing and making people feel excluded simply because they don't understand other peoples post.

If you have a better suggestion, I'm all ears.

MackleDogeFeb 24, 20142 votes

I think this is a pretty important issue if Riot every wants to have a true "community" forum. Issues like this are always significant in high population and internationally popular games and I've yet to see a truly effective means of handling the situation. I think employing an on-site translator could at least assist in the matter, with the forum users having the ability to identify in their profile settings their original/preferred/native language. This would allow the forum system to automatically translate from a posted language that is not the language specified by that user's settings into the language that the user selects as their preference. Obviously just using an automatic translator isn't going to be perfect like you mentioned, but I think it might be a good temporary solution until Riot can come up with something more permanent or effective.

PryotraFeb 24, 20142 votes

Some good Ideas here. I like the idea of customization in user settings.

I personally feel that if Riot can come up with a better method to handle this, they should implement it. However, as you said, automatic translators are a good placeholder, till they implement something better.

MXXIVFeb 24, 20141 votes

Auto translate wouldn't help. However splitting the community in 3 or more separate board is just plain retarded. Myself, I come from the Czech Republic. But soon, I realised that most of the posting happens here, on the North America servers. So I use North America board.

Splitting the community means splitting the interaction potential. The fact that some don't speak English is honestly, in this modern age, a little bit their fault.
We computer gamers should learn English from games.

MackleDogeFeb 24, 20143 votes

I kind of see where you're coming from and I absolutely agree that splitting up the community isn't what we should want and it isn't an acceptable solution to language barrier issues. But as someone born and raised in America that can only speak English (though I recognize and know a bit of other languages) I can't help but feel that not knowing multiple languages like a lot of people from other regions due is part of the problem and so I want to find a way that is fair to everyone else as opposed to just shunting everything into a "English or GTFO" mentality.

MXXIVFeb 24, 20141 votes

You have a good attitude to this. It honors you even more as English speaking person (+1 for you, well deserved).
However here, language forum mutations might be a good idea. Especially while French and Spanish are also used in America (talking about whole continent). But putting Europe together makes no sense.
I don't want to be jerk here, but it almost seems that somebody in America wasn't so emphatic as you are, and simply assumed that if in America, you understand people from other states, why not in Europe. But most probably they just didn't think about it at all.

That said, translator is still a bad idea, but language mutations are not. Many boards implements these actually.

Bob LLamaFeb 24, 20142 votes

What do you mean by mutations?

Also, ahoj! I lived in Prague for a little while when I was in college. I loved everything about it. I miss veprove, knedliky a zeli so so much. I ate it every day for like 6 months. Are you in Prague by chance?

MXXIVFeb 24, 20143 votes

I live in Prague :)
I'm so proud to hear somebody speaking nice about my home city.

Now with mutations, I meant "French board", "Spanish board", "Poland board" and so on. These languages are really common in the world of League of Legends. There might of course be boards for all languages - if the system is modular enough, it shoudn't matter.
Just the general idea is splitting by language, not region. Just think about Switzerland - not a big country, yet there are 2 main languages slowly fading into each other. Or Canada: they speak French too! But they belong in North America, while France in Europe.

I can see this in many software help forums, where some non-english languages are present. A can imagine user being able to set languages he can understand and reply to. That would be really cool and advanced for people that speak 2 or more languages.

MXXIVFeb 24, 20141 votes

From @Pryotra's post I have deducted, that blue background means a moderator status. Maube you might want to make this more obvious (or I'm just retarded). ** Edit: **Ah, from reading source CSS selector I see that it actually means OP.

Edit2: Seems like you've already have some language settings here. And also seems that I was right about Poland's influence in LoL.

Only Play NidFeb 25, 20141 votes

This, now, please.

PryotraFeb 25, 20141 votes

Hmm...

Well, the problem I see with that is similar to the problem with the current split of boards. Rioters are Primarily English speakers, hence why you don't usually see Morello on the Korean boards.

As a result, these boards are underused compared the behemoth that is NA GD. NA has the opposite problem, as due to the fact that NA is home to RIOT, it has the majority of Redposts, and therefore the majority of action.

I don't want to exclude non-English speakers from the interaction, but I can see a fair trade here when it comes to announcements from Riot and maybe the Help and Support boards as I feel that might be better off staying Region specific. Maybe for things like the above we could use this, but elsewhere a different option could be found?

Do you mind if I quote you in the OP? I would like to start a list of proposed solutions, if you don't mind.

MXXIVFeb 25, 20143 votes

I think here we hit another problem - underrated community. Riot could easily pick moderators from the community users. I'm sure there are responsible and adult people here and there that would love to help others while taking care of the forums.

PryotraFeb 25, 20142 votes

I added your idea to the OP.

I really do agree with you, though this particular topic isn't about that. There is another topic here actually discussing this very thing, if you are interested.

This is an ongoing discussion that keeps cropping up. While Riot has stated they are currently working on moderator visibility, they seem open to the idea of community moderation. I like the idea of community mods with basic moderation powers, but I think that some official Rioter Mods should oversee them, and in general they need to have their actions visible.

MXXIVFeb 25, 20141 votes

Of course, making any order in this chaotic discussion would be really helpful!

MackleDogeFeb 24, 20142 votes

That's definitely a good point, and you're right in that some people really don't understand how different languages can vary in Europe and how it isn't just the languages themselves but specific dialects by regions and cultural groups as well. Situations like this can be pretty complex and hard to solve, but hopefully together with the community Riot can find a way to work this out so everyone in the community, regardless of region or language, can communicate and share ideas together.

PryotraFeb 24, 20142 votes

Not really sure what you mean by language mutations. If it is something that can be applied on the fly, that might be a really good solution. Please elaborate.

I agree that an auto translator is a poor choice, but like the poster before you, I don't want this to be an "English or GTFO" scenario. I would prefer that there was only 1 language on the planet so this wouldn't even be an issue, but of course we live in a world of plurals.

While I understand some other languages, not everyone else does. I don't want to exclude someone because they do not know a language. I figure that people can still have good ideas, even if they don't know my language.

If you have another solution, like Language mutations, I am more than willing to hear it. I did a quick google search, but didn't really come across anything. I should probably edit this into the OP...