Just joined Lemmy...not a fan of the language settings. - lemm.ee
lemm.ee
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.

Content is hidden due to not choosing the languages in the settings.

Making the language settings opted in by default should solve this initial struggle, opting out should be done manually. Putting check boxes next to the languages on there for selection should make things easier too.

This has been an issue long before the guy in the linked post reported it. I’ve had to face this same issue on other instances as well so it’s obviously a Lemmy issue and not instance specific.

Please understand that these sorts of small but very visible troubles are what keep people away from this platform. You sign up and go to any community only to see no posts or only those not tagged with a language (You could even miss those if you don’t choose “Undetermined”). Any new user would be confused “Are there no user at all?” “Is this community banned?” “Is this instance defederated?” Each of these doubts would just push any new users out.

Edit: This PSA was over 9 months ago now.

Edit 2: It seems to be instance specific, lemmy.world and lemm.ee both have this issue as far as I’ve seen.

Edit 3: Thank you everyone for your help.

  • Blaze@dormi.zoneEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    Hello,

    What is the current experience for a new account? I throught all languages were visible by default, and that users could opt out if they wanted?

    • nutomic@lemmy.mlMEnglish
      5·
      9 months ago

      When you signup, all languages are enabled by default. I believe it was like this since the feature was first implemented. I recently made a pull request so that languages are automatically configured from accept-language header.

    • Nom Nom@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      Just signed up to this instance and it was the same issue at lemmy.world too which was probably 1/2 a year ago or more. After signing up you have to go to your settings and choose in the Languages section all the languages you wish to see or else they won’t show up (like any posts & comments in english would be invisible to me as a new user if not selected in the settings)

      What is the current experience for a new account?

      If the language issue wasn’t there it wouldn’t honestly be much different from reddit. Even better in some cases, no ads and power harassment. The only thing missing is a dedicated wiki section.

      • nutomic@lemmy.mlMEnglish
        3·
        9 months ago

        I confirmed this just now, when registering a new account all discussion languages are enabled. However this isnt properly indicated in the lemmy-ui user settings.

        • Nom Nom@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          0·
          9 months ago

          Should I this move this thread to support? I thought since lemmy.world and lemm.ee both have this issue it would be better to post it on the lemmy development community.

          • nutomic@lemmy.mlMEnglish
            1·
            9 months ago

            I cant really how such a problem could happen and only affect those specific instances. Can you check through the api which languages are enabled on a new account? The info is under /api/v3/site in the field discussion_languages, it should contain numbers from 0-183 which are all the language ids.

            • Nom Nom@lemm.eeOPEnglish
              2·
              9 months ago

              I’m not very savvy but I tried it on lemmy.world since lemm.ee is taking awhile to confirm the new account.

              spoiler

              "discussion_languages":[0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103,104,105,106,107,108,109,110,111,112,113,114,115,116,117,118,119,120,121,122,123,124,125,126,127,128,129,130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137,138,139,140,141,142,143,144,145,146,147,148,149,150,151,152,153,154,155,156,157,158,159,160,161,162,163,164,165,166,167,168,169,170,171,172,173,174,175,176,177,178,179,180,181,182,183],

              There’s another entry for discussion_languages under my_user but it’s entirely empty.

              The JSON goes upto 183. Another screenshot of the settings for the new test account (none of the other languages are selected by default either).

              • nutomic@lemmy.mlMEnglish
                2·
                9 months ago

                Right my_user.discussion_languages is the correct one. And it being empty means that all languages are enabled (to avoid storing lots of unnecessary db rows). Im testing with a new account on ds9.lemmy.ml and can see posts marked as English without any problems.

                • Nom Nom@lemm.eeOPEnglish
                  2·
                  9 months ago

                  It sounds like it’s working as intended. I’ll mark the OP as solved then, thank you for all your help.

            • Value Subtracted@startrek.websiteEnglish
              1·
              9 months ago

              I’ll chime in here - I don’t know if this is OP’s issue, but I have experienced issues in the past with being able to clearly tell which languages in the list are selected, and/or the selected language settings saving properly.

              I haven’t played around with it in months, but at the time I thought maybe it was just my browser theme/system colour settings that were making it hard to tell exactly what was selected.

              I agree with those who are saying that a list of possible languages with accompanying check boxes would be more intuitive than the current implementation.

              • nutomic@lemmy.mlMEnglish
                1·
                9 months ago

                Yes contributions to improve this interface would definitely be welcome.

      • Blaze@dormi.zoneEnglish
        1·
        9 months ago

        Seems strange. I registered an alt not so long ago and I remember being able to view all the languages from the get go.

        Maybe that’s an instance-dependent thing.

        If the language issue wasn’t there it wouldn’t honestly be much different from reddit.

        It’s interesting because a lot of non-English speaking communities complain about users downvoting their content because they don’t understand it, so it seems like they have the exact opposite issues that you do.

        https://sh.itjust.works/post/16202527

        • Nom Nom@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          2·
          9 months ago

          Maybe that’s an instance-dependent thing.

          I can’t check all instances so I suppose that maybe possible but I’ve tried 4 and each one has been the same, but since you hadn’t had this issue I suppose I can chalk it up to bad luck. Still needs fixing though, I’m not the only one who faced this and lemmy.world and lemm.ee both have this issue, 2 of the most popular instances according to fedidb.

          It’s interesting because a lot of non-English speaking communities complain about users downvoting their content because they don’t understand it

          From what I understand after reading that thread, a significant portion of users are downvoting just because they don’t like seeing any other language than their preferred one(English?). But that’s a stupid way of going about it, just message the posters to let them know about tagging it with it’s proper language or just block the user. Pointlessly downvoting everything you see won’t get the message accross.

          • Blaze@dormi.zoneEnglish
            1·
            9 months ago

            But that’s a stupid way of going about it, just message the posters to let them know about tagging it with it’s proper language or just block the user. Pointlessly downvoting everything you see won’t get the message accross.

            Definitely.

            I just checked on a new account on SJW, all languages are enabled by default. Probably an issue to raise to the Lemm.ee admins.