International Language Support

July 28, 2005 1:17 PM

So I think I have international language support working finally. Please test in the comments here.

اذان ظهر: ۱۳‎/۱۱ • اذان مغرب: ۲۰‎/۳۲ فردا: • اذان صبح: ۴‎/۲۹ • طلوع

Pictographs and Icons:✈ ☎ ☼ ✮
posted by mathowie to feature requests at 1:17 PM (185 comments total)

Your mother's a what?!?
posted by i_cola at 1:20 PM on July 28, 2005

I ♠ my dog.
posted by kindall at 1:22 PM on July 28, 2005

Äwësömë!
posted by Rothko at 1:23 PM on July 28, 2005

japanese:
アクセス解析を眺めてて気づいた事。
ラードご飯で検索してきてる人が異常に多い。。

korean:
男女

chinese:
雅虎中文. 新聞 - 為你即時掌握天下事. 搜尋, 搜尋
posted by mathowie at 1:26 PM on July 28, 2005

Hello, my name is ரமணன்.
posted by chunking express at 1:27 PM on July 28, 2005

הל

Weird in Windows 2003 (I assume XP also) when entering Hebrew it automatically adjusts to go right to left.
posted by geoff. at 1:32 PM on July 28, 2005

Yeah, that's how hebrew and farsi go (the arabic in my post was right to left in firefox).
posted by mathowie at 1:34 PM on July 28, 2005

‮This message was not typed backwards.‭‭
posted by yeoz at 1:35 PM on July 28, 2005

éて気‡ ‡ ‡ ♥ ♥ ♥
posted by andrew cooke at 1:35 PM on July 28, 2005

♥ ♥ ♥ &

ok, you're going to hate me, but if you type
&
and then do several previews, you get different results each time.
posted by andrew cooke at 1:37 PM on July 28, 2005

汉字/漢字
posted by macrone at 1:37 PM on July 28, 2005

Yay! I ♥ Unicode.
posted by grouse at 1:39 PM on July 28, 2005

☞ hey, løøk at this ☜
finally, we can say this ⅋ that
posted by xil at 1:40 PM on July 28, 2005

I love how when I select the arabic text in Firefox/Windows the glyphs actually change as I select them. Man, this stuff is a pain to program for.
posted by grouse at 1:40 PM on July 28, 2005

yeah, andrew, this doesn't fix the ampersand problems, but it does let you directly paste in any sort of crazy unicode, so no more worries about entities.
posted by mathowie at 1:40 PM on July 28, 2005

to explain myself better, say someone asks "how do i handle amperand correctly in xml". the reply might be "you have to type &amp as &", but previewing that reply will break it.
posted by andrew cooke at 1:40 PM on July 28, 2005

送˜™견
(originally a mix of named entities, hex unicode entities, decimal unicode entities, and ASCII entities; converted to actual characters in preview; survived multiple previews)
posted by macrone at 1:41 PM on July 28, 2005

ah, ok, posted before i saw your reply.
posted by andrew cooke at 1:41 PM on July 28, 2005

Please don't delete the above post, it's not actually empty :)‭
posted by yeoz at 1:42 PM on July 28, 2005

Ok. Firefox on OSX. The post above me has the post metadata backwards!!

(i.e. 82 yluJ etc.) instead of July 28
posted by vacapinta at 1:43 PM on July 28, 2005

sorry, I accidentally axed it. post it again? I'm curious what you did to break the comment parsing.
posted by mathowie at 1:43 PM on July 28, 2005

 
posted by andrew cooke at 1:44 PM on July 28, 2005

Oops. Did Matt delete it?
posted by vacapinta at 1:44 PM on July 28, 2005

Doesn't seem much point to type in Devnagari. Many of the characters can't be formed.

The closest approximation to Metafilter is मोटािफलतर which actually reads MotaFilmter.
posted by Gyan at 1:44 PM on July 28, 2005

ॐ
posted by rajbot at 1:45 PM on July 28, 2005

Unicode has all these nifty control characters, including a bunch of different right-to-left marks. I inserted a RLO 'Right-to-Left Override' (U+202E)... (Oh, and only because vacapinta asked me to.)
posted by yeoz at 1:46 PM on July 28, 2005

Wow, dude, I thought were against fixing this. Who says you don't listen to the people? The cool phone is ringing. ☏

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓

*whips up a steaming plate of hotcakes for matt ♨*
posted by If I Had An Anus at 1:47 PM on July 28, 2005

顶呱呱
باهِر
tính từ
우수하다
posted by 김치 at 1:47 PM on July 28, 2005

How do you type unicode anyway? [Some key] + [number]?
posted by Gyan at 1:47 PM on July 28, 2005

thanks, matt
posted by andrew cooke at 1:47 PM on July 28, 2005

If I asked you to jump off a clifff...?
posted by vacapinta at 1:48 PM on July 28, 2005

Which cliff?
posted by yeoz at 1:48 PM on July 28, 2005

ං

Ooooo! Sinhala!
posted by i_cola at 1:48 PM on July 28, 2005

...and Tamil

ஃ
posted by i_cola at 1:51 PM on July 28, 2005

Another RLO...
‮‭
posted by yeoz at 1:52 PM on July 28, 2005

Wow, dude, I thought were against fixing this.

I have spent a few hours here and there researching the problem for 4+ years, so I did a few google searches and kept seeing people say "the latest version of ColdFusion fixes everything and offers unicode support out of the box."

So I spent a couple hours researching and everything said that yes, it should work. I ran some tests and noticed unicode was being submitted to the database as garbled, and learned that in SQL statements you need to preface any unicode submissions with a "N" which I added just now and wow, it finally works.
posted by mathowie at 1:55 PM on July 28, 2005

რა არის ხელოვნური ქვა?
Georgian!

Matt, you ARE the greatest!
*salaams*

or rather:

*سلامs*
posted by languagehat at 1:56 PM on July 28, 2005

Hmm, I guess I need to filter out the RLO control character?
posted by mathowie at 1:56 PM on July 28, 2005

Which came first?
The ก or the ข?

(Thai alphabet joke.)
posted by i_cola at 1:56 PM on July 28, 2005

I ♥ languagehat for riding my ass about this.
posted by mathowie at 1:57 PM on July 28, 2005

yeoz broke the internets.
posted by grouse at 1:57 PM on July 28, 2005

W00t! This is excellent, thanks Matt!

Any chance you can add this fix to profiles as well?

And what's the story on Unicode usernames?
posted by 김치 at 2:00 PM on July 28, 2005

Thank you for your efforts on this, Matt.
posted by raedyn at 2:00 PM on July 28, 2005

Джуе добре!
posted by mazola at 2:08 PM on July 28, 2005

I ♣ Seals

∀x∀y∀z(φ(x,y,p) ∧φ(x,z,p) ⇒ y = z) ⇒ ∀X∃Y∀y(y ∈ Y ⇔ (∃x ∈ X)φ(x,y,p))

Looks good to me. I see this as being a great use of Live Preview.
posted by j.edwards at 2:08 PM on July 28, 2005

Very nice. Thank you.
posted by nebulawindphone at 2:10 PM on July 28, 2005

♨

♨

[testing]
posted by jessamyn at 2:12 PM on July 28, 2005

Lots and lots of question marks here in IE 5.1 Mac OS 9.
posted by bonaldi at 2:15 PM on July 28, 2005

sometimes (not often, but above "Georgian", for example), i see ????? instead of cool characters. is this because i don't have the right character sets in my browser?
posted by andrew cooke at 2:15 PM on July 28, 2005

great minds...
posted by andrew cooke at 2:16 PM on July 28, 2005

☺


.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:17 PM on July 28, 2005

If you're running Windows XP, go to Control Panel→Regional and Language Options→Languages and check both boxes to install additional languages. You'll need your installation CD.

I am unfamiliar with how to install these glyphs in OS 9 or other operating systems.
posted by j.edwards at 2:19 PM on July 28, 2005

And what's the story on Unicode usernames?

I'm not going to allow them, since someone could just create a user named "mathowie" where the a was a unicode a, but appears identical to users viewing the site.
posted by mathowie at 2:26 PM on July 28, 2005

woot. that also works for win2k (except that i didn't need my cd and i have to restart my computer, so i haven't actually seen the improvement, but "georgian" was one of the unchecked boxes). thanks, j.edwards.
posted by andrew cooke at 2:29 PM on July 28, 2005

这把笤帚, 它振动?
Αυτή η σκούπα, αυτό δονείται;
このほうき、それは振動するか。
이 비, 그것은 진동한다?
Этот веник, оно вибрирует?
posted by mcwetboy at 2:38 PM on July 28, 2005

☠
posted by btwillig at 2:43 PM on July 28, 2005

Awesome! We can now implement the greatest feature ever:

Thank you for visiting MetaTalk. Please legibly insert your complaint here: ං
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 2:44 PM on July 28, 2005

☠
boo
posted by btwillig at 2:50 PM on July 28, 2005

Ӈéÿ! Cool!
posted by me3dia at 2:53 PM on July 28, 2005

ファキーング　グレート！
posted by FieldingGoodney at 2:53 PM on July 28, 2005

MotaFilmter. Heh.
posted by matildaben at 2:57 PM on July 28, 2005

მეთაპილტერ: გალამაზდება

Thank you, Matt!
posted by Wolfdog at 3:02 PM on July 28, 2005

Μ Ξ τ Δ ƒ Ι ⌊ Τ Σ ℜ

α β Ι ∂ ∈ ς


posted by gramschmidt at 3:16 PM on July 28, 2005

This is like language fireworks.
Freaks out the pets, but looks dang purty.

Thanks Matt. Couple of hours wasted very well indeed.
posted by NinjaPirate at 3:18 PM on July 28, 2005

Seems to be resolved.
posted by kenko at 3:25 PM on July 28, 2005

➊➋➌➍➎➏➐➑➒➓
posted by The Jesse Helms at 3:34 PM on July 28, 2005

wæs this nøw næcæssårø? ÆØÅ
posted by Catfry at 3:49 PM on July 28, 2005

鬥 ﾯ ﷺ


︼ ﹌ ㏆


㋟ ♞ ⌨



posted by gramschmidt at 3:53 PM on July 28, 2005

Hmm. Those all worked on Live Preview.
posted by gramschmidt at 3:55 PM on July 28, 2005

Who wouldn't want this‽
posted by interrobang at 4:06 PM on July 28, 2005

うお！チョべりグー！
posted by gen at 4:17 PM on July 28, 2005

∬_R² (e^x2+y2) dA = π
posted by Wolfdog at 4:18 PM on July 28, 2005

It's a pity that so many of these glyphs are so poorly designed. Like the interrobang one is hard to see at my regular font size. On Wikipedia I have taken to setting a custom style for IPA because it is impossible to read the crappy fonts at normal size.
posted by grouse at 4:22 PM on July 28, 2005

korean:
男女

That's not Korean, but I see that 김치 tested it upthread. This bilingual keyboard would be coming in handy now, if my Korean were actually worth a damn.

*sighs*

바보 선생입니다.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:35 PM on July 28, 2005

It doesn't appear to support Elvish.
posted by sciurus at 4:40 PM on July 28, 2005

Elvish has left the building, sciurus.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:48 PM on July 28, 2005

Your browser supports Unicode Elvish?
posted by grouse at 4:48 PM on July 28, 2005

Now all we need are universal language translators!

BONG
posted by Dean Keaton at 5:04 PM on July 28, 2005

馬鹿!
posted by yeoz at 5:21 PM on July 28, 2005

∀x∈ℝ: ⌈x⌉ = −⌊−x⌋

Very cool indeed…
posted by fvw at 5:25 PM on July 28, 2005

➊➋➌➍➎ ➏➐➑➒➓

11 12! *doo dee doodle doo dee dee doo doo*

12!
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:42 PM on July 28, 2005

No, now all we need is a unicode



...and we're sorted.
posted by flashboy at 5:53 PM on July 28, 2005

I ? this. It should prevent all those question marks showing up when you mean a heart.
posted by caddis at 5:58 PM on July 28, 2005

谢谢!
posted by geekyguy at 6:05 PM on July 28, 2005

wear it
posted by bonaldi at 6:08 PM on July 28, 2005

Or perhaps a unicode , I dunno.
posted by flashboy at 6:17 PM on July 28, 2005

What I especially like is that I just cut and pasted something from another site and it worked fine. No screwing around with hex or entities required.
posted by smackfu at 6:19 PM on July 28, 2005

≠ §º•¡∞
posted by obloquy at 6:43 PM on July 28, 2005

"It's a pity that so many of these glyphs are so poorly designed"

Depends on what Unicode typefaces you've installed that have that character. Most of us are probably seeing Arial MS Unicode, which although quite extensive, is not that attractive.

Thanks, Matt, for this. I really, really, really mean it. And LH for pressing Matt on it. I'm surprised to see that the fix was so easy, but no doubt this sort of thing is much more supported out-of-box than when I was working.

Anyway, I've been saying for a long time that everything, everywhere, should have full Unicode support.

Matt, for usernames, you could of course just filter out all Unicode characters that are identical to the ASCII characters you've allowed.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:51 PM on July 28, 2005

!שלום
posted by ori at 7:00 PM on July 28, 2005

מטאפילטר




posted by ori at 7:08 PM on July 28, 2005

^^ that's "Metafilter" in Hebrew :) Thanks Matt!
posted by ori at 7:09 PM on July 28, 2005

‽

Wow, it makes me look like I've lost weight!
posted by ?! at 7:19 PM on July 28, 2005

shalom lecha! (ma nishma?)
posted by dhruva at 7:42 PM on July 28, 2005

what's the unicode for the goatse dingbat?
posted by keswick at 7:59 PM on July 28, 2005

غزة

কলকাতা
posted by Tuwa at 7:59 PM on July 28, 2005

keswick, shorthand is • (or maybe ☯, which is what he's got a problem with).
posted by Tuwa at 8:05 PM on July 28, 2005

Magyarországi fürdők. It works.
posted by semmi at 8:18 PM on July 28, 2005

dhruva: "shalom lecha! (ma nishma?)"

hey! he-yiti batuach she-ani dover haivrit hayachid bemetafilter...gam ata expat israeli?

da"sh me'vancouver..
posted by ori at 8:38 PM on July 28, 2005

☃☃☃☃
posted by jazon at 8:54 PM on July 28, 2005

lo! ani bey hodu, aval ha-yiti be'eretz le shnayim (and i'm forgetting hebrew at an exponential rate :)
posted by dhruva at 9:07 PM on July 28, 2005

☞☻☜





posted by neckro23 at 9:16 PM on July 28, 2005

Варкалось. Хливкие шорьки
Пырялись по наве.
И хрюкотали зелюки
Как мюмзики в мове.

О, бойся Бармаглота, сын!
Он так свиреп и дик,
А в глуще рымит исполин —
Злопастный Брандашмыг!

Но взял он меч, и взял он щит,
Высоких полон дум.
В глущобу путь его лежит,
Под дерево Тумтум.

Он стал под дерево и ждёт,
И вдруг грабахнул гром —
Летит ужасный Бармаглот
И пылкает огнём!

Раз-два, раз-два! Горит трава,
Взы-взы — стрижает меч.
Ува! Ува! И голова
Барабардает с плеч!

О светозарный мальчик мой!
Ты победил в бою!
О храброславленный герой,
Хвалу тебе пою!

Варкалось. Хливкие шорьки
Пырялись по наве.
И хрюкотали зелюки
Как мюмзики в мове.
posted by Krrrlson at 9:25 PM on July 28, 2005

メタフィルター
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 9:44 PM on July 28, 2005

Here is a rosetta stone for you:

这不，有些心急的尼康发烧友等不及了，开始YY了，幻想着未来两年尼康能够把自己梦想中的梦幻机型和器材都发布出来，并且煞有介事的把具体规格也列了出来。他们希望尼康能够看到这个列表，争口气，圆尼康用户一个梦。笔者作为以为尼康用户，十分赞同这些用户的观点，当然也要尽一份力了。不过按照尼康的这么多年的表现，我看我们也就是YY罢了。不管怎样，先来看看这些让发烧友苦等的器材都有哪些吧。

Если возникает необходимость в каком-либо документе, то заказчица должна затребовать его точно так же, как и любое другое свойство программы: с помощью карточки. Команда оценит стоимость разработки такого документа, а заказчица определит, в какой итерации она хотела бы его получить. Документирование дизайна системы Как и большинство других инкрементных разработок (начиная с Спирального Метода Боэма), ХР не синтезирует дизайн системы, а скорее, постепенно наращивает его в процессе работы. Опять-таки, поскольку в ХР все программисты активно общаются между собой, им не приходится помногу работать с бумажной документацией. Весь проект создается на основе двухнедельных итераций, так что на реализацию того или иного свойства уходит не более нескольких дней (это происходит потому, что свойства разбиваются на малые составляющие, которые и реализуются одна за другой, а вовсе не потому что ХР-программисты круче обычных).

자바언어는 인터넷 프로그래밍 개발언어로 크게 각광을 받고 있고, OMG 그룹의 CORBA는 분산 객체들간의 통신 및 아키텍쳐로 최근들어 많은연구와 개발이 진행되고 있다. 이 두 기술들의 공통된 점은 모두가 객체지향방식을 채택하고 있으며, 차세대 웹 애플리케이션 개발을 위한 핵심 기술로평가고 있는 것이다.본 강좌에서는 이 두 기술들이 가지는 실용적인 가치, 장점, 효과 및 그 한계점들을 알아 보고, 설계 및 아키텍쳐 표준이 CORBA와 구현 기술인 Java가소프트웨어 개발 과정에 어떻게 효과적으로 접목되어 사용 될 수 있는지 를 살펴본다.특히 이 기술들이 웹기반의 클라이언트/서버 및 분산 시스템개발에 어떻게 효과적으로 활용 될 수 있는 지를 실용적 측면에서 알아 보고 실행해 본다.

היקפי השוק ב-2002 משקפים את השינויים בפעילות באזורים השונים בעולם ואת התנופה הגוברת בהתקנות ציוד מטרו וציוד אחר למרחקים קצרים. אלה הובילו לשינויים בנתחי השוק בכמה קטגוריות. צפון אמריקה ומערב אירופה נפגעו בצורה קשה במיוחד כתוצאה מהתמוטטות ענף התקשורת. בו בזמן, סין וקוריאה עזרו להקטין את הפגיעה באזור אסיה והאוקיינוס השקט. כתוצאה מכך, כמה חברות אסייתיות שממוקדות בשוק המקומי, כמו Huawei, זכו לגידול במכירות בכמה קטגוריות בין שנת 2001 ל-2002, על רקע מגמת צמצום ממנה סבלו רוב ספקי הציוד האחרים.

นายนาวี ศรีผดุง รองประธานอาวุโสฝ่ายบิสิเนส โซลูชั่นส์ บริษัท เค เอส ซี คอมเมอร์เชียล อินเตอร์เนต จำกัด เปิดเผยว่า “ปัจจุบันตลาดของผู้ใช้อินเทอร์เน็ตในต่างจังหวัด นับเป็นตลาดที่มี ศักยภาพและมีแนวโน้มในการเติบโตสูง เนื่องจากยังมีจำนวนผู้ใช้อินเทอร์เน็ตไม่มากนัก และได้รับการส่งเสริมจากภาครัฐให้มีการใช้อินเทอร์เน็ตอย่างแพร่หลายมากยิ่งขึ้น เค เอส ซี เองได้ให้ความสำคัญกับการดูแลและให้บริการลูกค้าต่างจังหวัดอย่างต่อเนื่อง โดยได้จัดตั้งสำนักงานสาขาในจังหวัดต่างๆ เพื่อเพิ่มความสะดวกและรวดเร็วในการให้การบริการลูกค้า ไม่ว่าจะเป็นการติดตั้งและบริการหลังการขาย ในกรณีที่ลูกค้ามีปัญหาก็จะสามารถติดต่อรับบริการได้ทันที โดยไม่ต้องติดต่อมายังสำนักงานใหญ่ในกรุงเทพฯ และในปีนี้ เค เอส ซี ได้วางกลยุทธ์ในการขยายตลาดในต่างจังหวัด โดยมีการพัฒนาคุณภาพของการให้บริการ พร้อมทั้งมีกิจกรรมทางการตลาดเพื่อเพิ่มจำนวนผู้ใช้บริการในต่างจังหวัดด้วย”
posted by b1tr0t at 9:52 PM on July 28, 2005

✈ ☎

Anybody wanna play Hüsker Dü?
posted by weston at 9:56 PM on July 28, 2005

てすと日本語テスト
posted by nightchrome at 11:15 PM on July 28, 2005

妙极了！
posted by mono blanco at 11:18 PM on July 28, 2005

I ✈NY
posted by mosch at 11:18 PM on July 28, 2005

Ok. So it would be great if the server could spit out a 'This is in XXX language' either before, after or somewhere around the used language.
posted by geekyguy at 11:20 PM on July 28, 2005

ha!!

My tattoo: ☣
posted by dabitch at 11:22 PM on July 28, 2005

Why is this necessary on an English-language site? Do Chinese pages do the same? I'm sure y'all who know how to read Sanskrit or Korean think it's neat, but please, after tonight, if you're going to post something in another language (whatever character set it's in) do include a translation.

It's not that "English is the official language of the Internet!", it's that I admit to being woefully limited, linguistically speaking.

On the other hand, if Matt wants to start or spin off a non-English Metafilter site or 20, you could feel safe there from my interference. I've learned not to trust Babelfish translations, and I'm simply past the age where I could learn Hindi or Uighur.
posted by davy at 11:22 PM on July 28, 2005

This is FUN ❣
posted by dabitch at 11:58 PM on July 28, 2005

In ☭ Russia, glyphs sign YOU!
posted by dabitch at 12:00 AM on July 29, 2005

*crosses fingers..*
¢ ¤ § ¬ Æ ß Θ Σ ϑ ™ ∀ ∇ ∞
posted by peacay at 12:15 AM on July 29, 2005

✈€→ℑλ³£ cool :) Thanks Matt.
posted by peacay at 12:19 AM on July 29, 2005

dhruva, magniv.. ha-ivrit shelcha mamash lo ra-a bishvil mishehu shehaya ba-aretz rak shnatayim.
posted by ori at 2:10 AM on July 29, 2005

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

posted by The Jesse Helms at 2:51 AM on July 29, 2005

Me ruv you rong time!
posted by uncanny hengeman at 3:36 AM on July 29, 2005

Why is this necessary on an English-language site?

There have been a couple of AskMes dealing with Japanese or Chinese where this would have been humongously helpful--a little while ago, I asked for help finding Chinese pop music, and since I didn't know enough Chinese to match the transliterated names to the CDs on store shelves, Unicode support would have been very nice.

Niche usage, yeah, but I for one am glad it's around for when I need it.
posted by Jeanne at 3:41 AM on July 29, 2005

There's a FPP now in another language. I really don't understand davy's request at all. If there are "best of the web" posts in another language, and there's (or there could be) people that can read the post, I don't see why I as an anglophone have the right to expect that it be translated into English. That's really no different than saying that it's okay to post US-NewsFilter but not Euro-NewsFilter. Of course, I'm sure there's people that make that argument.

The best thing that could happen to mefi would be to develop a larger non-US and non-anglophone audience and membership.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:55 AM on July 29, 2005

yeoz: professionally breaking shit since 1846.
posted by nthdegx at 5:24 AM on July 29, 2005

イエイ！　ファイナリ！
posted by squidlarkin at 5:28 AM on July 29, 2005

Be nice if it fixed things retroactively, but I imagine that's more or less impossible. Still, ありがとう　ございます！
posted by squidlarkin at 5:33 AM on July 29, 2005

Thanks Matt.
posted by OmieWise at 6:00 AM on July 29, 2005

There's a FPP now in another language. I really don't understand davy's request at all. If there are "best of the web" posts in another language, and there's (or there could be) people that can read the post, I don't see why I as an anglophone have the right to expect that it be translated into English. That's really no different than saying that it's okay to post US-NewsFilter but not Euro-NewsFilter. Of course, I'm sure there's people that make that argument.

How would we know it is best-of-the-web if a majority of us cannot read (and flag) it? How would the administrators manage to, either?
posted by Rothko at 6:31 AM on July 29, 2005

Oh, come on. People aren't going to suddenly start posting in weird languages (after all, they could have been doing so all along -- plenty of French and Spanish words and phrases have been quoted, although you had to be careful with the preview bug). The Chinese post on the front page is a beautiful one-off, and the meaning is explained both in mouseover text and in the links themselves. And davy, you're never too old to learn Uighur!

In case anyone's wondering, the poem Krrrlson posted is Dina Orlovskaya's famous late-'60s translation of "Jabberwocky." And b1tr0t, it's exactly such a "Rosetta Stone" -- a collection of international treaties in English, French, German, and Russian -- that got me started studying Russian in college, because I was so frustrated I couldn't even sound out the words. I bought myself a little Collins Gem Dictionary and there was no turning back.
posted by languagehat at 6:57 AM on July 29, 2005

Rothko, that's hardly an argument that the place should be made english-only. Either enlist volunteer translation, or (more likely) don't do anything, as it will be a small portion of the site anyway.

I'm seeing this anomaly:


posted by odinsdream at 7:00 AM on July 29, 2005

☃
Kranky the snowman....
posted by spilon at 7:05 AM on July 29, 2005

Icelandic: þ æ ð ö á é í ó

perfect!
posted by einarorn at 7:24 AM on July 29, 2005

Sweet.
posted by delmoi at 7:45 AM on July 29, 2005

Just out of curiosity matt, how did you fix it?
posted by delmoi at 7:46 AM on July 29, 2005

I just found out that ♥ = ♥. Interesting.
posted by grouse at 8:01 AM on July 29, 2005

jonson ♥ learning this...
posted by jonson at 8:02 AM on July 29, 2005

鬥 ﾯ ﷺ


︼ ﹌ ㏆


㋟
posted by gramschmidt at 8:03 AM on July 29, 2005

Seriously, Matt, all of those worked in Live Preview and on Preview.
posted by gramschmidt at 8:04 AM on July 29, 2005

It doesn't appear to support Elvish. - sciurus
Elvish has left the building, sciurus. - mr_crash_davis

I just about died. Thanks, crash, I needed that laugh.
posted by raedyn at 8:05 AM on July 29, 2005

Rothko, that's hardly an argument that the place should be made english-only. Either enlist volunteer translation, or (more likely) don't do anything, as it will be a small portion of the site anyway.

This argument could be made about many other types of posts. Just sayin'
posted by Rothko at 8:20 AM on July 29, 2005

〠
posted by gramschmidt at 8:24 AM on July 29, 2005

〠
posted by gramschmidt at 8:26 AM on July 29, 2005

Rothko, that's hardly an argument that the place should be made english-only. Either enlist volunteer translation, or (more likely) don't do anything, as it will be a small portion of the site anyway.

This argument could be made about many other types of posts. Just sayin'

No, it can't. Your argument: Non-english posts should be discouraged/disallowed because the site owners/moderators speak and read english. As such, non-english posts may be harder to moderate.

I don't know what "other types" of posts you're talking about that the site owners are unable to moderate because of some educational barrier (like language). What do you mean?
posted by odinsdream at 8:35 AM on July 29, 2005

㎭
posted by Bdave at 9:00 AM on July 29, 2005

My point was that "it will be a small portion of the site anyway" is a very poor excuse. That same argument can used to justify any number of the other types of posts that a small, but vocal minority will complain about. So — just sayin'
posted by Rothko at 9:02 AM on July 29, 2005

шоДҤ ҉ ҉
posted by Bdave at 9:14 AM on July 29, 2005

You people are giving me las ñáñaras.
posted by eddydamascene at 9:29 AM on July 29, 2005

*cries*
posted by matteo at 9:44 AM on July 29, 2005

On that non-english FPP, did you happen to try a mouseover on the links? It explains them pretty well.
posted by mystyk at 9:52 AM on July 29, 2005

People moan enough about it when y2karl does it — is a mouseover now a requirement for a comprehensible FPP?
posted by Rothko at 9:55 AM on July 29, 2005

Rothko, simple question: Do you think posts should be required to be written only in the language that is most popular at mefi?
posted by odinsdream at 10:54 AM on July 29, 2005

A post designed primarily around being accessible only to the poster and perhaps a handful of others, instead of being focused around the links or discussion within for the benefit community as a whole, seems like a bad idea. Make of that opinion what you will.

Let me ask you a simple question back: Are we sharing the best of the web with others or patting oneself on the back for knowing some Unicode?
posted by Rothko at 11:03 AM on July 29, 2005

Unicode is Unicode: implementing the accents required to type French or Spanish loanwords in English is the same as implementing all the other characters. It's one thing to worry about all the Sanskrit posts that are bound to show up, but it's a bit silly to think no-one will ever talk about El Niño or flambé or Mötley Crüe on mefi.
posted by mendel at 11:06 AM on July 29, 2005

It's one thing to worry about all the Sanskrit posts that are bound to show up, but it's a bit silly to think no-one will ever talk about El Niño or flambé or Mötley Crüe on mefi.

I don't think I ever mentioned flambé. It's pretty clear what we were talking about here, mendel.
posted by Rothko at 11:10 AM on July 29, 2005

Let me ask you a simple question, Rothko: Do you think we should only be allowed to use the 26 letters of the English alphabet?
posted by languagehat at 11:10 AM on July 29, 2005

You avoided my simple question. Why?
posted by odinsdream at 11:14 AM on July 29, 2005

You avoided my simple question. Why?

Because I don't see the world in black and white, sorry. Interestingly, for what it's worth, my original question never really got a straight answer, either.
posted by Rothko at 11:18 AM on July 29, 2005

I sense the inevitable flambé coming from the usual suspects, and I don't really have much invested in this conversation beyond figuring out a non-evasive answer to my first question, so I'll just leave my opinion at that. It's not the end of the world if we disagree!
posted by Rothko at 11:20 AM on July 29, 2005

How would we know it is best-of-the-web if a majority of us cannot read (and flag) it? How would the administrators manage to, either?

Alright, this looks to be the first question you're talking about. So, I'll be sure to answer it. I thought I did, but I'll do it again. Somewhere you think I'm being dismissive, and I want to correct that.

The audience of a thread determines whether it's "best" or not. Science threads, flash game threads, political threads; each of these attracts a different audience. The audiences often overlap, but not always. This does not affect their standing adversely. Similarly, a foreign-language thread will have a particular audience; like other threads, this audience will only be a subsection of the entire mefi userbase. Not a problem.

The site's admins and moderators (really just the two people, mathowie and jessamyn) deal with english-language threads by either reading them, or responding to complaints. I'd guess mostly by responding to complaints, since their time is finite, and they probably don't read the site every hour.

The procedure would be exactly the same for non-english threads, except they personally would be unable to read the text. This is a language barrier, nothing more. Enlist the help of people who know both english and the foreign language to solve the problem. If you cannot find anyone willing to do this, then the thread didn't have an audience to begin with, and consequently didn't "offend" anyone, at least not enough to make them flag the post.

All of this falls under the umbrella concept that these foreign-language threads will certainly always be outnumbered (vastly) by english-language threads. Sure, they do need moderation, but the extra work involved certainly doesn't indicate that there should be some kind of moratorium on foreign-language threads.

So, could you please clear up your position? Are you just whining about people using a foreign language, or are you actually going somewhere with your complaint (i.e., calling for the establishment of an official mefi language)?

If you aren't going somewhere with your complaint, do you understand that it's simply pointless whining? If not, what do you consider it to be?
posted by odinsdream at 11:44 AM on July 29, 2005

How would we know it is best-of-the-web if a majority of us cannot read (and flag) it?

What's stopping you flagging it?
posted by nthdegx at 11:54 AM on July 29, 2005

Foreign letters! Sound the alarm! Batten the hatches!
posted by Tuwa at 1:09 PM on July 29, 2005

What's stopping you flagging it?

Do I pick a flag at random?
posted by Rothko at 1:12 PM on July 29, 2005

WORST WEBSITE EVER
posted by mcsweetie at 1:12 PM on July 29, 2005

odinsdream : "Similarly, a foreign-language thread will have a particular audience; like other threads, this audience will only be a subsection of the entire mefi userbase. Not a problem."

There's a difference, which is that only those who already know the language can attempt to evaluate it. Regarding a science thread, I can read it and figure out that I don't understand it, in which case I may ask a question, or I find out it's uninteresting, in which case I skip it. This ability to evaluate is missing for foreign language posts, especially those in non-Roman scripts.

odinsdream : "The procedure would be exactly the same for non-english threads, except they personally would be unable to read the text. This is a language barrier, nothing more. Enlist the help of people who know both english and the foreign language to solve the problem. If you cannot find anyone willing to do this, then the thread didn't have an audience to begin with, and consequently didn't 'offend' anyone, at least not enough to make them flag the post."

Or maybe the only people willing to come forward is the poster and the flagger, IOW, He Said, She Said.
posted by Gyan at 1:19 PM on July 29, 2005

The audience of a thread determines whether it's "best" or not. Science threads, flash game threads, political threads; each of these attracts a different audience. The audiences often overlap, but not always. This does not affect their standing adversely. Similarly, a foreign-language thread will have a particular audience; like other threads, this audience will only be a subsection of the entire mefi userbase. Not a problem.

I think the audience size of these threads that can comprehend the material in question is quite different, which makes your comparison a poor one by nature. Not to mention that a deliberately tiny audience — we're talking a handful of people out of the thousands here — negatively affects the front page and the quality of a front page article, at least in terms of its connection to the larger community that exists here.

Saying that it only affects a small number of people is in general a really, really poor excuse for putting up any such a post, be it about language or anything else. For that matter I could use that same excuse for any other FPP someone else didn't like, which was deleted by the admins, which would have nothing to do with languages. Hence my non-binary, non-black-and-white, nuanced answer to your question.

Further, I think writing a post for the deliberate purpose of excluding a number of readers is not only a bad FPP by design, it sets a bad precedent. I'm sure it will be done again, just to impress certain people. In my book, that doesn't make it right — or very interesting, the usual standard for a good FPP. Which is a complaint that can be made about any poor FPP, and which is a legitimate reason for removing it outright.

Are you just whining about people using a foreign language, or are you actually going somewhere with your complaint (i.e., calling for the establishment of an official mefi language)?

Despite the baiting, neither. I already answered your question as well as a second time within this comment. You may not like the answer you're getting, but there it is.
posted by Rothko at 1:35 PM on July 29, 2005

[يہ اچھا ہے]

And I don't think we'll have a flood of Chinese/Thai/Russian posts that offer nothing to Anglophones. On the contrary, I think the one we've had so far was at least as transparent as some of the other (sometimes totally opaque) puzzle posts that have been allowed to stand. That slight risk of non-comprehension is a small price to pay to be able to use non-Latin alphabets without cursing at the screen.

ありがとう まあつ！
posted by skoosh at 2:09 PM on July 29, 2005

Here's an idea: If you can't read it, don't read it. You are not required to understand and comment on every single post. It seems to me there are plenty of people on Metafilter who don't even seem to understand English sometimes.
posted by Roger Dodger at 2:42 PM on July 29, 2005

Despite the baiting, neither. I already answered your question as well as a second time within this comment.

A post designed primarily around being accessible only to the poster and perhaps a handful of others, instead of being focused around the links or discussion within for the benefit community as a whole, seems like a bad idea. Make of that opinion what you will.

Can you expand on the "seems like a bad idea" part, in terms of a solution to resolve the "badness" of the idea?

The only thing I can come up with from reading your comments is that you'd like for there to be an official language of metafilter, and for your convenience, you'd like it to be English.

Is this a misrepresentation of your opinion? I realise you haven't specifically made this recommendation, but I'm trying to see where you're going with your "I have a bad feeling about this" statement, and this is the only thing I can come up with. Help me out here.
posted by odinsdream at 3:04 PM on July 29, 2005

༒
࿊ ࿋
posted by Dr. Zira at 3:11 PM on July 29, 2005

Rothko's point is a good point and should be answered seriously. Which, um, several have tried to do. But I'll give it a shot.

The way I see it is that Matt created this metablog with one mandate only: "best of the web" with, hopefully, good discussion of what is posted. I'm pretty sure it was English-only and US-centric merely by default, not design. Non-anglophone posts clearly fall within the mandate.

As it happens, being anglophone and us-centric, a lot of "best of the web" content is effectively excluded. But what is a good reason to officially perpetuate this? Rothko is arguing that the anglophone bias be part of this site's design, but the argument really resolves into majority-rule.

As everyone knows from the NewsFilter arguments, I certainly don't believe that MeFi is majority-rule. It's a benign dictatorship where Matt regulates certain things and then within that there is a form of a self-governing community. I think Matt set the mandate for MeFi as I described it above, and I don't see that that has changed. So if the mandate allows non-anglophone posts, then I don't think the current community has any right to veto them. We are the community we are by accident, not design. Non-anglophones should have exactly as much ability to post and participate here as we did.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:17 PM on July 29, 2005

I'm trying to see where you're going with your "I have a bad feeling about this" statement

I think maybe he meant that he has a bad feeling about it. Why are you so invested in his position? He's not defending at doctoral thesis, here.
posted by cortex at 4:42 PM on July 29, 2005

I'm just interested in what the next step would be, according to Rothko. That's all. If I thought something was wrong with the site, I'd suggest a way to fix it. I'm wondering if Rothko has any opinions on how best to fix what he/she perceives to be a problem waiting to happen.
posted by odinsdream at 6:32 PM on July 29, 2005

Man you metatalk people are a bummer. I'm scrolling around enjoying all the fun with Unicode glyphs, and then all the sudden you get all serious and concerned about mouseovers, non-English, etc. Won't someone please think of the children?
posted by Nelson at 6:40 PM on July 29, 2005

格好いい！
posted by Slithy_Tove at 8:01 PM on July 29, 2005

| ♩ ♬♬ ♩ ♬♬ | ♩. ♪♩ ♩ | ♫ ♫ ♫ ♩ |
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:24 PM on July 29, 2005

Everything that is not illegal is compulsory.
posted by peacay at 12:27 AM on July 30, 2005

皆いろんな外国語喋れるんだね。ちょっとびっくり。
posted by Bugbread at 5:54 AM on July 30, 2005

मेटाफिल्तर

As for Hindi/Devanagari...
Actually ग्यान I think you might have missed the े matra, which is s on a regular keyboard. And on preview it looks like the फि thing works out just fine if you type फ first and then the ि--should conjunct properly but sometimes it doesn't always work for me either when posting things online. Not sure how to fix that and its annoying but on live preview it looks okay. To combine letters use "d."

For हिंदी speakers, does this spelling of मेटाफिल्तर look ठीक to you? पुछईए मेटाफिल्तर। मेटाबात या माटाबातचित।

Cool!
posted by hellacious at 6:12 AM on July 30, 2005

I'm just interested in what the next step would be, according to Rothko. That's all. If I thought something was wrong with the site, I'd suggest a way to fix it. I'm wondering if Rothko has any opinions on how best to fix what he/she perceives to be a problem waiting to happen.

My first suggestion would be for you to take the chip off your shoulder. We're having a conversation. Stop baiting and be civil.

My second suggestion would be to evaluate a FPP on its merits. A post designed deliberately to exclude nearly everyone reading it is a Bad Front Page Post and should be deleted on that basis.

Many posts can be designed that way without being related to the use of foreign language Unicode. This one, however, was.

Your attempt to bait aside, a complaint on that basis has nothing to do with calling for an official language at Metafilter, and has everything to do with deleting posts for the same reason that other shitty posts are deleted.

Rothko is arguing that the anglophone bias be part of this site's design

No, I'm arguing that a bad post be deleted for being a bad post. This anglophone angle of yours is a red herring.
posted by Rothko at 6:00 PM on July 30, 2005

Okay, then. I misunderstood. I agree bad posts should be deleted. I don't agree, assuming you assert this, that there's any good reason for deleting non-English posts because they're non-English.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 8:49 PM on July 30, 2005

I don't agree, assuming you assert this, that there's any good reason for deleting non-English posts because they're non-English.

Despite this incorrect assumption you keep pushing, there are very good reasons for deleting posts inaccessible to nearly everyone on here, which are posted not to bring the best of the web to the community, but to pat oneself on the back. No doubt that it will happen again, though.
posted by Rothko at 9:44 PM on July 30, 2005

"there are very good reasons for deleting posts inaccessible to nearly everyone on here, which are posted not to bring the best of the web to the community, but to pat oneself on the back"

That's an intent-based standard for evaluation which, I think, is unworkable in practice and causes no end of troubles.

Your argument, as I understand it (and I think it's a valid argument), is that there is an implicit anti-exclusionary standard (among others) against which a post is evaluated and, given this and the state of mefi's demographics, a non-Latin character set post is almost guaranteed to fail that test and so is not acceptable. It's too exclusionary.

My response is twofold. First, I'm not convinced that there is explicitly or implicitly an anti-exclusionary standard for mefi posts. Here's an example: alas, my Monty Hall Problem webpage has never been posted to mefi; but back in 1997 it was a Yahoo! page of the week. And although my page is quite non-technical, it could have been more technical and in any event it is of interest to only a small portion of the mefi demographics. But I think it fairly easily passes the test for something that one could post. "Best of the Web" does not require "accessible to the overwhelming majority of users".

Secondly, even if there were an inclusion standard, language is not acceptable as a criteria. Why not? Well, think about why almost everyone would agree that gender or race isn't an acceptable standard by which to evaluate inclusiveness. By far most people here are white--does it logically follow that content not of interest to whites and of interests to blacks is proportionally less worthy of being posted? I think most of us would say "no".

We acknowledge that, because of circumstance, this bias is a fact of life here--yeah, most of us are white and Americans--but that this need not be so and that it is is completely irrelevant to the purpose the site serves.

I don't think there's a "strong inclusiveness" criterion; but even if there was I think that nationality/culture/language would be exempted from that test.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:01 AM on July 31, 2005

That's an intent-based standard for evaluation which, I think, is unworkable in practice and causes no end of troubles.

One very simple evaluation test, among many others.

"Best of the Web" does not require "accessible to the overwhelming majority of users".

Poor rhetoric. We talking about posts that are inaccessible to the overwhelming minority of users — literally a handful of people. Not only that, we're talking about a post designed to exclude nearly everyone from reading it. If there's such a thing as a "noise" FPP, it comes close.
posted by Rothko at 9:23 AM on July 31, 2005

"posts that are inaccessible to the overwhelming minority of users"

I really have no idea what that means.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:28 PM on July 31, 2005

Sorry — "accessible to no more than an overwhelming minority of users".
posted by Rothko at 2:45 PM on July 31, 2005

I'm just having a bit of trouble with the phrase "overwhelming minority". But I get your drift.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:15 PM on July 31, 2005

Huh. Unicode.
posted by gramschmidt at 11:36 AM on August 3, 2005