How do you deal with posts in a foreign language?

[Stuart Wright]

Assuming that we generally want visitors from across the globe enjoying our forums, how do we deal with them posting in their own language?
In one forum I own, there are resources specifically for members in different countries and they are posting in different languages.
I don't want to discourage this as it's a natural thing for them, and guests seeing posts in their own language are more likely to register and post.
However, it's problematic because moderators can't determine the content of the posts and whether or not they break the forum rules.
Do folks out there have ideas on how to manage this?
Thanks.

 

[whynot]

However, it's problematic because moderators can't determine the content of the posts and whether or not they break the forum rules.
Do folks out there have ideas on how to manage this?

My browser has an inbuilt translator, pops up when there is something written in a foreign language.
If the content breaks the rules the post goes to the garbage bin.

 

[jeb35]

I just copy and paste into a translator and then copy it back at the bottom of the post so the majority of our helpers don't have to translate it. It's not very often though so no big deal.

 

[sbj]

@Alpha1

 

[Alpha1]

This indicates that there is a demand for sections of the site in specific languages. Without offering this to your members you will miss likely out on a significant reader base that is otherwise filled by other websites. If you do offer a version of your website in other languages, then you should be able to identify potential moderators that post in that section. In the meantime, your moderators can use a browser plugin for Google Translate or ChatGPT to fully understand the posts and reply where needed.
Once you have multilingual functionality, your members will likely start to translate your main content. From your best forum posts, articles, reviews or whatever content is dear to them. And most likely local advertisers will inquire. At least in my experience.

Unfortunately XenForo has no functionality at all for this. Simply using nodes and categories for each content type to post in different language will open a can of worms and will most likely result in various issues. The main things I encountered that I can think of now are:

1. Member confusion leading to members posting in the wrong section or not finding what they need.
2. Content in one language scattered across multiple content types without a way to logically browse it.
3. Tags in different languages. As words are similar in different languages you will get English members selecting Spanish or German tags and vice versa.
4. XenForo defining ONE language per website which means that Google indexes non-English content as English gibberish with potential penalty.

Its very easy to end up with dead non-English forum nodes. Especially in an age where people can just spin up something on Reddit, Facebook, Discord, etc.

It would require an advanced custom add-on to make this happen. Please read these suggestions:

multilingual

xenforo.com

Otherwise the only other option I can think of is using a social group per language and have the social group language overridden by a group language setting.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[Sim]

ZooChat has a very broad audience with members from probably 90% of countries around the world.

We've always had a strict "English only" rule - mostly because of the moderation issues that come along with non-English language posts. Not only does it create more work for the volunteer moderators because they HAVE To translate every post - but it also breaks a lot of automatic moderation tools.

We've had plenty of cases of people using non-English language to try and bypass moderation rules.

If someone wants to post in a language other than English (typically when copying and pasting text from an article they want to quote), we insist that they also provide an English language translation.

 

[Mendalla]

If someone wants to post in a language other than English (typically when copying and pasting text from an article they want to quote), we insist that they also provide an English language translation.

I am on a fan site for a Dutch singer who is also fluent in English and mostly sings in English. Post in English or post a translation is pretty much the route her team have gone since the membership are global, if heavily focused in continental Europe. Most members have English as a first or second language so it seems to work out okay. Every now and then a mod has to remind someone but it is usually a new member, not an attempt at circumventing.

 

[Paul B]

It's fair to say that this site has members which speak many different languages.

Content must be in English primarily for moderation reasons, but also because support related posts would not receive the same level of community support if not in English.

Occasionally I have to remind members that English must be used.

Chrome does make it very easy to translate and edit the post for non English content now though.

 

[Stuart Wright]

My browser has an inbuilt translator, pops up when there is something written in a foreign language.
If the content breaks the rules the post goes to the garbage bin.

Which browser and extension is this, please?

Thanks for the replies. To date on AVForums, we have insisted that posts be in English.
We are more frequently having posts in other languages.
This is a problem for two reasons, both mentioned above. The first is difficulty in moderators check in the post. The process for reading posts needs to be as fast as possible since moderators are already too busy. So there must not be any need to copy and paste text into a translation tool. That takes way too long.
Having an extension in a browser which automatically translates text into English, sounds an ideal solution.

The other issue is that other members are less likely to engage with posts in a foreign language. That’s obviously a problem for the poster but also for the forum as we want that poster to get value from our forum and continue visiting.
I was considering examining the browser language of the poster at the point of creating a message, and if it is not English, sending the post text to Google translate or chat GPT to have it translated into English. It could well be too expensive to send the text of every single post to a translation service.

I also run the MGEVs.com forum which has threads dedicated to feedback from members on MG dealers throughout Europe. I expect that more posts will be in foreign languages than English in those particular threads and it’s not something I want to discourage. So again, having an automatic translation tool built into a browser is an ideal solution for moderators.

I do think having a Google translate tool on every page may be a benefit to every forum.
It would make sense to have that tool look at the visitor’s browser language and set that as the default destination language.

 

[whynot]

Which browser and extension is this, please?

Sorry, I just realized that it's is for a whole page:

Use Microsoft Translator in Microsoft Edge browser - Microsoft Support

Learn how to use Microsoft Translator in the Edge browser to translate webpages.

support.microsoft.com

 

[Stuart Wright]

I would like to install this addon:

[cXF] Google Translate Forum

This is a cXF Pack A Membership Add-on. Upgrade your account to cXF Pack A Membership for: 1-year access to all cXF Pack A Membership Add-ons for XenForo 2 1-year access to all cXF Premium Customizations for XenForo 2 If you got our...

xenforo.com

but stock Xenforo reactions JS breaks since it's incompatible with Google's JS.
I wonder whether @Chris D and the team might consider tweaking the reactions JS to fix the issue?

 

[Chris D]

We'd need much more information, a reproduction case and a bug report, please.

 

[Stuart Wright]

We'd need much more information, a reproduction case and a bug report, please.

Looks like Google have retired that code and are now expecting people to use the translation tool in Chrome. When not everyone uses Chrome.

[cXF] Google Translate Forum [Paid]

BassMan submitted a new resource: [cXF] Google Translate Forum - Add Google Translate to your forum with some extra features. This is a cXF Pack A Membership Add-on. Upgrade your account to cXF Pack A Membership for: 1-year access to all cXF Pack A Membership Add-ons for XenForo 2 1-year...

xenforo.com

We need some kind of translation tool on the page for quick translation of foreign posts (for the moderators at least), rather than alienating non-English speaking members by deleting their posts for not being in English.

 

[Alpha1]

For the moderators: you can ask them to use Chrome or another browser with suited plugin.

For the users: I think that ChatGPT offers really good translations. (with the right prompt) So an addon could be created to translate selected posts or pages. As @021 is creating various ChatGPT addons, maybe its something he is interested to create?

 

[Suzanne O]

I ban them as they're spammers