Language switching performed by observer
Websites (see hubzilla.org for examples) and the help pages in #
Hubzilla provide a language switcher (with a dropdown menu) per page. This allows the visitor/observer to choose between the language versions of the content for each content individually. The observer is empowered (selbstbestimmt, souverän, ...) in these cases.
I would say this mechanism is the state of the art in web publishing, with
langswitcher in Grav,
wpglobus in Wordpress, the
translate extension in MediaWiki and so on allowing it.
I propose to use this language switcher or something similar also for the rest of the publication types which exist in Hubzilla (e.g. wiki pages, articles, posts, cards, comments ...). This tool should allow the observer to see in which languages the content is provided and then to switch between these content versions. For that purpose, the language of the content could maybe be defined as customary by [observer.language=...][/observer]. See conceptual visualisation below, but I can also imagine a collapse/expand mechanism as done by the [summary][/summary] tag, maybe better realizable since some content has no header (e.g. comments).
Language switching performed by the system (not discernable by the observer)
Hubzilla recognizes #
multilingual content in wiki pages, articles, posts, cards, comments and so on when defined by [observer.language=...][/observer]. It then only shows (respectively hides when defined with an
!) the content corresponding to the observer language
1. While I agree with showing the content like this as the default content, I don't agree with the fact that the other versions of the content are not visible. The observer is not aware that there are other versions of the content in other languages. Because of this automated hiding mechanism the observer is subject to the author's authority which is irresponsible from an ethical point of view. The usage of this bbcode tag in content which is accessible by more than one observer can create confusion. I used this bbcode tag once in a comment to a forum thread in which the discussion was having comments in 2 languages (
here), and I feel bad having done so (there was no confusion created, but still I feel having cheated on the readers). Hiding/showing content should only be done by using the Access Control List.
1 The observer language is set by the browser. This setting can be overwritten by the observer by using the Hubzilla app /lang which is accessed on its own path. This app is thus not usable for language switching while reading content. Please vote
Yes: I like that idea of allowing observers to recognize all multilingual content as such and to switch the language for each multilingual content.
No: I don't like it, language switching for [observer.language=..][/observer]-type multilingual content in Hubzilla should be done only by the system.
!
Hubzilla Development
