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.

  • Value SubtractedEnglish
    3•8 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.