How about making this community multilingual?
You might (or not) know that I've been doing quite a lot of thinking and research about multilingualism online (search for "multilingual" on my blog), and one thing I've been dreaming of is a truly multilingual support community.
Satisfaction strikes me as a great opportunity for this. There are quite a lot of strategic/technical issues I'm not going to detail here (yes, it's complicated), but I really think the web needs more spaces where "language management" is close to what it is in real people's lives -- not just a series of linguistic silos.
Customers are not all English-speaking -- and as most people are multilingual, it doesn't really make sense to break up the communities by language.
Satisfaction strikes me as a great opportunity for this. There are quite a lot of strategic/technical issues I'm not going to detail here (yes, it's complicated), but I really think the web needs more spaces where "language management" is close to what it is in real people's lives -- not just a series of linguistic silos.
Customers are not all English-speaking -- and as most people are multilingual, it doesn't really make sense to break up the communities by language.
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The company has this in progress.
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Hi all,
we are actively planning our localization and multilingual strategy. All this feedback is incredibly helpful. While I don't have a target release date at this point, we're looking at a phased approach to releasing features that support this. If anybody in this topic has direct experience with this localization process I'd love to talk with you separately. I'm thor at getsatisfaction.com
I’m excited
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First off, we're already seeing some non-English language communities adopt Satisfaction. See Eskwela [http://getsatisfaction.com/eskwela], a Filipino organization.
We are indeed very interested in this very topic, as you can see from Scott's post above. I agree with you, Steph, that this represents a huge opportunity. From my standpoint, the current lower priority of this focus has less to do with technical issues and more to do with the fact that we're in the "figuring out the business" stage. We have a lot to do to have a complete product and business model in one language before we tackle the broader challenge you describe.
But--good news--we're dealing with Internet time here, so hopefully we'll have more to discuss before too long.
I’m a very poor French speaker, but I enjoy French films
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Hey, thanks for everyone's patience on this issue. To expand a bit on what Thor said, we put up a blog post, if you're interested. We also have some forms you can add yourself to if you want to help translate. Also, vote on the language you think we should tackle first: http://bit.ly/6VvlQD
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Can we have an update on the internationalisation project, please ?
I’m a bit frustrated
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Create a language api - then the community will extend it.
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I need absolutly a French version. The most simple is to allow the (admin) user of GetSatisfaction to edit all the english content, to make their own translation. Thanks !
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Also, let us do the translation for you - just as Facebook does with every new language. Make a table and let us fill in the words for the languages we need.
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Yes, I know it's possible to do with the API. But what I would like is an option to set Get Satisfaction in a preferred language for a certain company or product.
So when (example) a Norwegian company makes a Get Satisfaction account, all pages for THAT company are Norwegian, unless the user are actively changing it back to English.
Also, I would liked the widget to be multilanguage. "Feedback" doesn't cut ity for some of our users.
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hi all,
some thoughts on this:
- Steph's idea seems to be more on having a localized interface than on having a "multilingual community". And, as Chuck and others mention, a localized interface is key for third-party companies that want to provide a "getsatisfaction" experience on their non-english sites. Pointing users from a, say, Spanish product interface to an English one is a no-go (even more when the English site is supposed to be the one where users would go in order to get support with technical issues). That is the main reason I don't consider GetSatisfaction as an option at this moment.
- once a localized interface is available, the real issue becomes the quality and availability of the support for each language. And that, IMHO, is something that does not fall under the getsatisfaction product/team, but more on the third-party company using the getsatisfaction platform. While the getsatisfaction team would provide tools/features (like the "translate this question" one mentioned before), there would still be some language-specific questions that would demand a native to provide an answer/solution on behalf of the product using the getsatisfaction platform.
- from my comment above, thus, I would suggest the getsatisfaction team to create a "localization & internationalization" section, where users interested in this subject could provide ideas and feedback about features/tools that would make it easier to create their own localized support sites.
- unfortunately, from my experience, it is hard to create a true multilingual site, where questions and answers get accurately translated only by the community. Third-party companies using the getsatisfaction platform would still need to offer local-language support (which could be covered by, ideally, customer care reps --employees or contractors--, or, depending on each case, by power users willing to help other users). It's very unlikely that companies wanting to offer localized support, using the getsatisfaction solution or their own, will ever be able to avoid the a) translation costs, b) need for local support reps, and c) an internationalization/localization team (or, at the very least, a l10n/i18n project manager).
my 2 € cents :-)
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Hot and bothered by human powered translation eh?
Another interesting aspect of this is that language can never fully translate, because cultures can never fully translate. So I really like the idea of this being driven by human translation, Google Translate for example, would definitely miss key context issues that need to be further explained, like the actual tone of a conversation.
A very cool extension could be built out with the API. Say there's a [translate this!] button and anyone who goes and translates a topic or a reply gets rewards similar to what we have planned for basic participation (like giving a really helpful answer). Then maybe in your own preferences you can ask to see certain languages, and we filter up those things for you. I'd love to find a way to do this that allows people from many cultures and languages to interact, not just silo one language from another like is normally the case on the web.
I’m brushing up on my Japanese
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Inappropriate?I'm not speaking for the bosses here, but in my mind establishing a multi-lingual community is way down the list. For technical and scheduling reasons.
There is simply too much to work on at the moment, both technically, procedurally and culturally. Setting the tone for these communities is a delicate process, I'm sure you're aware of that, and at the current state of things adding a language barrier won't help it.
On the technical side, we've got several issues. Besides the big issue of dealing with unicode support in ruby, you have small things like prioritizing topics in a searchers native language over results in a different language. To get it right we can't just tack on Mandarin support, for example.
While I haven't read through many of your posts on multilingualism yet (run a search is the poor man's version of a proper reading list :-)), I question the usefulness of getting closer to reality on one basic point: Does having a true multilingual site improve the experience for end users? I would argue that it would be a struggle of hiding/exposing the multilingual nature of any such site.
For example, you would most certainly have to build in language filters for your users. While most people may be multilingual, none of them are _that_ multilingual. Since you reside in a more multi-lingual landscape I'm sure on average the numbers of bi- and tri-lingual people you know is higher. How many people do you know that speak 7 languages? I would bet you can count them on one hand. Without those language filters, you significantly rise the signal to noise ratio for everyone, a terrible situation.
I do see one particular advantage as multilingualism pertains to satisfaction (If the other satisfactioneers remember, I was brainstorming on this issue as early as Feb. of this year). That advantage is community-driven translation. One of the things we learned on valleyschwag was that community members jump at the chance to translate a site. There is an entire sub-culture to subtitling Anime from japan and re-distributing on the internet. By baking in translation tools, we can generate more content than each language alone could do by itself.
Those tools get real interesting when we are dealing with a real multilingual environment. Imagine a thread that gets started in english, gets translated by the community into 17 different languages and as new replies come in those in turn get translated. A community driven universal translator.
The idea of such an environment gets me all hot and bothered. I guess I just disproved my own statement about usefulness up above.
I'm curious about your ideas in this area, specifically with regards to satisfaction. How would, in your opinion, a community made up of 12 languages and 24 cultures look and operate?
I’m excited
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The thing is, if we could set GS to look Norwegian, we could use it for some of our services. As it is now, it would be difficult for many of our users for several of our products to use GS. So this is on top of the list for us. -
I think trying to make a community multilingual is very hard, except for countries which have more than one national language (Switzerland, etc). On my site, which is for Finland, the entire site is trilingual, but the actual comments remain in whatever language they are in--translating comments is a fool's errand. You can filter the site to only see comments in languages you know, though. As far as GetSatisfaction is concerned, I'd just like to get the tools translated so it would be more user-friendly for my non-english speaking users. -
The thing is that this should have been on the top of the list BEFORE any other work was started... Then it wouldn't be such a huge problem as I am sure certainly is now... It might be time for everyone to think globally. The internet is almost everywhere now and is spreading fast... -
maybe you are over complicating the need here. i actually dont want one community for my product that supports multiple languages. my software product will be released with support for 2 languages, so i just want 2 communities - one in english, and one in japanese - for those that speak either. i am a one-man-shop creator. as it stands, if i want to use get satisfaction, i will have to direct english speakers here, and then handle japanese customers directly via email (the "old" way?). -
Inappropriate?First off, we're already seeing some non-English language communities adopt Satisfaction. See Eskwela [http://getsatisfaction.com/eskwela], a Filipino organization.
We are indeed very interested in this very topic, as you can see from Scott's post above. I agree with you, Steph, that this represents a huge opportunity. From my standpoint, the current lower priority of this focus has less to do with technical issues and more to do with the fact that we're in the "figuring out the business" stage. We have a lot to do to have a complete product and business model in one language before we tackle the broader challenge you describe.
But--good news--we're dealing with Internet time here, so hopefully we'll have more to discuss before too long.
I’m a very poor French speaker, but I enjoy French films
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ok -
Inappropriate?Hot and bothered by human powered translation eh?
Another interesting aspect of this is that language can never fully translate, because cultures can never fully translate. So I really like the idea of this being driven by human translation, Google Translate for example, would definitely miss key context issues that need to be further explained, like the actual tone of a conversation.
A very cool extension could be built out with the API. Say there's a [translate this!] button and anyone who goes and translates a topic or a reply gets rewards similar to what we have planned for basic participation (like giving a really helpful answer). Then maybe in your own preferences you can ask to see certain languages, and we filter up those things for you. I'd love to find a way to do this that allows people from many cultures and languages to interact, not just silo one language from another like is normally the case on the web.
I’m brushing up on my Japanese
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Inappropriate?i agree with thor -- once we've nailed product/market fit for satisfaction, it becomes all about expansion and execution, and multilingualism is a *huge* part of that.
I’m barely monolingual!
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Inappropriate?"While I haven't read through many of your posts on multilingualism yet (run a search is the poor man's version of a proper reading list :-)), I question the usefulness of getting closer to reality on one basic point: Does having a true multilingual site improve the experience for end users? I would argue that it would be a struggle of hiding/exposing the multilingual nature of any such site."
Yeah, sorry for the bad reading list -- I should put one together somewhere anyway. I'll definitely point you to it once I have.
Many end users who are not native speakers of English get a very poor experience of online support, because they limit their research (or their support interactions) to communities in their native language.
The problem is that as far as I can see with French, for example, those communities as a whole are less "rich" in knowledge than the English-speaking ones. I think one of the reasons for that is that non-native-English power users who have a good enough grasp of English migrate towards English-speaking communities, and stay there. There is a kind of "brain drain" over the linguistic borders.
So, I'm not sure there is really an added value for English speakers in creating multilingual communities or spaces, particularly in the customer satisfaction business. But for non-English speakers, that would give them access to people who speak their language and would maybe not spend most of their time hanging out in non-English communities.
I’m thinking
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Inappropriate?"For example, you would most certainly have to build in language filters for your users. While most people may be multilingual, none of them are _that_ multilingual. Since you reside in a more multi-lingual landscape I'm sure on average the numbers of bi- and tri-lingual people you know is higher. How many people do you know that speak 7 languages? I would bet you can count them on one hand. Without those language filters, you significantly rise the signal to noise ratio for everyone, a terrible situation."
Language filters and profiles are the key to a successful multilingual community, in my opinion. The profiles need to be much more subtle than "language on" and "language off", or "yes" and "no". [More about that in my talk at Google, somewhere in the video.]
As for how many people are multilingual (trying to give you links here, hope they come through ok), yes, living in a multilingual country does make me sensitive to those issues. But when I was in SF (monolingual country!) I was amazed by the number of different languages I would hear on the bus every day. Monolingual countries and cultures actually have lots of multilingual people in them.
One other thing to pay attention to is that what one understands and what one can say in a given language are very different. I could probably give an answer in English to a question asked in Italian, and the person who wrote the question will be able to make enough sense of my answer for it to be useful. Look at what happens in the comments on php.net.
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Inappropriate?We'd like to see some internationalization too here in Spain, and as a web developper, I know the pain it can be to bring this feature :)
Your service is great, and I'm sure you've got plenty of colorful ideas to implement before translating everything, so I'll keep an eye on this topic.
I’m discovering getsatisfaction.com
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Inappropriate?Get Satisfaction supports any language that uses Latin characters. If you'd like to localize the interface for your language you can do so by using out API (http://developers.getsatisfaction.com). Let us know if you need help getting started by emailing eric [at] getsatisfaction [dot] com.
We hope to support non-Latin characters in the future.
I’m a globetrotter wannabe
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Inappropriate?I believe that although you would need probably a Product Manager or Community moderator for other languages, that the process is not that bad (specially if you plan for it BEFORE you develop).
My site, http://amiggo.com was built from the ground up knowing that I would have several languages, and it would be very easy to add another language whenever I have the need to.
When I worked at Yahoo! they were going through major pains to internationalize products, because they were not developed with that rationale.
I'm happy to talk about it some more.
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Hmmm...posted the same comment above before I read this one. Exactly my point. -
Inappropriate?I'm located in Berlin, and we're building a site which will have many German and American users (primarily German). Of course, our German users will expect to have a system in German as many of them don't speak very good English. It's not easy, but as CTO of our company, I have to choose solutions that are also available in German, so I, unfortunately, won't be able to use Get Satisfaction.
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Amuzulo, we may have a solution for you! Please contact me at thor at getsatisfaction dot com and I'll tell you about it. -
hey chuck, I am ceo of a german company and I have the same challenge but would love to use GS. Did you try the API? I'd appreciate your feedback! thx, Martin -
Inappropriate?hi all,
some thoughts on this:
- Steph's idea seems to be more on having a localized interface than on having a "multilingual community". And, as Chuck and others mention, a localized interface is key for third-party companies that want to provide a "getsatisfaction" experience on their non-english sites. Pointing users from a, say, Spanish product interface to an English one is a no-go (even more when the English site is supposed to be the one where users would go in order to get support with technical issues). That is the main reason I don't consider GetSatisfaction as an option at this moment.
- once a localized interface is available, the real issue becomes the quality and availability of the support for each language. And that, IMHO, is something that does not fall under the getsatisfaction product/team, but more on the third-party company using the getsatisfaction platform. While the getsatisfaction team would provide tools/features (like the "translate this question" one mentioned before), there would still be some language-specific questions that would demand a native to provide an answer/solution on behalf of the product using the getsatisfaction platform.
- from my comment above, thus, I would suggest the getsatisfaction team to create a "localization & internationalization" section, where users interested in this subject could provide ideas and feedback about features/tools that would make it easier to create their own localized support sites.
- unfortunately, from my experience, it is hard to create a true multilingual site, where questions and answers get accurately translated only by the community. Third-party companies using the getsatisfaction platform would still need to offer local-language support (which could be covered by, ideally, customer care reps --employees or contractors--, or, depending on each case, by power users willing to help other users). It's very unlikely that companies wanting to offer localized support, using the getsatisfaction solution or their own, will ever be able to avoid the a) translation costs, b) need for local support reps, and c) an internationalization/localization team (or, at the very least, a l10n/i18n project manager).
my 2 € cents :-)
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Inappropriate?FWIW, more than half of Songbird's users are outside the U.S so multi-language support is key.
Language "silos" are okay by me. We use GS for community-based support, thus community translations of support topics is expected.
My question is *when* do we get language switching in the GS interface? I'm tempted to add a company called "Songbird - France", "Songbird - fr/FR" or something worse just to get the ball rolling. =)
Rob
I’m waiting for a solution.
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Inappropriate?Unfortunately, Rob, we just don't have this slotted in anywhere, so it could be awhile before we're able to tackle it.
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Inappropriate?While Eric's right that we don't have this feature scheduled, it *is* one of our key goals to achieve once we complete our current crop of tools. One of the things that has held us back so far is clear input from enough companies about the most useful approach (internationalization can be a can of worms if not planned well) . Your feedback, Rob, has us talking about some potential shorter term solutions to your particular needs. I'll be in touch separately about this.
I’m thankful
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Inappropriate?Yes, I know it's possible to do with the API. But what I would like is an option to set Get Satisfaction in a preferred language for a certain company or product.
So when (example) a Norwegian company makes a Get Satisfaction account, all pages for THAT company are Norwegian, unless the user are actively changing it back to English.
Also, I would liked the widget to be multilanguage. "Feedback" doesn't cut ity for some of our users.
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Same here, I would love to be able to use the widget in english and in french. I will look into that next week, any pointers are welcomed. -
Inappropriate?Also, let us do the translation for you - just as Facebook does with every new language. Make a table and let us fill in the words for the languages we need.
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Inappropriate?I agree with this approach. All we need is the interface to be in Portuguese. The contect will be made by the users. We're also available to translate.
Cheers, Sazima
I’m excited
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Inappropriate?I speak German, and I know there are a few other companies here who are native German speakers, too, so we might be able to help out.
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Inappropriate?I speak Swedish, maybe someone else does it here.. I can help translate abit..
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I can help translate a bit of Swedish. I know the phrase "bork bork bork", is that the one you know? -
lol no :P but Iam coding my own site so I known abit about english to swedish and swedish to english... -
Inappropriate?wordpress.com did it really well, they asked their users to translate bits of text. As a user you could translate as many as you liked or had time to.
The cool thing is that the whole comunity piched in.
I tried to push in my job getsatisfaction, but the language barrier killed the idea.
I’m confident
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This reply was removed on 10/25/08.
see the change log -
Inappropriate?I just came across http://99translations.com/ which looks like a nice way to get stuff translated by the community. Hey, uservoice is doing it! :-P
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Inappropriate?I've put some thoughts about this, and I think the Get Satisfaction management team should really get this rolling.
See my post here: "The Internet Connects People Globally. So Should Your Application" http://cli.gs/H8GYNd -
Inappropriate?One way to solve this, at least for me, is to make a wordpress plugin that builds the feedback overlay thingy. Wordpress has wonderful buildt in support for language files. A plugin like that could solve alot. With the info available over at http://developers.getsatisfaction.com/ someone should perhaps be able to hack something together? It would at least solve it for everyone using Wordpress as their cms of choice.
But the best solution would be a simple dropdown with available languages when we create a Get Satisfaction widget, and some sort of interface for editing / creating new languages.
I’m excited
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Inappropriate?Dо you have any troubles to be an international?
I have an experience in internationalization (working on badoo.com), so now i'm free to join GetSatisfaction team if so, or we can disscus about it to be clear ..
In fact it's not to hard (as you can think) to translate interface on any language, only translators is needed and many of customers of GetSatisfactions can help, translations of questions is not needed.
I can help with Russian translation and with coordination of translations to other languages (my english not so good, but understandable as you can see ;)
Look at youtube.com, they have two options "Country-content preferences" and "Inteface language".
It is possible to detect language by GeoIP and browser, so any question/idea/bug can be marked to specific language, if customer was wrong in supported language, employer can change it. Using widget from site it is possible to specify default language, employers can specify supported languages and choosing other than this languages will not be possible...is it not looks clear?)
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Inappropriate?There should be some space for using Google Translate API for an easy user experience. Google itself is rolling it out over its various services.
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Inappropriate?I had added a request to filter Overheard by language, but I thought later, hey, what if they ever go multilingual? I mean, I can't respond in moon language but maybe someone else can. I'd just like to be able to browse by a language, and perhaps overheard could still store other language tweets and just not show them to me, but perhaps others. As long as I can get an RSS feed of lang=en tweets, and someone else can get an RSS feed of lang=fr tweets (for example), I'll be happy.
(Interestingly Google's "translate this feed into my language" does work with the multiple languages Google Translate supports, but I can't manually post the translated version of the tweet too in the OP, only in the reply)
And of course I'm going to mention this in my other thread, but it applies here too. -
Inappropriate?@Thomas: What I am looking for is a Language-Switch for the UI, not the content.
But you are right, it would be nice to have a (optional) language filter(!) for the content as well.
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Yeah, but how do we recognize the content language? -
I only care about the content language for Overheard, as Summize has a filter for that. You shouldn't be dealing with so many hundreds of posts a day that it would matter, except when dealing with Overheard. -
Good question, CoPe. Arent there already solutions for that? If not, I suggest to take the language the user uses in his settings. That should solve the problem for most content. -
Inappropriate?on my site we really rarely had this problem but if
someone wrote in another language i simply used the Bable fish
if the language wasn't there i searched for a translator 2 that particular
language
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Inappropriate?if english language are not a problem inside our company, it is not same thing with our customers.
GetSatifaction is very simple an genius idea. I want to use it for our services but I have a problem with our non-english customer.
Simplier solution is to let us translate your ressources files and for use, we will open multiple company or product : one by langage we are able to treate (example for us : LiveTransport - Francais, LiveTransport - English, LiveTask english ect...)
I’m confident
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Inappropriate?I don't think GSFN should waste time going MultiLingual now when I have people posting replies to random topics because they can figure that out. I have people who post topics with their entire text of the problem posted in the tags section and very little information posted in the actual message section. I have people who see the title below the text section and think that subjects are always on top so they put the text in the one below. These are english speakers. They just don't understand the interface. It may be clear to Web 2.0 disciples, but it's not to the average person. Do you really think if the words telling people to do something (that they disobey) were in another language, that it would change?
I’m sad
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Inappropriate?of course, not ! but usualy, if you indicate "this is a french forum or thread", almost french people will write into, and it's enought for us.
Our main problem is GSFN screens are in english, I'm sure if it's will be resolve, each company will find the right organization for itself.
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Raynald, you're missing a point: if you encourage languages to segregate, there is a "brain-drain" of bilingual speakers towards english communities. You want to keep the support communities multilingual to prevent a silo effect and poorer knowledge in non-english communities. -
Steph, of course the best should be use just one language, but, our french customers doesn't well speak or write english, and, in my point of view, I prefer offer a poorer non-english knowledge than nothing.
We are starting with GetSatisfaction...in english, but we hope it migrate on multilangage platform, it's better for GetSatisfaction, and we could help GS Team -
Inappropriate?I need absolutly a French version. The most simple is to allow the (admin) user of GetSatisfaction to edit all the english content, to make their own translation. Thanks !
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French or other langage -
Inappropriate?Spanish interface please.
Best,
Héctor
http://noticiero.zoomblog.com
http://twitter.com/hectorarturo
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Inappropriate?Thanks for the continued input & feedback on this everyone. This is something we definitely hope to tackle in 2009. We'll keep you posted!
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Inappropriate?What about hebrew translation for the feedback widget
i can help -
Inappropriate?No news on this feedback ?
Do you fix a roadmad ? a schedule ?
It's important for us to determine if we use or not your services
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Inappropriate?In Turkey, lots of websites or companies should use getsatisfaction but in our country we have some difficulties to use these services in English. And i think getsatisfaction should start thinking about adding new language support like Turkish or German or Spanish etc.
it'll be great for gs.
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Inappropriate?At Online, a widget is also needed. It would like to see it at the Belarusian language, I am ready to support.
I’m happy
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Inappropriate?if you think on makling it multilingual, let people type in their languages with a transliteration tool like
http://www.google.com/transliterate/i...
http://www.google.com/transliterate/i...
http://www.ok-board,com
http://www.translit.ru -
Inappropriate?I may be an English-only speaker myself, but I know may people need this feature. Even if auto-translated text was used, with the ability for users or specially designated translators could 'vote' on the best word usage to improve it.
Obviously the focus should be on getting the UI multilingual first, any work towards translating content can wait until afterward.
I’m hopeful
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Inappropriate?The most important thing, as they said, is to have the interface translated. It's true language ghettos are no good, but it's a beginning.
I’m impatient
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Inappropriate?I'm trying to evangelise my users to GS, and nobody want to use it. Each time, I ask why and there is two reason, main reason is "your stuff is in english, no french version ?" and second is "why we don't have the same login/pwd on you stuff ?".
For the second, we plan to implement something with GS API.
But for the first...
GS is a very good tool and I love it.
So, could we help you to translate ?
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Hi Raynald,
With our new Single Sign On you can pass your users right into GS. Here's more info about it: http://getsatisfaction.com/developers...
Here's more info about the package: http://getsatisfaction.com/plans/premium
We're not quite ready to tackle internationalization yet, but when we are, I'm sure we'll be reaching out to those of you who have offered to translate. Thank you! -
Inappropriate?Our company is looking for a croud-source Customer Support solution and we really like getsatisfaction. However since the great majority of our customers speak German, we yet can't start use it efficiently. Please provide localised user interfaces!
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Inappropriate?Hi all,
we are actively planning our localization and multilingual strategy. All this feedback is incredibly helpful. While I don't have a target release date at this point, we're looking at a phased approach to releasing features that support this. If anybody in this topic has direct experience with this localization process I'd love to talk with you separately. I'm thor at getsatisfaction.com
I’m excited
3 people think
this is one of the best points
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Inappropriate?Definitely interested by i18n interface. It's the best to have a GS firm interface in the same language as the firm website.
I'm in to help translating if needed. I've already done some work for Ubuntu with Rosetta.
I’m excited
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Inappropriate?It could be nice to translate into Spanish, for example, as other languages, so we can offer the service to our customers (not all the people know English).
I think you could the opensource service Launchpad to coordinate people and then translate to the other languages by its advanced Translation CMS.
Hoping you will translate to other languages
I’m excited
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Inappropriate?Hi everyone. We're a small swedish company that's building a swedish version of (a slimmed down) getsatisfaction. Feel free to have a look: http://kundo.se
2 people think
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Inappropriate?Great idea
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Inappropriate?When will this be in other languages?? I'd like this to be in spanish!!
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
More languages.
I’m sad
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Inappropriate?please add this in french, it s huge :)
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
multilingual.
I’m happy
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
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Inappropriate?Yes please, need spanish, català & french language...
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Inappropriate?Spanish please! We want to use your service but we can't, since it isn't available in our language.
It's sad, but here in Spain (a 45 million people country, btw), only a few understands english...
I’m confident
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Inappropriate?I stumbled over this just a few minutes ago and i think the concept is absolutely great. Will you be localizing it sometime soon, i.e. offer this wonderful service in let's say, german or french, too?
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
are you going to get international?.
I’m excited
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Inappropriate?German language support would be very nice for our German customers.
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
German language support.
I’m happy
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Inappropriate?Hi there. First of all, Get Satisfaction is a great service and I would love to use it for my company - however, my company is located in Norway and 99.9% of my customers are Norwegian and I'm pretty sure not all of them would be comfertable with going to an English site to get support.
So my question is - will ever get satisfaction be translated to Norwegian? And if not, would you be interested in a partnership with Norwegian company that could run a Norwegian version of this site?
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Will Get Satisfaction get translated into other languages?.
I’m happy
1 person thinks
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Inappropriate?J'aimerais voir Get Satisfaction en français...est-ce possible ?
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Get Satisfaction en français.
I’m sad
2 people think
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Inappropriate?Are you interested in a modern german Translation?
greetings, michael
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
German translation?.
I’m happy
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Inappropriate?Yes Steph,
It is a great idea! But is it a practical one?
Yola would need a great deal of translation/technical work to make its site multilingual. And that would come only at a great cost.
Being a retired Translator from Canada I can tell you that it would be a substantial job.
After all, English is everyone's language of business today.
Making Yola in any other language would entail making it also in all other languages, so no community would feel neglected.
Unless there would be some strong economical/financial incentives for Yola to go that way, I do not think it is a viable alternative in itself.
Chris -
Inappropriate?


Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/sta...
Just making a point here.
The Internet consists of 30% English. By translating the site and making good comment-translation system, You can get to the rest 70%.
That aside... Interesting chart to look at anyway :)
I’m amused
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completamente de acuerdo! -
Inappropriate?All my users are Dutch-speaking. I want them to be able to fill in a form that has Dutch words on it. I don't need any smartypants multilingual functionality: my users will post their items and their replies in Dutch, and I don't need to make those things available in any way to an English- or other-speaking community. All I want is to show my users a form that has Dutch words to replace 'Post reply' or 'Add an image' or 'Give praise' etc.
I’m flummoxed
2 people think
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2 people think
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Inappropriate?Dear Sir,
Your services are great but the problem is that you don't support Arabic language.
I kindly ask you to make it Arabic support and it would be really great because
you have a great service and we need it to support our language.
Thank you.
Abdulrahman
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
don't support Arabic language.
I’m sad
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Inappropriate?Are you guys making any progress on this? It's really a "must" (for the user interface).
1 person thinks
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Inappropriate?Create a language api - then the community will extend it.
8 people think
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Agree, the apps just need the localization structure, then the community will translate the original contents in all the languages. -
Inappropriate?Una interfaz en español por favor, esto les está afectando su crecimiento en Latinoamérica..................... we need a interface in spanish, you not are growing in latin america...
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Inappropriate?As Eivind said, creating an api structure is, imho, the better way to do that.
When the structture is ready and usable, the getsatisfaction team just need to choose some volounteers that will translate the original content into they own languages
I’m excited
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This comment was removed on 08/29/09.
see the change log -
Inappropriate?Great suggestions, all. We haven't kicked off this project yet, so there's still time to get your suggestions like this in. We want to do this right.
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Inappropriate?What do you think about translating this website into other languages?
I can help to translate it to polish and promote it among polish entrepreneurs.
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Getsatisfactoin on polish market?.
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Inappropriate?Do you have multilingual interface? I need support for multiple languages, each should be separated (have their own questions in their own language) and should see the GetSatisfaction interface in their language.
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Multilanguage Localization support.
I’m unsatisfied
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Inappropriate?I recommend you to look att Polldaddy.com. They handle translations in a very simple and effective way. You download a template file that you translate. The file is then uploaded to Polldaddy and becomes a resource in your account. That way you can have different translations for different polls. Translations files should work here to and that way you dont have to worry about different wordings in different companies and cultures.
/Anders
1 person thinks
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I momentarily misunderstood you, Anders. Thought you were from GetSatisfaction. I agree with you completely that it would be so easy for GetSatisfaction to make their site multilingual by allowing companies that use the widgets to edit those few words and stock phrases that make up the basic interface. This page says it all: http://support.polldaddy.com/poll-lan... -
Inappropriate?When will it be possible to translate Get Satisfaction into Swedish, Finish and Norwegian?
Look at Polldaddy. com They are handling translations in an excellent way
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Translation of Get Satisfaction the Polldaddy way. -
Stop following this topic. Or, simply turn off all emails from your dashboard: http://getsatisfaction.com/people/dan... -
Inappropriate?@Eric
I've been "stopping to follow this idea" for almost 20 "original" replies already.
And since I do want to receive emails on other topics, your solution is not satisfactory.
I’m pissed off
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Sorry that you are still pissed off, Dan. I will have our team take a look. It could be a bug. I'll do my best to find out. Hopefully, we can get it sorted out quickly. -
Also, Dan. I have this in our bug-tracking system. Taking a closer look. We'll try to get it fixed. Appreciate your reporting it. -
Dan, is it possible that you have created more than one account in our system? For example, here: http://getsatisfaction.com/people/dan... -
And here: http://getsatisfaction.com/people/dan... -
I've now turned off all email notifications for these extra two accounts. -
Inappropriate?Hi Dan. So sorry for the annoyance & frustration.
Did you click "stop follow it" up at the top of this page under the original topic post, or under the "Follow" tab over in the right column, or did you click to stop following it from the email notifications?

I'm just trying to determine if one of these functions isn't working or if it's some bizarre bug that is specific to this topic. -
It appears you had 3 different usernames linked to the same email. You were stopping only one of them but the others keep going. Better keep track of your accounts! -
Inappropriate?it think it's reasonable to assume that if I subscribe to a topic under a given login (username/password), when I unsubscribe, that user should be left alone.
Better keep track of your data structures....
I’m sad, because you shouldn't be blaming your users.
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I agree partially, they shouldn't have let you sign up with the same e-mail address multiple times, but then again, you shouldn't have tried to sign up with the same e-mail address multiple times. -
Actually, Thomas, to clarify, our system does not allow people to create more than one account with the same email address. To create multiple user accounts on Get Satisfaction, you have to use a different email address for each. -
Then what really happened? -
Inappropriate?Getsatisfaction you need to start satisfy your user - hardly anything evolving. How hard could it be to implement localization? Not "5 months+ hard" I know for sure as a developer. Do it while non-english speaking people still aiming their eyes on this site. There are other communities like this cooking that got big visions and funding.
I’m frustrated
2 people think
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Inappropriate?I agree with Jonas. I guess that shouldn't be so hard to implement localization/translation to Getsatisfaction within 5 monts. I've been waiting for a long time for a french version or a way to translate to actual version.
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?Hi all,
I can appreciate how important this is to so many--it's important to us, too. We haven't had the opportunity to devote developer resources to this up this point given our other commitments. However, I'm happy to say that localization is a top priority for us over the next few months!
I will post updates along the way, and I hope people continue to be as vocal and creative with their suggestions as they've always been.
Thanks, as always.
I’m excited
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Inappropriate?It is going to take us several months to complete all that we want to achieve with internationalization. We have a complex system, and we have to do it right. Just setting up a framework for localization of the widgets is likely to take a few weeks, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
We have significant architectural changes and system updates in front of us to allow for localizations in a scalable way. And we have to do it in a way that does not disrupt existing customers. As is common with these things, the challenge is less with the basic technology than with all that surrounds it--design, systemic effects, support processes, etc.
That doesn't mean we won't do releases before that, but we have to be realistic with overall timelines. -
Inappropriate?Thor,
As a Japanese business level translator since college and working with my wife on Kiva.org Tagalog translation projects, including our own site, I have to commend you all on the internationalized push given the complexities surrounding localization.
Well, if you all do decide to set up a volunteer network like Kiva.org then my CSR's would help you all do Tagalog reviews and Japanese would be a synch for me.
~Clint
I’m confident
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Thanks, Clint! I might just take you up on that :) -
Inappropriate?I am also interested on the spanish version! or any easy way to make a translation!
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Inappropriate?language versions for the user interface - good service, but difficult to use if it doesn't support multiple languages.
It would be enough, if we could translate the feedback-widget UI ourselves to the local languages. Or if we could provide all the UI texts ourselves (eg. in one language-file).
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Multilingual user interface.
I’m sad
2 people think
this is one of the best points
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Inappropriate?Have you ever considered to use Facebook Translations for Facebook Connect? http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/i...
I’m interested
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Inappropriate?Hi there! I ́m new here and found GetSatisfaction totally awesome, perfect for my carpooling website destined to Brazilian audience (I ́m a Brazilian myself - www.cabemaisum.com.br). However, English-speakers in Brazil are not many and I ́d need the full software translated to Portuguese for mid-January at best! I can translate probably the whole site till then if you guys send me the text files in a way you can understand later.... Are you interested in developing some kind of partnership? I can assure you there ́s a huge market for GetSatisfaction here, particularly amongst big companies and big agencies which are not that hard to get in touch with... Well, anyway, I totally need a service like yours on my website, if GetSatisfaction is not interested or cannot make available at this moment its service in Portuguese , could you recommend some other software that would do the trick for me? Thanks a lot!
I’m unsure
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Inappropriate?I'm surprised that after more than two years there's still not a solution to offer GS in multiple languages. Isn't it just a matter of putting language keys to each word and switch the "skin"? There isn't that much content to be translated here, or am I underestimating it?
I'm hesitant to spend 300 or 900 dollars in a monthly subscription if it will only be a tool I can use with our English community.
I’m suprised this doesn't have higher priority for Get Satisfaction
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
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Inappropriate?I find it also weird that nothing is happening on this side. Are the funds on the side of GS missing to put the multiple languages option into reality?
GetSatisfaction is such a great idea, why don't you use the community to help you with translations?
I’m afraid GetSatisfaction is running out of cash
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This has nothing to do with cash or translations, Christian. We have non-trivial infrastructure work to do (i.e. "internationalization") which is a pre-requisite for effective localization. Wikipedia explains this well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internat...
We are in the midst of the internationalization portion of the project.
Lest we get ahead ourselves, please keep in mind that Facebook didn't launch its localization effort until nearly four years after it launched. We are just two years since our launch, and we are on our way. -
Inappropriate?That is SOOOOOO true on the Facebook point since my wife and I waited forever just to see a page of it which was half right in Tagalog. I am working on ours as well and it is a bear so look forward to seeing the GS progress Thor.
~Clint
I’m confident
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Thanks, Clint. We appreciate the support and understanding! :) -
Inappropriate?I think you cannot compare facebook with "get satisfaction" !!! Facebook tries to build a (worldwide) social network. So, most of the user are able to understand english commands. But "get satisfaction" should be to intense the contact with my customers. And MY customers are living in germany. And they are feeling comfortable when the can speak and read there language. I think "get satisfaction" should be a tool to give satisfaktion to my customers, not to loss them! Michael
I’m frustrated
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
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Agree. If you compare yourself to Facebook that building something completely different, then you on wrong track. Never thought I would say this to GetSatisfaction crew actually. xP Meh. Hope you recognize and realize, I'm sure you do. -
Inappropriate?The Facebook point is only to demonstrate how long it can take to internationalize and localize. I can certainly appreciate that, and am glad to see that you have started down that long road.
I’m confident
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
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Inappropriate?Can anyone give me a link to a foreign language community or one that has customised the interface via API?
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Inappropriate?does GS support other languages??
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
does GS support other languages??.
I’m unsure
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Inappropriate?Multilingual support is definitively a must. Any date on the roadmap?
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It's in the works, but we don't have a delivery date just yet. We will likely be releasing it in stages, with the first stage coming early in the new year. -
Inappropriate?I am using a tool for Webforms called Wufoo (www.wufoo.com), and it has had excellent language-support for all kinds of languages for quite a while. Maybe the GS-people could take a look on their solution?
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