[sejje]

I think multi -language forums with AI translators is a cool idea.

You post in your own language, and the site builds a translation for everyone, but they can also see your original etc.

I think building it as a forum feature rather than a browser feature is maybe worth.

[pjerem]

You know that this is the most hated feature of reddit ? (because the translations are shitty so maybe that can be improved)

[subscribed]

OTOH I am participating in a wonderful discord server community, primarily Italians and Brazilians, with other nationalities sprinkled in.

We heavily use connected translating apps and it feels really great. It would be such a massive pita to copy every message somewhere outside, having to translate it and then back.

Now, discussions usually follow the sun, and when someone not speaking, say, Portuguese wants to join in, they usually use English (sometimes German or Dutch), and just join.

We know it's not perfect but it works. Without the embedded translation? It absolutely wouldn't.

I also used pretty heavily a telegram channel with similar setup, but it was even better, with transparent auto translation.

[tjoff]

Reddit would be even worse if the translations were better, now you don't have to waste much time because it hits you right in the face. Never ever translate something without asking about it first.

When I search for something in my native tongue it is almost always because I want the perspective of people living in my country having experience with X. Now the results are riddled with reddit posts that are from all over the world with crappy translation instead.

[Terr_]

I think we should distinguish between the feature being good/hated:

1. An automatic translation feature.

2. Being able to submit an "original language" version of a post in case the translation is bad/unavailable, or someone can read the original for more nuance.

The only problem I see with #2 involves malicious usage, where the author is out to deliberately sow confusion/outrage or trying to evade moderation by presenting fundamentally different messages.

[sejje]

I didn't, but I don't think it would work well on an established English-only forum.

It should be an intentional place you choose, and probably niche, not generic in topic like Reddit.

I'm also open to the thought that it's a terrible idea.

[monerozcash]

I think the audience that would be interested in this is vanishingly small, there exist relatively few conversations online that would be meaningfully improved by this.

I also suspect that automatically translating a forum would tend to attract a far worse ratio of high-effort to low-effort contributions than simply accepting posts in a specific language. For example, I'd expect programmers who don't speak any english to have on average a far lower skill level than those who know at least basic english.

[debugnik]

That's Twitter currently, in a way. I've seen and had short conversations in which each person speaks their own language and trusts the other to use the built-in translation feature.