Submission in another language. Thoughts?
PkmnTrainerJ-ING
Posts: 3,978 Ambassador
I’ve got this review recently in the UK, but the submission is in Polish. No issues with the submission itself, but what’s the thoughts on submissions in other languages?
Should those in the UK only submit nominations in English? Should you submit in a local language when making submissions in another country? Would you accept if the submission was not in the country’s main language?
Comments
Once upon a time, I believe there was guidance that the local language is "preferred," but that reviewers should not lower their ratings based on the language of the nomination text. I would still apply that and rate the nomination as you would any other, with assistance from a translation service if needed.
I would 1* or 2* the title/description and review everything else normally.
Why? There is no basis for rejecting based solely on the language of the submission--and a 1 or 2 star review is a rejection.
Because a title/description in a language that is not spoken in my country is useless. I'm fine with English or any of our two natively spoken languages. I see absolutely no reason to pollute the game with descriptions and titles in a language the vast majority of players will not be able to read.
If you saw a nomination from, say, France that was in English would you reject that?
If not, why not?
I see reviews in four different languages and it has honestly never occurred to me to penalise a nomination because it is not in the native language of its geographical location.
For one thing, how do you even judge what the correct language would be? So many countries have multiple official languages (China, for example, has at least 7).
Some languages are regional and not defined by geographic borders. Just in the UK you have English, Welsh, Gaelic and Cornish (and whatever those guttural, grunting noises they make anywhere North of Reading are :)
I say use Google translate and if the title and description make sense then star accordingly. If local players then want to submit changes to make it into whatever language is best for them, they can do so.
Niantic has stated that there is no language requirement for a nomination. Local langauge is prefered, but if the nomination is in another language, then it is still acceptable. You should never lower your rating or reject a nomination based on the language the nomination is in.
I'm conflicted on this. We're curating a database here, and information that most users won't understand is less useful than information they can understand. There is no formal language requirement, but is that an oversight? Personally, I'd probably use a 'skip' on this one as it's one that's likely not to lead to an agreement.
That's a really wierd one, but I'd just accept it (it looks perfectly eligible) and then a local player can add an edit in English once it arrives in the games.
No, it's not an oversight. Telling players they can't submit portals if they don't know the local language is the absolute anthesis of "encouraging exploration".
Oh you found a brilliant wayspot while visiting tribal lands? Sorry, rejected because the title and description aren't in Cherokee.
For all we know, the area where this nomination is located could have a large Polish-speaking community who would love to see it in the game.
Nothing's stopping them from using google translate and submitting in the same language the sign is written in.
That's presuming they have Google Translate on their phone. But it is still not legitimate grounds for a rejection.
...and they are assuming everyone reviewing has access to Google Translate.
It's easier for one person to translate than for many.
Assuming that reviewers have access to translator tools is exactly how Niantic assumes things to work. Getting also nominations one doesn't understand without the tools is the usual experience for a lot of reviewers.
I only see nominations from Norway but if one slips through from Sweden or Denmark then of course not. But if I were to see a nomination from France why on earth would I reject it for being in French? If you read the very first sentence of the first post here you'll see that that example isn't relevant in this context. OP was asking about a Polish nomination in the UK, not a French nomination in France.
...and this is a silly way of doing it, which is why I raised it as a potential oversight. It's easier for one person to translate than for many (and this is true no matter how many people press 'disagree'!).
It"s not an oversight. In the current system where one gets nominations from several countries and in several languages, it'd be sillier to start rejecting nominations in languages one doesn't understand.
Consequences would be far worse than an occasional inconvenience of having to use translator tools.
(Naturally I"d love to be able to choose what languages I'm comfortable with but I don't see it realistic.)
Ummm... You might want to take another look at my post. The first sentence reads:
"If you saw a nomination from, say, France that was in English would you reject that?"
I guess I could have structured that sentence a bit better but I certainly didn't say a French nomination from France.
You are mixing up two different problems. It would be easy for Niantic to auto-detect languages and allow us to filter ones we don't speak, and even easier to filter by country, but that's not the issue here. In this case, we're talking about a location that only gets native language submissions in English (or possibly very rarely Welsh). I'm nearby and my wayfarer stats show I've done 12447 reviews. In all that time I only saw 2 non-English submissions, both in Welsh. This submission will be incomprehensible to around 99% of reviewers, and 99% of people who would see the waypoint if it's accepted. This is a 'corner case' as Niantic likes to call them, which is why it's an oversight.
I am from Quebec where the first language is French and I review English nominations from upgrades all the time. Is it that hard for English speakers to make the same effort as us? Pretty much everyone who don't speak English never ever reject a nomination because it's in English...
You're in a bilingual country. This nomination is not from a bilingual country, it's from a country where 99% of people will not be able to understand a single word of it, and those who can read it could still read it if it were in English. Totally different situations.
Shouldnt matter what language it is. Don’t tank a nomination based off of if you don’t understand the language. In Canada yes the 2 official languages are english and french but if I got something from ottawa that was in a different language may it be manderan, german, italian I would not reject as Ottawa is a very big city with many different cultures inside it
i tend to skip a nomination if i cant read it but i wont ever down vote it because I cant read it
Try reading my posts properly then.
Why not just skip it? There's no "penalty" for skipping nominations for review, correct?
But you're limited to 3 skips each day. Otherwise, you have to wait for at least 20 minutes each for 'timeout' skips.
I think it violates Wayfarer's Criteria to make it 1* for reasons that do not fall under Rejection Criteria.
I use a translator to review like a normal submission. If you can't read the text, you can't review if it's 1*.
With the current review system, if you don't understand the meaning even if you translate it, you have no choice but to decline the review (skip / leave it for 20 minutes).
Reference page:
Pokémon GO Help Center - Submitting a Poké Stop Nomination
👇English version
https://niantic.helpshift.com/hc/en/6-pokemon-go/faq/41-submitting-a-pokestop-nomination/?l=ja
"While titles and descriptions may be submitted in any language, the official local language is preferred."
👇Japanese version
https://niantic.helpshift.com/hc/ja/6-pokemon-go/faq/41-submitting-a-pokestop-nomination/?l=ja
"Titles and descriptions can be submitted in any language."
Nominations in a different language are often confusing, but that in itself is not a reason for rejection.
However, when I ask myself if I can really review with 100% confidence a nomination in a language I don't know and can't read or write at the same time, can I do so correctly? But at the same time, can I really review a nomination in an unknown language that I cannot read or write with 100% confidence? (Because the fine nuances of a language cannot be conveyed by translation.)
It is a difficult question.
I frequently get nominations from parts of France, and my ability to speak French is very limited. However, I have to say that the nuances of the French language and culture have rarely had to be investigated. Nominations are pretty much the same, coal is still coal, statues are still statues and nominations on PRP are the same. Similarly, soccer fields, playgrounds and information signs and maps. Google Translate works well. A little more effort is required to translate things, but its not a major problem, 90% of the reviews either side of the channel are "standard nominations".
I recently got this nomination. I used Google Translate to make sure it didn't say anything ineligible.
I accepted it, but it is going to be impossible to enter that into out local data base. We can't input those characters. I assume someone will edit it if it goes live.
If it was anything more nuanced than a playground, I would have used a skip.
Yesterday I got a nomination from within the UK that was apparently in Lithuanian (?) according to Google Translate. Glad that I saw this thread before I got it as I knew to review it like a normal stop!
Anyway the nomination was coal so it was an easy reject regardless 😅