
Give us your service as-is - ailon
https://blog.ailon.org/rest-of-world-as-a-region-404087860c4c
======
gcp
My personal frustration is that when things do get localized, the localization
is sometimes outright _wrong_. Like, the person who's doing the localization
didn't even do basic fact checking on what language a country speaks.

I'd rather have access to the US English pages (which are useful) than a
language I don't speak (which makes it clear your products are made by
doofuses).

Also why on earth does no-one respect Accept-Language and uses GeoIP instead?
Do people in SV just never travel?

~~~
Eridrus
Is Accept-Language widely and correctly sent by browsers?

I've seen some pretty weird Accept-Language strings getting sent by UAs, but I
don't really know how accurate they are compared to GeoIP + Account Settings.

~~~
phn
I don't know about accuracy, but please, put Accept-Language in front of
location/GeoIP.

It is frustrating when Google redirects to the country I'm in.

I still speak the same languages even if I'm traveling!

~~~
Eridrus
But that's the thing, browsers regularly send Accept-Language, if it's overall
less accurate than ip geolocation, then it's hard to prefer it.

~~~
phn
Well, it generally mimics your OS settings, so why is it inaccurate?

The worst case is pages displaying in the same language as the rest of my
computer.

~~~
Eridrus
There's a long tail of mobile browsers out there. I also don't know how many
people have OS settings that differ from their real language preference due to
poor OS support for their language (e.g. what this article talks about - how
many users run en-US to get features that Win10/Android/etc doesn't do well in
their language)

I mean, there are reasonable arguments either way here IMO and without actual
data, e.g. how often users change their language from one or the other, it's
hard to know what is better in the long tail.

And obviously users should be able to change their preference if we get it
wrong.

~~~
gcp
_I also don 't know how many people have OS settings that differ from their
real language preference due to poor OS support for their language_

Why would these people be badly served by being sent pages corresponding to
their OS language? It's clearly preferable for them over poor localization.

------
cocktailpeanuts
The reason it's not supported is not because "Fuck you", but because
supporting a feature is not as easy as just rolling it out.

What's important is what happens AFTER the rollout. Most people (like the
author) have no idea what's going on behind the scenes and just think it would
be a simple thing, and criticize the company based on this assumption.

But I am sure these same people will be the ones who complain the most when
the company _does_ end up rolling out the half-baked features.

~~~
mcguire
Well, yeah, on one hand, getting criticized for not serving some group of
consumers is much easier to handle than off-the-wall support requests and
complaints about poor support.

But on the other hand, this is how most of the internet works, after all. No
one is translating HN comments to Finnish real-time, right?

------
bowlofpetunias
The primary reason for not providing services in "rest of the world" is
apparently "fuck you".

The same applies to not respecting your language of choice.

But the absolute worst is American companies (it's always American services,
and not just because of US dominance) manipulating content based on GeoIP and
giving me a shitty localized version of their service for no legal or
commercial reason.

It's infuriatingly patronizing.

------
mcculley
Does anyone have great examples of localization done right? I'm trying to
build an internationalized web application right now and I am interested in
best practices.

Edited: I mean web applications that work well for international users (e.g.,
ltr and rtl direction, taking countries and languages into account, etc.).

~~~
atomlib
Personal names around the world
[https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-
names](https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names)

~~~
teddyh
Or the classic _Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names_ :

[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-
programmers-b...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-
believe-about-names/)

------
fennomannic
Separate issue, but I'm quite frustrated with countries being lumped together
by geographic proximity regardless of culture and language. It's possible to
drive from Helsinki to Saint Petersburg or Riga on a single tank, but as Dota
matchmaking will thoroughly demonstrate, it might as well be a different
planet.

~~~
konschubert
I don't think the Russians will let you cross the border on a tank

~~~
smacktoward
It's true. Driving tanks across borders is _their_ job!

------
gambiting
Yep, it's incredibly frustrating that even though I speak fluent English, and
a product is available in English, I can't purchase/use the product, because
I'm in the wrong region.

~~~
gcp
Purchasing can be understandable. The laws for that do vary from country to
country, and evolve over time (see VAT regulations in Europe). This will be
tricky for smaller operators. But free services? Not so much.

Yet, you'd think that companies like Microsoft and Google can deal with the
sales as well, but they don't, at least not universally. Either through
organizational incompetence or just plain indifference.

Google will literally _SPAM_ you with services they _REFUSE_ to sell to you.

------
netman21
Wait until GDPR kicks in on May 25, 2018. ANY company that collects data on EU
citizens (Name, phone number, email adress, geo location) will be required to
comply or be subject to 20 million euro fines. So your Apple Store app that
you offer for free because you use it to collect data? You must hire a Data
Protection Officer (DPO)and be able to erase a user's data on request. I
predict that will lead to blocking EU citizens from many services outright to
avoid having to comply with an onerous regulation.

~~~
tendersej
Yeah, and giving up on the biggest and richest market in the world ? The
companies that do will soon see competitors grab for the cake, while the
others will clean up their act and maybe even improve how they treat their
customers in the US and rest of the world (though I am not holding my breath
for that one)

------
zeveb
The page doesn't display without JavaScript, and it even breaks Firefox's
Reader mode. Anyone have a link to the plain text? I'd kinda like to read the
article as-is.

