Policy on foreign languages

I really would like to (re-)open the debate on using foreign languages for the summary.

I have several Belgian series (mainly soups or series that have a very long history like Familie, Thuis, F.C. De Kampioenen, ...) where I have the summary for 10+ seasons, but I only have it in Dutch.
It's no problem for me to translate each of them, but that's very time consuming.
So if I can now post them all just in Dutch, I can take the time to translate them all.
And other people can also translate them if they want.

So i think that the possibility of having an English summary and a summary in the foreign language (like Ron suggested) can be very usefull

Just my 2 cents... :-)

There are some sites out there that allow foreign summaries to be added and it is a complete mess to be honest. People that are actually able to translate them will not do it as they are able to read them. It is a nice idea in theory, but in practical matter it won't be.

I, myself watch a lot of foreign series and I want to understand what it is about. Am I able to understand a series if it is written in Korean? No I don't.

It is just not usable in current lay-out

ThomasNL wrote:
There are some sites out there that allow foreign summaries to be added and it is a complete mess to be honest. People that are actually able to translate them will not do it as they are able to read them. It is a nice idea in theory, but in practical matter it won't be.
I, myself watch a lot of foreign series and I want to understand what it is about. Am I able to understand a series if it is written in Korean? No I don't.
It is just not usable in current lay-out

I understand your concerns, but most of these series I'm referring to will only be watched by Belgian people (or people who speak Dutch in general).
Like I said, I have summaries for thousands of episodes for more than 1 show, so translating all of them is very time consuming.
I think the most people that watch these shows will benefit from having the summaries available right now (in Dutch), than having no summary at all.

Hi Michael,

Chiming in on what Thomas said with my own thoughts on the matter.

It's an idea that sounds great in theory but we need to be able to upkeep it. We're currently expanding our catalogue with just one language and doing our best to quickly catch up with veteran sites. Imagine having to support all the languages out there for all the shows. The amount of effort and coordination to keep everything up to date while expanding is just not realistic. The users wouldn't be too happy either with the lack of translations in their own language and the system would be considered a failure.

Overall this would just put us in a very bad position.

We need to first be able to grow till a certain point in just one language before even considering implementing a system that supports multiple languages.

Responding to your last comment. You'd be willing to add information for those shows. But that would raise expectations to go check for dutch summaries on non dutch shows. Which we're not able to provide. It makes sense what you're saying about adding summaries in the original language of a show. But this would open up a lot of conversation and debates that expand further than just the original intention you're mentioning.

I'd say, keep those summaries stored until it's possible for them to be added. But it won't be any time soon. :/

Jan wrote:
Hi Michael,
Chiming in on what Thomas said with my own thoughts on the matter.

It's an idea that sounds great in theory but we need to be able to upkeep it. We're currently expanding our catalogue with just one language and doing our best to quickly catch up with veteran sites. Imagine having to support all the languages out there for all the shows. The amount of effort and coordination to keep everything up to date while expanding is just not realistic. The users wouldn't be too happy either with the lack of translations in their own language and the system would be considered a failure.
Overall this would just put us in a very bad position.
We need to first be able to grow till a certain point in just one language before even considering implementing a system that supports multiple languages.

I'm not suggesting to (auto-)translate every summary in other languages.
I'm just suggesting to have maximum 2 summaries. 1 in English and 1 in the original language of the show.
Most shows this wil be summary I think.
But this can easily be checked, because you have to say in what language the show is so if it's in English, you give the option to input 1 summary.
If it's for example a show in Dutch, you give them the option to input an English and a Dutch summary.

Jan wrote:
Responding to your last comment. You'd be willing to add information for those shows. But that would raise expectations to go check for dutch summaries on non dutch shows. Which we're not able to provide. It makes sense what you're saying about adding summaries in the original language of a show. But this would open up a lot of conversation and debates that expand further than just the original intention you're mentioning.
I'd say, keep those summaries stored until it's possible for them to be added. But it won't be any time soon. :/

Why do you think this would raise expectations to go check for Dutch summaries on non-Dutch shows?
If it's clear (not sure yet how to do this) that all shows will only have summaries in English and in the own language I don't see a problem...

Check the opening post: "A system to properly manage non-English summaries will be added at a later stage." :)

Until that time it's limited to English only. Storing summaries in various languages without storing what language they're in would leave us with a huge mess in the future.

david wrote:
Check the opening post: "A system to properly manage non-English summaries will be added at a later stage." :)
Until that time it's limited to English only. Storing summaries in various languages without storing what language they're in would leave us with a huge mess in the future.

I'm sorry David, I think I missed that line :S
Any idea on a timeslot for this or not yet?

Hi Michael,

If you provide dutch or any other translations, users who prefer that language will likely:

1: want translations for all shows
2: want the entire site itself to be translated to their language

And even if you make it clear you're only providing 2 languages there will still be requests to push it even further.
You're suggesting to upkeep flemish shows, but how about other languages?

Right now you're asking to push it a bit further and implement it with limited expansion. What's there to stop another user to request us to go even further? We know it's not possible to promise upkeep at this stage. I'm not saying we will never try to expand, just not right now.

We'd rather reach a point where we can start expanding on all fronts with enough force rather than sprinkled efforts.

MichaelDeBoey wrote:
I'm sorry David, I think I missed that line :S
Any idea on a timeslot for this or not yet?

No eta yet. Too busy expanding our current functionality. :)

Jan wrote:
Hi Michael,
If you provide dutch or any other translations, users who prefer that language will likely:
1: want translations for all shows
2: want the entire site itself to be translated to their language
And even if you make it clear you're only providing 2 languages there will still be requests to push it even further.
You're suggesting to upkeep flemish shows, but how about other languages?
Right now you're asking to push it a bit further and implement it with limited expansion. What's there to stop another user to request us to go even further? We know it's not possible to promise upkeep at this stage. I'm not saying we will never try to expand, just not right now.
We'd rather reach a point where we can start expanding on all fronts with enough force rather than sprinkled efforts.

Yeah sure I understand it definitely that it's not possible at this stage an why you guys want to wait with this.
I just wanted to give my opinion about it why I think it would definitely be a good idea to implement it in the (near) future. :-)

Jan wrote:

No eta yet. Too busy expanding our current functionality. :)

No problem, just wondering :-)