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Posting to an English forum with German user interface (German website language) is not possible RRS feed

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    If you read an English MS Forum, such as Team Foundation Service and if you have set the social.msdn.microsoft.com language to German, you can click on the button to submit a new post to the forum but you are being redirected to a generic page allowing you to post to German forums only. There's a forum selection box at the bottom but the forum you just read and clicked to submit a post to is not listed.
    Sunday, June 9, 2013 1:21 PM
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    Hello Andreas,

    If you want to ask a question in an en-US forum, then you have to change to the language code in URL, e.g. from
    http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/de-de/tfsgeneral/threads

    to http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-us/tfsgeneral/threads

    Olaf Helper

    Blog Xing

    Sunday, June 9, 2013 7:42 PM
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    Well yes, one can change the URL or change the language setting at the top of the page. However I think this is a bug and should be fixed by Microsoft. Not everyone will look for minutes on how to post to the forum.
    Sunday, June 9, 2013 8:07 PM
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    Hi Andreas,

    I agree there should be found a better solution.

    But as of today the forum selection is chosen by the language part in the URL as Olaf described.

    For myself I use the categories pages as start pages - German  and (US)-English.

    Regards, Elmar

    Sunday, June 9, 2013 8:35 PM
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    Right, the design is to use the category language pages. That's why they move you back to the German forum.

    The design is that you navigate (using the categories at the top) back to English before you can post in English. Otherwise, it won't let you (due to a mitigation of people posting in English forums instead of the language forums they should be posting into).

    So it sounds like you are suggesting a new feature to add the English forum you came from, as a link that you can click, which will take you out of your current forum setting into the English forum setting, so that you can post in the forum you want to.

    It's an interesting feature, but it creates a problem... after you post in English and got kicked out of your German setting, would you expect to have to re-set to the German setting again (via the simple drop down on the top) before you post in German again?

    Because the design is fairly simple... you want a new language, pick it from the list at the top to switch to it. The problem of course (that you're facing), is it's a little annoying to keep switching back and forth. Is that accurate?

    Thanks!

    Ed Price (a.k.a User Ed), SQL Server Customer Program Manager (Blog, Small Basic, Wiki Ninjas, Wiki)

    Answer an interesting question? Create a wiki article about it!

    Monday, June 10, 2013 7:37 PM
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    Regardless, this is a good feature idea that should be submitted as such (we just do bugs in this forum, and this is a "by design" flaw that was made as a feature to mitigate issues of people posting in the wrong language forums, and, thus, it requires a new feature to work around it)...

    Ideas and Suggestions

    If you have a suggestion for the forums or general forum feedback, use the Suggestions and Feedback forum. To get a feature submitted to the Forums team, ask for it on the Feature Requests Wiki article.

    Thanks!

    Ed Price (a.k.a User Ed), SQL Server Customer Program Manager (Blog, Small Basic, Wiki Ninjas, Wiki)

    Answer an interesting question? Create a wiki article about it!


    Monday, June 10, 2013 7:38 PM
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    Hi Ed,

    first the problem (bug):
    There is no language chooser for the newer layouts, e. g. tfsgeneral

    If one try to see it from a new or inexperienced user's perspective:
    Changing the language means losing all input that were made at the time.
    The message "Leave the page?" will stop most of them.
    Those who do, won't be pleased to start at the beginning.

    New and occasional users seems to find the forums more often from a Bing / Google search and start the question from a discussion they've found. From a typical (rare) answer, which language is preferred:
    Hatte die Sprache im Forum erst zu spät gemerkt und war mir nicht sicher.
    Translated: Had noticed the language too late and was not sure.

    It should be less a problem, that the language influences the forum selection.
    If somebody asks a question, he likely wants to see "his" question in the forum.

    A possible solution could be a language selection combo box placed near the forum selection.
    Desirable - if there is a history - to list the preferred languages at the beginning, since most people are likely to ask only using two or three languages - as I admit that it is complex, take it as optional feature ;)

    Regards Elmar

    Tuesday, June 11, 2013 7:29 AM
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