Aggressive translator

It seems a new translator (likely based on Google’s new auto-detecting translator service) is making the rounds. It is “cleverly and helpfully” scripted to detect clients with a different regional setting, and *picks up all open chat and IMs a translation* to those clients.

This is hugely annoying, since I get everything twice when somebody with that translator is in the area; once for the original chat *anybody says*, and once for some more-or-less broken machine translation.

I have a feeling that most people are not even aware that their translator works this way.

Does anybody know which translator this is, who is the creator, and if this is, indeed, a default setting?

Have you tried saying "Hey, who all has translators running?" when you are seeing this?

How are the translations formatted?

Have you tried muting the people in the area?

Are you by some chance running a viewer with built in translation that you've turned on by mistake?

Is there some particular place where this occurs more than other places?

That particular translator usually give it'self away with the script swirl about the users person. Mute them. Generally works. and if you muted someone in error, no harm no foul.

I've seen them show up as "xxx's Google Translator: ", "xxx(en>>da):", and simply as an empty name.

It is definitely an inworld translator, and I have contacted some users, and they went, "Oh, I had no idea it did that", but so far, I have not been able to get anybody to tell me *which* translator they are actually using, apart from "some attachment".

I would very much like to find the creator and ask them to tone down the default settings a bit. They are *not* being as helpful as they probably think they are.

I think the Ferd's translator sends chat to IM but I am *not* sure on that.

Go pick up a copy of all the in world freebie translators, and see if you can recognise one of them.

Also keep in mind some people script their own, in which case you will be unlikely to find that same one.

Ferd's translator will only translate to and from the wearer. (^_^)

There was a "Universal Translator" that could be ground rezzed and translate for everyone, but, it IS bloody annoying and most people have gotten rid of it. (>_<

Ok.

Ferd's still kinda confuses me. I tried it earlier because a visitor spoke mainly Serbian. But Ferd's listed them as speaking English and I didn't see how to choose a language like with Simbolic. And then it began to list my chat over and over in pale yellow.

I thought I had read something about Ferd's and IM. ?

Ferd's automatically configures itself during the chat session. You just need to chat clearly and it will choose the language based on deciphering your prior chat line. Misspellings or using multiple languages in your typed chat will throw it off. It doesn't really have a manual way of configuring it. (^_^)

And, the pale yellow bit is the llOwnerSay telling you it has translated for someone else. Or, it's the translated text from other people. (^_^)

And, it sends translations to the people you're chatting with via llInstantMessage... Which means will will appear in green text below your own text and only for the people it's translating for. (^_^)

100% automatic, works in multiple languages at once, and is quite un-disturbing to the people around you who speak your language. It's the only translator I use. (^_^)y

How does it decide who "you're chatting with"? Does it pick up if they have spoken in a different language? Or does it simply scan the agents around it with llGetAgentLanguage and decide that if they do not have English regional settings, they need to be IM'ed?

There is an option to be automatic (Decipher from spoken chat) or use the client language setting. I think the 'client language setting' has troubles with clients that fudge the data. Gladly, the default is auto (decipher). (^_^)

Also... This is all in open chat. IMs don't come into play. llInstantMessage appears as an open-chat line in a slightly darker shade than regularly scripted chat and only for the individual AV. (^_^)y

Ah, sorry for the confusion. That is what I mean. That is a script's way to instant-message specific people, and that is what the translator is spamming people with if it decides that since you have different regional settings, you need to see a machine translation.

It sounds very much like it is this "Ferd's", then.

It is *not* "quite un-disturbing to the people around you who speak your language". It is quite un-disturbing for those who have the same regional settings as you. For those who speak English, but happen to use different regional settings, it is a pox!! Please, turn the feature off!

Trust me, you are *not* helping me by sending me a mangled machine translation just because I use , for decimal separator.

Tali, I'm curious why you want Edit / Preferences / General / "Share language with objects" enabled. I have some manually translated scripted stuff that depends on that being selected, so I'm happy to see it, but I find a lot of folks have it disabled (so my stuff gives them the English version unless they manually select a different language). I guess, really, I'm curious why so many have it *disabled*, so am eager to find a reason for people to enable it--besides encountering one of my gizmos.

I think it is simply enabled by default, and I don't particularly see any reason to disable it.
You're right that it could be a workaround for the translator annoyance, and for gizmos being "too clever" in general, but I'd rather see creators actually make sensible designs in the first place, and I don't mind giving them the option by having the checkbox selected.
But this is a bad example of smacking me over the head with "we know what you want", as well as an almost condescending US-centric design. It obviously never occurred to the creator that many people *do* read and even write English a fair bit better as secondary language than what Google can autotranslate.
As an aside, it is worth noting that llGetAgentLanguage picks up the *regional settings* (Date, number currency format and the like), not the actual *language*. Both my OS and my client are English versions.

As for why many have it disabled, I think many find it slightly grating that the client reports something back to scripts without their knowledge/interaction, even if it is a fairly harmless (and Internet standard) piece of information.
And, well... here you have one more reason for it.