I was wondering: for releases (or any other entity) which have a “primary title” for a specific locale/language in the alias section, wouldn’t it be better if the primary locale was displayed in accordance with the language one has chosen for Musicbrainz?
I for instance added a Belgian French/Dutch release here: https://musicbrainz.org/release/f049180a-ecf8-4374-b00a-6d81f5c64651
When I change the site language to Dutch or French, it still shows the release title as initially entered, ignoring the Dutch locale I put in the alias section as “primary alias for this locale”
The release has no primary language itself. I happen to choose the French, because it was the listed first on the back & spine (no title on front in this case). I expected that through the alias & setting a primary alias, it would show the primary alias by default, if it matches the settings for the site.
This specific release has no translated tracklist (titles are all in the original language, no translations), so a pseudo-release would not apply on this, if I understand this right.
I could generalise from this, and from the two tickets which @derat posted, to say that the MusicBrainz web app does a poor job of operating with the user’s preferred language and regional settings, or to use the jargon of specialists, it is not very well localised. The project uses workarounds like aliases and pseudo-releases to permit a small degree of localisation.
I suspect that localising the MusicBrainz web app well will be a major project.
Yes, it looks like at data level, there’s a lot of localisation, but it’s not yet completely exploited in the display.
Maybe this should be thoroughly thought over.
I mentioned the language one has chosen to operate the MB website.
But maybe that shouldn’t be the reference, as I mostly keep it at English (I also prefer Englishs for my OS and most programs, as there is simply much more documentation, help etc. in English, than in for instance Dutch or French. It makes communication easier by getting used to the English terms.)
In the profile, one can set the “Languages known” and specify how well one knows the language. Maybe being able to sort this in “order of preference” should be the base for which locale is shown, based on what is available for each set of data.
That way, even if using the site in English, one can still show the data in any other language. This could also be applied for the wikidata shown.