Built-in groups localization inconsistency

Bug
1

Built-in groups (admins, trust level groups) can be localized. This localization shows on the group list:

A webpage displaying various administrative roles and their descriptions for a community or group. (Captioned by AI)
A webpage displaying various administrative roles and their descriptions for a community or group. (Captioned by AI)1882×1464 253 KB

On the detail page the name in the title is original, the same goes for the dropdown.

The image is a screen capture of a user management interface with trust level levels for a community, including levels 3, 1, 2, 0. (Captioned by AI)
The image is a screen capture of a user management interface with trust level levels for a community, including levels 3, 1, 2, 0. (Captioned by AI)1868×1006 65.7 KB

I think it should be either not possible to localize or it should be consistent and show the localized name everywhere.

4 Likes
2

Nice catch, I alerted the team!

2 Likes
5

I think it’s all over the place, e.g. category permissions:

A screenshot of a user interface showing options for adding users to different trust level groups within a category. (Captioned by AI)
A screenshot of a user interface showing options for adding users to different trust level groups within a category. (Captioned by AI)1192×1070 66.2 KB

6

I also noticed that while group names are always in the forum’s default language, the group list shows them translated into the user’s chosen language.
[The deafult_locale is German, my interface preference is English]

Screenshot_20250106_111558_Firefox
Screenshot_20250106_111558_Firefox1809×933 157 KB

Group names in English, like my interface choice


But when I select a group, the real name is shown, which, in my opinion, should also be displayed in the list. The translated name is somewhat helpful for understanding the group’s purpose, but you cannot, for example, @mention the group using the translated name.
Screenshot_20250106_111612_Firefox
Screenshot_20250106_111612_Firefox1833×475 104 KB

However, this doesn’t happen in category permissions—they always show in German, which is expected as it’s the forum’s default language

Screenshot_20250106_111527_Firefox
Screenshot_20250106_111527_Firefox1804×1068 144 KB


@tvavrda maybe the problem in your case are the special characters. Did you enable the unicode usernames site setting? Unicode usernames and group names
I remember that when I set up my site and chose German as the default locale, the list of allowed unicode username characters was automatically updated. However, the unicode usernames setting wasn’t automatically enabled, which confused me.

2 Likes
7

Hmm, that would mean localizing those names would be a bad idea as this setting is turned off by default but the locale has them unicode?

Anyways, it was turned off, I turned it on and it did not help.

Also, I did not translate the actual group name. I believe it is still “admins” and such. It is just the localization.

1 Like
8

Did you manually start the database consistency job afterwards? The group names won’t change immediately, and the job runs only every 12 hours. So, it’s a bit early to judge that it doesn’t work if you did not.

2 Likes
9

Nope, I did not. But. Did I actually change the group names by localizing them? It is a little confusing to see the localized name in one place and English one in another. The URL still shows ~/admins.

10

OK, that helped. Now it shows everywhere. Wow. But that means that my localization requires the unicode flag to be turned on otherwise it works strange.

I guess I should change the localization not to include unicode characters. Maybe you should give a hint about that in Crowdin.

1 Like
12

I think it would be better if the setting was enabled automatically when you choose a language that requires it. Similar to how the bootstrap_mode_min_users setting is decreased to 10 when you set your site to private and increased to 50 if you set it to public.

13

Well, the URLs look terrible anyway with these names. I reverted the localization to ascii for now. Thanks for the support! I guess you should move this to Support as I think either it will stay or a new feature will emerge.

1 Like
14

The inconsistency you described in your first post is still relevant. I think the group names shown in the groups index should match the actual group names, regardless of whether they are in English, German, or Czech, rather than being translated into the user’s interface language.

1 Like
15

This will be fixed by

https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/30593

EDIT: it’s similar to Non-english automatic groups don't stick when applied to Tag Group visibility/usability restrictions but not quite the same.

2 Likes
16

But this is not about tag groups.

image
image1154×235 14.5 KB

Even if my interface is in German, the name of the moderators group should be “moderators,” just like it is when I click on the group.

image
image1139×235 7.88 KB

17

Right, this looks similar yet different. Will have a look as well.

2 Likes
18

I think we can put it this way: The group name could be Moderatoren if the forum’s default language was German. But as the default language is English, the group name is moderators, by which you are able to @mention people. So even if the user’s current display language is German, the group name should stick to what it really currently is (English).

1 Like
19

Ok, so I made a PR

That will make it more consistent how we show the name(s) of the groups.

By default, in the groups page (/g) we would only show either the full name or the display name.
But in the group page (/g/group-name) we would show both the full name and the group’s name.

The PR ensures we always show both the full name and the group’s name (when they differ) in both pages.

I didn’t “fix” the fact that you need to enable “unicode” in username to get properly localized group’s name, because it has a much broader impact and enabling unicode “manually” feels like the right amount of friction.

4 Likes