Let's go international!

The website known as listal.com is, at present, most conventient for english-speaking audiences and is semi-functional to audiences whose languages entail english-esque keyboard characters. I say before we eliminate France we gather up as many allies as physically possible. No cultural biases, people!

These are my suggestions:

1) Incorporate characters for different languages - everything from mandarin to dingbattish.

2) Let everyone set which region they'd like the website to recognize them from, whether or not that's where they live. This'd be good for, say, someone living in Missouri that speaks very poor english.

3) Allow for setting of regional titles and primary images, given that different cultures recognize items differently. Not just in recognizing the writing - poster images are entirely different from coast to coast!

4) Code different site images to fit - for people living in Tokyo, they might not get the significance of the top-left grey 'listal', and are likely to interpret the purpose of the site off of the heart.

Anyone else think it's time for a United Listal?

I simply don't see what there is to gain from this?

1) Incorporate characters for different languages - everything from mandarin to dingbattish.

We don't have this already? I think we should. If you're a J-Pop fan who speaks Japanese, I guess you outta be able to add your collection to Listal using Japanese characters. Also it's a bit silly using (sometimes poorly) transliterated "original" titles for Asian movies. What good does it really do me to know "Ying hung boon sik" is the Cantonese title for some HK movie if I don't speak the lingo? Might as well have a possibility to add Chinese characters, and move the transliteration into AKAs. Also people are already writing reviews in Spanish, so why not in Bengali - thoroughly plausible.

2) Let everyone set which region they'd like the website to recognize them from, whether or not that's where they live. This'd be good for, say, someone living in Missouri that speaks very poor english.

Also a nice point. I for one like to see my movie titles in English rather than Finnish, just a matter of taste. So let's assume there'd be a "Listal en français" or "Listal auf Deutsch" it's possible not everyone wants to see the French or German translations.

3) Allow for setting of regional titles

I'm all for adding more fields for titles. Currently Listal can't even handle all the English AKAs. You wouldn't even have to import info from IMDb (maybe more popular ones like French, Spanish... if possible), just allow people to add when necessary. "add a title" & "add an AKA" then specify the language. Then if someone gets the Hungarian title wrong, you could go back and edit it. And I like the idea you could choose which language you'd want displayed. Obviously not everyone would see the Czech title for a US film, just those who've chosen it.

4) Code different site images to fit - for people living in Tokyo, they might not get the significance of the top-left grey 'listal', and are likely to interpret the purpose of the site off of the heart.

Not unreasonable. Obviously you can't translate the whole site to a thousand different languages, but a few special touches here and there would be nice.

I love the idea of setting regions in your profile, and based on that choice, the approriate image (be it movie poster, or dvd cover, or game box art) gets displayed. No more PAL, EU, UK, DVD Region 1, 2, 3, or deciding to display a (sometimes) very rough english title first rather than a film tru foreign title.

Let's merge up all these duplicate regional entries, have seperate 'set primary' options, and have an option in everyone's profile settings where everyone can choose which version they'd like displayed.

Yeah, when the same exact product like a game or DVD edition is released in different countries with different cover art, it'd be nice if you could merge these items and still display the regional cover. HOWEVER for DVDs regions are still the kind of info you need to distinguish. To make known which region you own the DVD, or to make known that the DVD exists in the region. Also from a collecting point of view, I still might want to distinguish that I own a Spanish version of a given DVD even though I'm Finnish. So in this case maybe a "I own this variant of this product" would be better than a regional default.

As for movie posters, I kinda like the way things are now - you usually have the original language poster, with the occasional Japanese poster for an Italian film for example. It'd be a bit more boring to have the ENG poster the default picture for every movie.

for Movies, it probably wont make any real difference

Probably would for a great many people, who'd like to see the French or Spanish or German translations for movie titles before they'd use a site like Listal. The same way people like to use regional variants of IMDb. I'm pretty sure it would increase the popularity of the site.

I simply don't see what there is to gain from this?

Really?

I think I misunderstood the suggestion, I thought you were suggesting that every nationality logs on and sees its own version of listal in its own language.

I'm all for demolishing repeated content and merging items together under one banner. Setting my region as English would auto select PAL and region 2 I take it? That's a good idea. The correct characters has always bugged me, ever since bands like Sigur Ros were spelled incorrectly or listed as two different bands.

I think I misunderstood the suggestion, I thought you were suggesting that every nationality logs on and sees its own version of listal in its own language.

Nah, this isn't Plaza Sésamo or anything.

It's also great for people who want to make themselves more accustomed to a language they're trying to learn. My middle brother is pretty fluent in German (he went to the place for the entire duration of last school year), and one of the things he does to keep up to speed is change the default language on his Nintendo DS games from English to German.

Setting my region as English would auto select PAL and region 2 I take it? That's a good idea.

Well it wouldn't work, cause even as a Brit it's possible that you own NTSC games and region 1 DVDs, and these might not even exist in PAL or region 2. Besides I'm pretty sure that many people who own region 1 & 2 DVDs etc want to distinguish between them.

Well not so much the PAL or Region 2 versions of the film/game, because they would be merged into one copy, but more the Pal/Region 2 artwork that I'm accustomed to seeing as an Englishman.

Well not so much the PAL or Region 2 versions of the film/game, because they would be merged into one copy

Surely nobody's even thinking about merging all into one solid item. Better to have a main entry for each item, and then you could specify the version you own (along with alternate cover, title, and region). A default setting by country would work well for the movie section, but not so for DVDs, games, books etc. where you deal with collectable physical objects. I for one have DVDs from all over the place.

Pal/Region 2 artwork

Nope. The UK artwork. There can be many strikingly different cover variations of the same edition all around Europe.

I thought that was exactly what prelude was getting at in the second post? I didn't realise people with so concerned with listing the exact version of their media that they owned, but then again I guess this is a listing site that people can use how they see fit.

It wouldn't have to be that heavy. Just one item page for one edition. But work it so you can still specify the cover, region and title. So if you're French, you could have a French DVD cover, a French title, but still be on the same page with everyone else. (Or if you're Finnish, you could still have the French DVD etc)