Russification of Belarus …from Microsoft
I sent an e-mail to Microsoft about it several years ago, but since then nothing has changed. If in your browser settings you chose Belarusian as the first language (variable HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE or Tools | Internet Options | Languages in Internet Explorer), then all the materials on support.microsoft.com would always appear to you in Russian. Even if you explicitly append “/be” to the article’s URL, it will still display all articles in Russian.
This is quite bothersome, and it seems there’s no way to switch it off (at least I couldn’t figure it out). Every time I visit support.microsoft.com I have to manually add “/en” to the URL in order to read the original article in English. Unfortunately, even after appending “/en” to the URL I still can not get rid of Russian in the menus, header and footer.
Thanks to Syarzhuk for reminding me about that problem. Here’s what I’ve sent to M$ (a slightly changed version of Syarzhuk’s e-mail):
“In MSIE, my language preferences box contains two languages: Belarusian [be] as the main preference, and English (United States) [en-us] as the second choice. When I open the page http://support.microsoft.com/kb/196628/ or almost any other KB page , your website returns the page in Russian which is not among the preferred languages. Moreover, if I explicitly indicate the preferred language in the URL: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/196628/be , the page is still returned in Russian. Belarusian and Russian are similar (just as, say, Dutch and German are similar, or Serbian and Bulgarian), but are clearly different languages. It would not be smart to provide a page in German to Dutch-speaking readers when there is no Dutch translation available. So why are you providing a Russian page when there is no Belarusian translation available?”
I suppose the more internet users complain about it, the higher are the chances that they’ll do something about it. There’s a feedback form at the bottom of each page on support.microsoft.com which you can use to tell Microsoft editors your opinion about their Russification policies.
February 20th, 2006 at 7:52 am
may be i don’t understand russian enough… i can’t find any feedback form on http://support.microsoft.com/
February 20th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
On any KB page, there’s a comment box on the bottom. But I didn’t find a general comment box…
February 21st, 2006 at 7:53 pm
I tend to stay away completely from any microsoft site… too many “genuine” windows checks (mine’s pirated of course… like hell I’m paying $2.500 a year for a blank OS) plus 99% of the information stored there is well-known… In any case… are you sure microsoft isnt IP mapping you (it did on me)? Did you try Ethereal to see what IE is sending?
In general, I dont like ANY site that’s IP mapping and forcing you to read a language you don’t want to see, and not even give you the option to change it. One time I wanted to read an article on some site.. and it switched to the local language (which was very poorly translated I might add)… ended up having to bounce through an American proxy to read the original English version.
February 28th, 2006 at 12:07 am
They do give you an option to switch the language - there’s a selection box. However, the policy of displaying Russian content instead of Belarusian is annoying
March 3rd, 2006 at 4:27 pm
The solution :
in IE :
tools - internet options - langages
put them there in the order you want them (english US first, then your own langage)
March 3rd, 2006 at 4:30 pm
olivier D: Are you sure you read my entry? That’s exactly the problem I’m talking about.
March 30th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
Can anybody help me! Are there any English/Belarusian dictionaries or phrase books available. I cannot find seem to find any! Last year a young girl from Mogilev stayed with my wife and I in England and we would like to write to her in her native language even if our efforts are rubbish! You can but try!
July 20th, 2008 at 5:06 am
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