TIL that you can't respond on a comment tree if the top-level comment has set a language unless you set the same language
If you don't choose the same language as the top-level comment you cannot answer in the same tree. The wheel will just keep spinning but when you look at the API request you see that it returns something like "bad language" and upon choosing the right language you can comment again!
This is super helpful, thank you for explaining! I've run into this problem several times now where it didn't really make sense (I dont think there was a language mismatch) but at least I know what was going on now!
Yeah that's why it's recommended to leave "undefined" active at all times.
Why is that feature even a thing then?
I think the original intention was that communities exists where people speaking different languages coexist and only see content they actively understand.
The reality now of course looks like every language group will have a dedicated community, often even on a country-specific(-ish) instance, rendering the whole idea obsolete.
Hopefully they just focus on implementing a convenient way to translate comments so people who speak different languages can easily communicate.
Literally just had this issue. Was trying to reply to MY OWN thread on the Connect app on Android and it wouldn't let me post. Had to use the browse to reply
they could block the comment session and wirte in now-non-writable commment block "different language" or something
As someone with less tolerance for native speakers failing at doing so, I wonder whether this can be repurposed.
But maybe a regex filter on such like /(my|the|some) emails/ or /literally/ would be the same. As that's possible as a client-side feature, it doesn't even need to be in on the server side until it's a federation filter.