What’s TripAdvisor’s problem with Welsh reviews?

The travel website bans posts that ‘violate its language policy’ and that includes anything written in Welsh - even though more than half a million people speak it
  
  

TripAdvisor app on phone.
TripAdvisor … just don’t expect it to be in Welsh. Photograph: Alamy

Name: TripAdvisor.

Age: 15.

Appearance: Gelyn holl Gymru.

Did you just fall asleep on your keyboard? How incredibly racist of you. I was speaking Welsh.

Welsh? Since when has Welsh been a language? Since for ever, you dolt. I can’t believe this. First TripAdvisor doesn’t recognise Welsh, now the Guardian. It’s enough to drive you hollol wyllt.

TripAdvisor doesn’t recognise Welsh? Not even slightly. A Welsh tour guide is kicking off because TripAdvisor rejected his Welsh review, on the basis that it violated the site’s language policy.

Really? What was he reviewing? The Llyn Maritime Museum, a small attraction in a church in Nefyn.

And what did he think of it? We’ll never know. TripAdvisor rejected his review. However, based on its English reviews, the museum is the best attraction in Nefyn, ahead of a 19th-century watch tower and two transit vans in a car park.

Ooh, I like transit vans. Listen, that’s not important. What’s important is that TripAdvisor is unwittingly marginalising a language spoken by more than half a million people.

Is the tour guide annoyed? He is. Emrys Llewelyn called it an insult, saying: “Welsh is a major language but TripAdvisor do not seem to think so. It’s difficult to keep a temper about something like this … TripAdvisor are making fools of themselves.”

Did he say all that in English? Well, yes, but that’s not the point. There are communities that would find Welsh-language reviews incredibly useful.

Communities who enjoy reading what someone with too much time on his hands thinks about a canoe in a church? Why not?

Then why don’t they just look at the museum’s website? That’s in Welsh. You’re not helping.

How has TripAdvisor countered this criticism? It says that, currently, it doesn’t have the capacity for Welsh-language moderation and fraud detection, so it’s better to reject all Welsh reviews outright than compromise the integrity of its site.

Still, at least this is good publicity for the museum. I know. It really looks quite nice.

Do say: “A global organisation such as TripAdvisor should be better at facilitating the needs of its own user base.”

Don’t say:Does neb yn siarad Cymraeg beth bynnag.”

 

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