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Writing Software for Worldwide Distribution Proves Difficult
lupa1420 writes "Insensitive computer programmers with little knowledge of geography have cost the giant Microsoft company hundreds of millions of dollars in lost business and led hapless company employees to be arrested by offended governments."
I don't get it.
That problem is not exclusive to Microsoft employees. It's not like MS specifically hires programmers who have no clue where the Pacific Ocean is. I mean, that's a pretty big ocean - it's kind of hard to miss it unless you've never ever in your life looked at a map. But I am digressing - let the Microsoft bashing begin!!
...they're failure to keep up with global geopolitical madness.
Most of the examples listed were problems that cropped up due to political reasons, not due to a lack of geography knowledge. No matter how you draw a map, where you place Kashmir is going to offend someone. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip are going to be contenious no matter where you place them. Microsoft did the only reasonable thing, they drew the maps to the favor of the richer countries (the ones that buy their software). Sorry Pakistan, no disputed territories for you.
I read the internet for the articles.
From the article, it seems that Microsoft programmers have gotten in trouble because... wait for it... THEY READ A MAP. That's right, THEY READ A MAP. The results of their map reading have lead them into several political situations that there was little possibility of them being aware of. (Talk to the ***holes who make this stuff illegal and ARREST foreigners for READING A MAP.)
Americans may have a poor understanding of Geography, but I don't really see that being an issue in this case. All Microsoft could have done is more thoroughly research the area.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
As much as we'd all like to think that this is just a case of MS screwing up again, I'm pretty sure this isn't just an MS problem. Besides, the article talks not just about simple geography, but of mistakes made about highly disputed geographic regions. There are a few in there where microsoft could have gone either way and still offended someone. Granted, stuff like that should have been checked, but the mistakes really aren't as simple as the post makes them out to be.
...no two people are not on fire.
> The Spanish version of Windows used the word Hembra - meaning "woman" in Spain
> - for choosing gender. But in some Central American republics, notably
> Nicaragua, the word is an insult meaning "bitch". The programme was changed.
So the Spanish version has to be in Nicaraguan? I thought software was internationalised according to territory, not language?
Insensitive computer programmers with little knowledge of geography
If you read the article, you'll see the computer programmer's problems have nothing to do with geography... and everything to do with understanding and respecting differences in the cultures that may purchase MSFT products. I think showing the programmers where the Pacific Ocean is isn't going to do very much to make the software more culturally acceptable.
American news still reminds me of Starship Troopers, "Would you like to know more?"
"WebTV: bringing the Internet into the shallow end of the gene pool since 1995" - Martin Bishop
Although something rings true in this about many USA citizens not having a 'global' view (World Series Baseball, World Wide Wrestling....erm, I don't think these are worldwide sports actually!), many of the points in this article would not be known without some pretty thorough investigation of political/geographical interests.
I did partly RTFA, and unless I'm way off on my understanding, Microsoft is blaming their lost business on people who have little right to be blamed for what they are being blamed for. Do the programmers really need to know about the world affairs - I thought that would be the job of the marketing or PR people.
Anyone else have a problem with governments detaining software engineers for something as trivial as a mis-marked map?
hapless company employees
Talk about passing the buck. Some of the top problems in the article:
This isn't hapless employees. This is government oppression, and the bans on free speech necessary to pull them off.
There are over 30,000,000 functional illiterates here in the United States. 29,302,757 represents 10% of our population, rendering that a staggering figure.
And because it has been widely speculated that they are more responsive to advertising than any other demographic, the networks are probably catering to them.
Do you like German cars?
Isn't this like that time some city legislation out in California decided to ban the words "Master and Slave" when refering to Hard Drive configurations because it was not "Sensitive" to African Americans?
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
...I'm going to rant. :P
Usually, I'm an american that makes every effort to be understanding of cultures different than my own, and to try to understand why it is that the US is frowned upon by other cultures. We have a foreign exchange intern here from Europe right now, and we've had long conversations about why and how americans take their relative wealth for granted (even our citizens on welfare tend to be wealthier than many in smaller european countries!)
But this...this isn't a lack of sensitivity on Microsoft's part. It's a lack of toleration on the part of other cultures. Knowing full-well that this software was written by programmers of another culture, there should be a degree of toleration and patience that goes along with the process. Make the developer aware of the issue and give them a chance to fix it.
Honestly, if someone in another culture (India perhaps?) that wasn't sufficiently versed in US geography made a map that, oh...I don't know, put St. Louis in Illinois rather than Missouri, or show the Arch crossing the Mississippi River or something equally stupid, I suppose some might be offended (I can think of other, more controversial examples...), but more than likely we'd give them the chance to fix it first.
Americans may be stuck up, take a WHOLE lot of freedoms for granted, have lots of money, and think too highly of themselves at times to bother learning about other cultures, but I'll give you one thing:
Even some of the most annoying pricks I know seem to be more tolerant than some other cultures are to the average Joe. How pathetic is that?
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
So you told them you live 80 miles north of a 200-mile-long north-south line, and you think they're confused?
I'm guessing you must live somewhere near Regina, but it's not entirely clear from your description.
If you read the article you realize that most of the mistakes made had nothing to do with geography.
"Microsoft employees were questioned by police in China, where it is an offence to refer to Taiwan as country or as the Republic of China"How is this a geography issue? Taiwan recognizes itself as an independent country.
"A game called Age of Empires 2 offended the Saudi Arabian authorities because it showed victorious Muslim armies turning churches into mosques"Again, how is this a geography issue?
I think this article is just bait for the daily MS bashing on /.
-chrisI mean, really, how is a programmer in the states supposed to know that a valid spanish word, used in the spanish version of the program, is an insult in central america?
This sounds much more like a "lets point out all the funny fuckups from M$" article, and much less a diatribe on the difficulties of writing international software. Yes, they've made a few mistakes, and the occasional horrid judgement call (I mean, really, insulting all of Islam? Well, at least now we know better...). But some things, like the evil spanish word, referring to breakaway states as countries in their own right, or other such silliness, are just an "oops", where you wouldn't expect them to rightfully know better.
On that note though, what's up with the rabid nations emasculating anyone who dares suggest that Kashmir or Taiwan are separate countries? I generally find foreign media less crazy than US, but try reading an article from a chinese newspaper on taiwan sometime... it's almost frighteningly evangelical in it's belief.
And, finally... come on, AoE2? I thought the muslims replacing the churches was a cute touch, not insulting... I mean, it's a game, you have to change the game elements to fit the theme of whoever is winning... and you wouldn't expect westerners to know the details of how the muslims handled conquered peoples and their religion during the crusades...
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
I'm from Ohio, and when I've gone traveling to Europe, I've had to say "yeah, that's right... near Chicago" but a lot of people only knew where Florida or NYC or California were anyway. And others didn't even know where those were. (Whereas I can diagram on a map the Canadian provinces, many Canadian cities, European countries and cities, and various countries around the world. I'm special like that I guess.)
So while that's not as extreme as not knowing where the Pacific Ocean is... Americans aren't the only geographically-challenged people out there.
That being said...after reading the article, I cannot believe whole governments getting that pissed about what a time setting map looks like, or a background 'chant' in a video game. Geez, what's the big deal here....nothing a reasonable person should even notice, much less get so riled about it that you ban the software. People need to chill out a bit more...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Maybe it was just in my group, but a significant portion of the other developers weren't American by any stretch of the imagination. The group had plenty of Indians, Russians, Chinese, and British programmers. Thus making the story about an American company and Americans in general not knowing geography seems a bit specious.
Aside from that, most of the problems in the article were much less geographical and more geopolitical.
This isn't hapless employees. This is government oppression, and the bans on free speech necessary to pull them off.
Censorship, tough laws, whatever, but if you're going to do business in a country then you'd damn well better get yourself familiar with the way that country works. As the oft-repeated phrase goes, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse."
By only providing for the dumbest people, you can help reduce the intelligence of the masses and sell to everybody.
Everywhere corporate interests are putting profit ahead of ethics.
For instance the article says this regarding the obliteration of kurdistan from the windows timezone maps:
"Of course we offended Kurds by doing this but we had offended the Turks more and they were a much more important market for our products. It was a hard commercial decision, not political."
I work for a media company where this kind of stuff is policy. There's a good article about it at assnake magazine
They didn't really say what the chant was though. Can you imagine the outrage if a game included a chant "Kill the Niggers"?
Yes, India was the one example I used for emphasis, but there are plenty more examples in all countries including me own Benighted States.
Now it appears that we are all supposed to be bound by the immoral limits on thought and speech than anyone in power happens to promulgate. I don't think so. Cultural sensitivity is not wrong, blatantly offending any culture is at the very least rude, at the worst racist. But this article seems to imply that everything anyone puts out should be sensored by every special interest, religion, and government until it is what they consider politically and religiously and culturally correct.
No thanks.
-Then the fit hit the Shan. - R. Zelazney, Lord of Light
So while that's not as extreme as not knowing where the Pacific Ocean is... Americans aren't the only geographically-challenged people out there.
... you'd think, perhaps, the names wouldn't be alien to the average US citizen.
... I'm also from Ohio. I wouldn't expect anyone outside the US to know where it is :)
There's only two oceans that lap up against US shores
Beyond that
Most Euro countries aren't 3000 x 1500 miles in size, made up of 48 separate states. Can you point out something other than London on a map of England? It's only the size of VA.
- Roach
Many people in Europe also conceptually know that where these cities/states are (NYC is in the east, Chicago is in the middle, San Francisco is in the west), but they have no idea the distances involved.
Most people in France for instance, probably have no idea their country is only slightly larger than Texas, or that Alaska alone is larger than most of Western Europe.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Americans don't know geography, but British don't know simple editing. Ugh. Come on, now. Even Office 97, that great replacement of Windows 95 (???) has a spelling and grammar checker.
..." -- perhaps they mean bloopers?
..." -- don't you mean they may be?
From the article...
"The company has now launched geography classes for its staff to avoid further bloomers which have caused embarrassment
"It is therefore no surprise that some of our employees, however bright they may, have only a hazy idea
"Uruguay is a republic and proud if it but..." -- proud of it, right?
Typos and junk grammar really discredit any article.
The writer talks about how the average person has trouble with minor challenges in geography (true enough), but then goes on to talk about Microsoft programmers:
1, Not knowing where Jammu-Kashmir is, exactly, and not knowing that Indian law prohibits considering it part of anything but India. (Never mind that the law has its own counterpart in Pakistan; you can't avoid breaking the law on this one.)
2, In a similar vein, having to offend Kurds so as not to offend the Turks with regard to the depiction of Kurdistan.
3, Offending the Saudis by showing churches turned into mosques by invading Muslim armies...never mind that the exact opposite happens when a Christian army takes over a mosque in the game.
4, Didn't know that "woman" in one dialect of Spanish means "bitch" in another.
None of these things seem to me to be so hard to imagine. Do Nicaraguans know that the word "cracker" can be used as a racist term here? Do Indians know that the Argentines go completely apeshit when you refer to the Faulkand Islands as such, rather than by their preferred name for them? And his assertion that Microsoft leaves their employees facing arrest in other countries seems baseless; he didn't mention a single instance. The worst he came up with was "questioned," and that was for calling Taiwan by it's real name. It's not Microsoft's fault that China has a wild hair up their ass over that one, either.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
So many people have been quick to blame this phenomenon on the programmers (and particularly, American programmers) for not having sufficient knowledge of local laws and political and religious sensitive points. Many of these issues seem like problems that are really only obvious in retrospect--how many people, honestly, would think twice about their coloring or name of a little region on a map while they're doing it, the connotations of a word they choose in countries they haven't studied that speak the same language when they're translating, or the source of a chant they put in the background of a game? It seems to me that a lot of these issues, even, wouldn't even be noticed by or much less bother much of the population of the country that they purportedly offend. There are a lot of people eager to jump on your throat about issues so minor that you would never see them coming everywhere, and I doubt that any class given to programmers or management will be able to appreciably reduce the number of these situations. The only effective prevention I can see would be to either hire a lot of local testers in every region or to hire a lot of local programmers in every region. Even then, though, I wonder how many of the locals take it personally that a region disputed by their country goes by a different name or details about how members of their religion are portrayed in a game. In most cases, we're talking about one offended bureaucrat, not mobs of offended civilians.
~Ben
...provided your father is a former leader of the "free world" and you come from a long line of highly privileged wealthy white males...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
but did anyone notice that the game with the Koranic background chant was written by Japanese developers?
I agree it's silly, but can you imagine the rucus it would cause in this country if they were chanting, say, a Latin mass?
Yeah, America is pretty closed off to the outside world. A lot of Canadians who travel to the U.S. feel like they've entered some kind of sound chamber: nothing gets in. On an average day I'll get news from America, Canada, Britain, France, and Holland. In the States it can be hard to get even national news, and the 6:00 news in most cities is the most sensationalistic FUD I've ever heard. No wonder Americans are afraid to step outside their homes unarmed.
We get the same kind of crap up in Canada, but it doesn't have the monopoly position it has in the U.S. It's a shame, too; there is good journalism in America, but most Americans never get to see it. Media giants like Rupert Murdoch don't help the situation either. By the way, Murdoch is Australian--my advice is to send the bastard back home.
An insular press will result in an insular educational system, influencing public opinion concerning priorities. It also doesn't help that America sends a lot of troops abroad, and American troops tend to be the poorest and worst educated of the American population. This is not helped by a steady diet of sensationalistic media mixed with the us-vs-them mentality common to all armies. Probably not the best ambassadors--this might have something to do with America's image problem abroad.
It could be worse, though. They could be rude and arrogant, like the French. And insularity... the Japanese had a toy robot named 'God-o-Jesus'...
No
Beyond that, what incentive would someone in Germany have to know where Ohio is? Being from Ohio, I can state with some authority that there is little, if any.
Unless you have a specific reason for knowing
But I sure as hell know where all 50 states are, and the major bodies of water in my own country.
- Roach
There are over 30,000,000 functional illiterates here in the United States.
Last night, on The News Hour on PBS, they had two women discussing charter schools vs. public schools in the US. Students at both types of schools scored less than 30% of students being competent at math and reading, so I really couldn't figure out the purpose of their debate at all (i.e., schools basically suck, please please let them stop buying craploads of computers and stadiums and start making "teacher" a real profession, again).
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
Think about this for a second.
You are comparing ignorance of regional districts *within* a country (states) to ignorance of major world countries as a whole.
Europeans not knowing where Florida is is a totally different thing to Americans not knowing where Sweeden is. One os a district, the other is a country.
If you think Europeans should know where Florida is, then that means that Americans should know where South Wales is in the UK. Good luck on *that*.
It is pretty much accepted knowledge worldwide that the vast majority of the US population has little concern with anything beyond its own borders. Just watch your average american 6'oclock newscast and count the international references. Compared to other countries' newscasts it should be embarassing.
Actually having WMD is not a prerequisite for U.S. invasion.
Wow... are you kidding or was this a serious post? I mean obviously if someone says they live 80 miles north of something, it means you measure from the northern most tip.
If you weren't american, I'd be certain you were being sarcastic.
----- sXe
especially considering "up" was chosen fairly arbitrarily...
It's all historical. Back when the earth was flat, there was only an "up" side.
A game called Age of Empires 2 offended the Saudi Arabian authorities because it showed victorious Muslim armies turning churches into mosques. The game was withdrawn from sale in the kingdom
I've been to some mosques that were converted from churches after wars. I even have pictures. This happened. I could understand how some Christians could get a little miffed. Could someone explain how it is offensive to Muslims?
Also, the geography "mistakes" in the article appear to be more policitical in nature than some developer not knowing where the Pacific Ocean is. Would I expect some developer in China to know about the controverial border between Michigan and Ohio that led to the Toldeo (Ohio) War?
Speak truth to power.
One thing which mystifies me is why the spin axis was chosen to be vertical. If the axis were horizontal, the light used in illuminating rooms would fall on the globe as the sun's rays do
What light source? The electric bulb in your ceiling or the candle on your table?
Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
Brain: "I would tell you Pinky but this 120 char limi
3 % isn't too far off from 10 %.
Yeah, it's not too far off from 10% if you ignore the fact that 10% is actually more than three times larger than 3%. That has to be one of the stupidest comments I have ever seen here.
According to : http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma /03updates-on-iso-3166/nlv10-div.html
the ISO (an NGO) has decided that Afganistan's official name is no longer "The Islamic State of Afghanistan" but instead is "The Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan".
Not keeping up with this s*** is not the same as not knowing basic geography.
Yeah, that happened for sure. I don't understand the over reaction by the Saudis, but it is perhaps oversensitivity to the issue or something.
It did not happen in every case where Muslim armies conquered though, since there are lots of pre-Islamic churches in Syria, Egypt, ...etc. still exist today.
You have to also remember that it also happened the other way, the mosques in Spain and Portugal were turned into churches as the Catholics too them over. Many of the church towers in Spain have a Moorish / North African architecture because of this.
That was before the conquest of Constantinople, and perhaps a reaction as well?
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There is a problem with orienting the spin axis hoorizontally: you can only read the text on one side of the globe. Text would be parallel to line of longitude, and would go up and over (or down and under) the globe as you rotated it. On the other side of the globe they would be upside down.
[C]an you imagine the rucus it would cause in this country if they were chanting, say, a Latin mass?
So what country are you in? I'm in the US, where most of the citizens wouldn't recognize a Latin mass. The largest single religious group is Catholics, and most of them wouldn't even recognize the Latin words to the mass.
There's an old joke in the US, that if English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me.
(Part of the joke is that most religious Americans wouldn't understand that it's a joke.)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Umm, those figures would include infants, small children, and the functionally blind (some) as well. A bit of straw inside that scarecrow.
According to Newsweek (4/16/01) the UN pegs the figure at 97% for the U.S. population over 15 years of age.
Bad (~7.5M), but not nearly as bad as your example. And, it still includes some that aren't so by education.
Seems to me that the real problem will not be solved by holding geography classes. Here the problem was clearly identified within the company before product release. The warning was ignored because someone thought that software released in the US would remain isolated within the target market. Americans understanding Arabic? or software released in the US ending up in the middle east? What were the odds of that, eh?
What it shows is that neither nations nor "markets" can adequately define people. Can you imagine how silly it would be for them to make a release of Football-game software specifically for each team's home region so as not to offend the local fans? Did you know that some radio stations are already playing songs tailored in just this way?!? To me, the fact that some corporate marketing goons think they can classify me and expect me to like it... that's offensive.
Refuse to be classified! Don't let something arbitrary isolate you from other people; not nation, not religion or customs, not even language. Cross a line. Overcome a barrier.
This is one of the main reasons I encourage people to learn Esperanto like I'm doing. What kind of difference do you think it might make, for example, if the people of Iraq and the US were able to freely communicate? Not just a few foreign-educated men but factory workers and dentists, grocery-clerks and stay-at-home moms... What if you had a pen-pal in Iraq? Do you think you might get a different story than what you're being fed by the news media?
It is not the programmer's responsibility to be aware of these things. Public relations people should be there to supply them with information as well as check products before they are done. Programmers are paid to program, not be familiar with customs of other countries.
down instead of converted. Would that make the Saudis any happier? Or MS could have just left them as churches, and the Muslim faithful could attend mosque under the cross. Still not acceptable? Any alternatives I've missed?
What the Saudis object to is the concept of the game. They object to a Muslim team grabbing land from a Christian team.
Get over it. It's a game.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
Most people in France for instance, probably have no idea their country is only slightly larger than Texas, or that Alaska alone is larger than most of Western Europe.
Also I don't think Americans realize that while Europe is quite a bit smaller than the US, there are actually a lot more people there. And both Americans and Europeans probably think Australia is a relatively small island. And nobody in the Western world realizes how friggin huge Africa is, or even just a single African country like the Sudan.
And of course, despite all of these things, there are more than a billion people in both India and China who couldn't care less...
No, humans just don't understand the physical scale of the world very well.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
I'm not sure this is an apt comparison. I think that the offense came from the fact that the prayer music was part of a profane and violent fighting game. I would be offended too (and I'm not Christian) if Christian religious chanting were used as background music for such a game. Its simply disrespectful to the sentiments involved.
Logic, macros, and more
I wonder how offended the Saudi's where when I was over there defending their asses and didn't plug my ears when they blared these prayers over loudspeakers nationwide twice a day. -- This is just a stupid an nonsensical statement. Read it again mods. Really, what is redeeming or interesting about it?
we have to be sensitive to those that consider us the devil, and will be rewarded in heaven for killing us infidels. I repeat, parent is an idiot.
who really gives a fuck where kansas is? Unless of course you live there.
-- Be careful what you say. Someone might remind you about it another day.
Finally: art doesn't care what offends you. In fact, it's supposed to shock and offend, or else it's not doing its job.
That attitude leads to bad art. Poop-on-canvas style bad art, challenging nothing but your perception of the artist.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
...supporting and financing terrorism is. Not to mention violating UN resolutions. You know, remember that? The thing that got violated which gives right to invasion and disabling of Saddam? What's the point of having resolutions if nobody enforces them for a decade?
In a free country it doesn't matter whether you're offended or not. You can object all you like, but you don't have any business trying to pass laws outlawing whatever it is you think that mocks your religion. Even if it does mock your religion.
One of the primary tenets of 'freedom of speech' is that it also includes *speech you don't happen to like*. So you suck it up and move on - that is, if you really do believe in freedom and aren't just some wanker who gives it lip service so long as he agrees with the speech in question.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
But, given that the average US citizen is wealthier than average citizens on whatever other countries, you should expect better education too, shouldn't you?