Regarding the 80/20 split? Is that a general 'this is how good detection algorithms are', or is that based on existing Dreamwidth content. Being contrary, I guess my concern is over whether general Dreamidth posts fall into or outside the standards being measured against. If 95% of posts fall into the 80% category, then okay; but if 50% of the posts fall into the 20% category it becomes less practical. I should also poke around the algorithms to try and learn how they handle multiple languages.
It's possible that you could handle most of the 20% by using the user's list of languages from their profile page (*), either simply (we can't be 100% certain of the auto detect, so let's use the default / not set it) or smarter (auto detect says it's X or Y, the user speaks B, M and X, so X it is).
Personally, while I agree that the post entry page is already busy enough, I would prefer to see it as an enterable field. I think that ultimately, the user should be able to control it. Actually, let me take a step back. I think it depends on how it's to be used.
I think the already linked suggestion for languages on profiles is a good precursor to this, and has all the same questions for how you manage languages and the entry and listing thereof.
If this is something that is supposed to be a user choice and/or will be displayed on individual user entries, then it needs to be something that the user can enter, so it becomes the users choice of whether they specify a single language or multiple, or default to leaving it blank and none at all. Leaving it blank is fine for user display here, but if it's to be used for other tools, you still have the problem of selecting a default language for the entry, which may mean forcing the user to have a primary language, and then other languages, which I'm not keen on.
If it's to be an invisible field, that's more used in the background for allowing more choices on the Latest Things page (I'd love to be able to browse for Japanese / Korean posts), then auto detection is probably good enough, within the provisos above. It takes the onus away from the user of having to key in the same language every single time, but it also takes away their choice.
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It's possible that you could handle most of the 20% by using the user's list of languages from their profile page (*), either simply (we can't be 100% certain of the auto detect, so let's use the default / not set it) or smarter (auto detect says it's X or Y, the user speaks B, M and X, so X it is).
Personally, while I agree that the post entry page is already busy enough, I would prefer to see it as an enterable field. I think that ultimately, the user should be able to control it. Actually, let me take a step back. I think it depends on how it's to be used.
I think the already linked suggestion for languages on profiles is a good precursor to this, and has all the same questions for how you manage languages and the entry and listing thereof.
If this is something that is supposed to be a user choice and/or will be displayed on individual user entries, then it needs to be something that the user can enter, so it becomes the users choice of whether they specify a single language or multiple, or default to leaving it blank and none at all. Leaving it blank is fine for user display here, but if it's to be used for other tools, you still have the problem of selecting a default language for the entry, which may mean forcing the user to have a primary language, and then other languages, which I'm not keen on.
If it's to be an invisible field, that's more used in the background for allowing more choices on the Latest Things page (I'd love to be able to browse for Japanese / Korean posts), then auto detection is probably good enough, within the provisos above. It takes the onus away from the user of having to key in the same language every single time, but it also takes away their choice.