I think there are disadvantages to a downvote button in some cases, the current setup allows for every comment to be seen as an equal (as long as it passes the community guidelines), which can be valuable when discussing particularly contentious issues. I guess it's always a choice as to what community you are looking to foster.
(Disclaimer: I'm a dev at the Guardian, but not in an area related to commenting)
Guess there are pros and cons and it's a bit of a personal preference. I was thinking that the Hacker News comments system works pretty well. Maybe they could clone that?
Yep, on the feature list, currently it's limited to en -> Other only. Also looking at selecting the target languages so you only see the languages you want.
Thanks userulluipeste! It's great to get feedback, seems Yandex API isn't the best, very interested if there's any others people have had a good experience with?
You might want to look into actual horizontal space. Visually the Japanese and Chinese translations takes a lot more space than the character count would have you believe.
Underneath it is currently using the Yandex API, mainly due to it's generous free tier. Can't speak to the quality myself, but it does the job as a quick tool for simple translations.
If they have faith in the system, then surely this should cost them next to nothing as everything should be repaid? (Although I'm naive on the accounting of things like this.)
Great idea though, never lost a $1 through kiva lending.
(Disclaimer: I'm a dev at the Guardian, but not in an area related to commenting)