sudden appearance of foreign languages

[MuniOrBust]

It must have been about a week ago, I was viewing the forums at work and sometime during a session the forum's menus/buttons turned to german.
I decided to clear my cookies for the site and when I logged back in, it was back to english.

But then later that day when I came home, the same thing happened on my personal computer. Huh? Clearing cookies worked again.

In both of those cases I was using Firefox 3.something. Probably the latest just before 4 was released.

Now, I'm using Firefox 4 at home. Just a few minutes ago my menus/buttons for the forums turned to french. I cleared my cookies and I'm back to english.

What's going on with this?

[jacobowicz]

very glad to see that post here !

[MuniOrBust]

So I got an email notification of the above post to this thread, because I'm subscribed to it.
I clicked on the link in my email, and all the menus are foreign.

I then just went to unicyclist.com and all is better.
Then I click on the forums, this sub forum, this thread, and all the menus are normal english.

I don't get what's going on.

And I don't get the last post. 1st time the user has posted... and no advertisements. So what's the point.

[Dane M]

Well down in the bottom left corner of the forum it lets you select your language, maybe it got changed at one point?

[MuniOrBust]

Oh wow.. I hadn't noticed that.
Thanks. If it happens again, at least there's a quick something to try.

Maybe I've got some strange habit of tabbing or hitting some keys that changes that selection inadvertently.

[Ereksonj]

The same thing happened to me today, just now. mine was in Spanish. After selecting English in the bottom corner, everything is fine. I was really confused before reading this thread.

[emile]

Same for me, even if I select english as the language, half of the website will still be in french

[SanderZ]

you are right !

[MuniOrBust]

What's with the one time posters saying "that's right" and "you are right"?
They're not even spam links. So why'd they join the forms to post that?
I don't get it. :confused:

[Gilby]

What's with the one time posters saying "that's right" and "you are right"?
They're not even spam links. So why'd they join the forms to post that?
I don't get it. :confused:

I would guess they will come back later and spam from that account.

[kamikaze]

It's some kind of marketing mechanism. Marketing firms create accounts in online communities and try to build up a reputation as community members that will later make their advertising look credible.

Once you're a part of the community it's easy to place inconspicuous advertisement, e.g. in the Muni Shoes thread or some such.

Becoming part of the community, however, is not so easy if you don't really want to be.

[MuniOrBust]

I think I may have just figured out the path that leads to the forums changing to Spanish.

I got an email notification of a reply to a thread. The link is:
http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88766&goto=newpost

When I click on that I end up in spanish. As navigate through the forums, I remain in spanish.

If I close the tab, then go to
http://unicyclist.com
I'm back to English.

And if I just paste
http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88766&goto=newpost
into my FireFox address bar, I'm back to spanish.
Without the &goto=newpost also brings me to spanish:
http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88766

So, something to do with showthread.php?
Hmmm