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fredag 22 juli 2011

Tvingande lääni på Facebook

Alla som försökt skriva in en finländsk ort på svenska i sin Facebookprofil förstår vad det är frågan om. Dels finns inga län längre. Dels kommer de automatiskt på finska oberoende av på vilket språk man själv vill. Jag tvingas bo i Kimito, Länsi-Suomen lääni, så jag föredrar att inte bo någonstans alls på Facebook.

Hittade efter diverse letande möjligheten att skicka respons på funktioner, så denna  (inkopierat nedan) är skriven med anledning av funktionen "Profil". Jag har dock inga större förhoppningar om att min enskilda lilla kontakt ska leda till något.

Skickat som profil-förslag på Facebook-hjälpcenter 20 juli 2011

No more lääni as regions in Finland

THIS IS AN GENERAL ISSUE FOR ALL USERS OF FACEBOOK SITUATED IN FINLAND.

In Finland there are no longer regions called ”lääni” (in Finnish) or ”län” (in Swedish) BUT FACEBOOK STILL AUTOMATICALLY, when writing the name of your town, ADDS A NAME OF THESE OLD REGIONS. For example when I write my town name ”Kimito” Facebook adds ”Länsi-Suomen lääni”.

This is a problem for two reasons, the first, stated above:

1) The state has from the start of 2010 abolished these regions. The relevant regions are now  "maakunta" (in Finnish) or "landskap" (in Swedish). (To be exact, this county division was a parallell division to the lääni/län-division, but now as the lääni/län regional units have been abolished this is the only relevant.)

2) Finland is a bilingual country with official names in Finnish and Swedish for the regional units as well as for many place namnes. Facebook, though, adds the Finnish ”lääni” also to the Swedish place names. For example my town is ”Kimito” in Swedish, but Facebook adds, not the Swedish ”Västra Finlands län”, but the Finnish language version of this (as stated above obsolete) region name. (Writing the Finnish name for Kimito, ”Kemiö” gives, of course, the same result).

Many Finnland-Swedes have avoided to put in their location name in their profile because of this reason (myself included).

My suggestion is that you urgently take the relevant measures to correct this issue.

The above two problems should be adressed, i.e.: The regions should be up-to-date and the linguistic preference of the Facebook user should be respected.

If the Facebook user writes the location name in Swedish this should be recognized as Swedish and promt the region name in its Swedish name version. Some towns have the same name form in both languages, for example, Västanfjärd, so the possibility to choose language version of the region would be useful, Egentliga Finland (Swedish) or Varsinais-Suomi (Finnish). I suppose you have solved these kinds of issues in other countries with more than one language.

If I can be of help in any way I am happy to assist you in solving this problem.

Anna Ritamäki-Sjöstrand

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