i18n for embeds

[RealAlphabet]

Context

Today, bots receive the local language configured on the Discord client when the user uses a command slash or interacts with a button. This is great, but it's only useful for ephemeral messages.

Proposal

Having the ability to set message internationalization for non-ephemeral messages would be desirable in many use cases and especially for international servers. Added to the ability to internationalize roles and channnels it would be perfect.

Why this is needed

It's great to be able to respond in the user's language, but if users doesn't understand the main language in which the embed message is written, they're unlikely to interact with it.

How could this be implemented?

An idea could be to add new internationalization properties to embeds. Or better still, define several completely different embeds depending on the language (for images).

But I've got a much better idea, and this one will surprise you !
Whoever gets the reference, you're good

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Here's how it works.

Set a new flag on embed messages to indicate whether or not the message is internationalized.

Now here's where it gets interesting. The Discord client will detect that the message has a translation and will display a button of its own, such as a Translate message tooltip or button.

If the user clicks, Discord will send a new type of interaction to the bot, asking it to update the message for the user's locale.

To prevent developers from customizing the message for users, the Discord API will only send the bot the user's locale and no information on who requested the translation.

In this way, the Discord API can be free to cache the translation and automatically display it to other users.

Limitations

• Bots developers need to keep track of message IDs to display translations.
• Messages are not automatically translated.
  • Could be the case if the Discord client decides to send the interaction automatically and the Discord API returns the cached translation.
• If the message is edited (generally rare) then the translation should be invalidated as well.
• Difficult to integrate with the search bar.

Advantages

• Drastically reduce storage requirements for internationalized embed messages.
• Does not require breaking change.
• Does not require any changes to message structure (easy implementation on the Discord side).

Alternatives considered

• A new type of embed messages that automatically send an interaction to a bot when the user sees it.
  • Possibility to define how the message could be cached by the Discord API or the client.
    • The duration.
    • The data the message depends on (a user, or a locale).
  • Could be awesome for messages that display the user profile.
• Internationalization fields in the embed structure.
• The ability for bots to pre-save different embed messages with their translations (100 embeds per server) .