Fix empty default lang bug

[madhurgupta10]

Description
Fixes #4583 Empty default lang bug

Tests performed
Tested betaDebug on Pixel 5 with API level 30

[misaochan]

Hi @madhurgupta10 , unfortunately the issue for me is not solved. :(

I notice that it seems to mostly happen when instanceOf is being used (because the item has no Wikidata description). For instance, see the screenshot below:

And then look at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19873498 . So the desc should say "historic site", but on our app it says "historische Stätte in Australien" (which I presume is German).

[madhurgupta10]

@misaochan Could you please try this (not a solution but a check) and let me know if it solves the issue

Go To Settings < Scroll to App user interface language < Tap on English (even if it is already selected)

Then try the nearby again

[madhurgupta10]

@misaochan I did some digging for this issue, I can confirm that the request and response are both completed in the lang "en" It seems like that the backend is providing this result

[misaochan]

@misaochan Could you please try this (not a solution but a check) and let me know if it solves the issue

Go To Settings < Scroll to App user interface language < Tap on English (even if it is already selected)

Then try the nearby again

I tried this, does not solve the problem for me.

@misaochan I did some digging for this issue, I can confirm that the request and response are both completed in the lang "en" It seems like that the backend is providing this result

Hmm, sorry if I'm missing something... I understand that this is the current longDescription, but we don't get longDescription directly from the backend. It is a concatenation of the label and either the description (if there is a description), or the instanceOf (if there is no description).

So we do get the instanceOf from the backend in this case... but we've been getting instanceOf from the backend for a long time, and it has previously said "historic site" for me. This issue is fairly recent.

If you go to the coordinates for https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19873498 (check the Wikidata coords, then use them in your emulator), what do you see in our app for that item? Does it also say "historische Stätte in Australien" for you?

[madhurgupta10]

If you go to the coordinates for https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19873498 (check the Wikidata coords, then use them in your emulator), what do you see in our app for that item? Does it also say "historische Stätte in Australien" for you?

Yes

[madhurgupta10]

So we do get the instanceOf from the backend in this case... but we've been getting instanceOf from the backend for a long time, and it has previously said "historic site" for me. This issue is fairly recent.

I did a careful research on this issue, I found out that earlier we were using item.getClassLabel().getValue() instead of description (see the 2nd screenshot below) that is why "historic site" was displayed instead of "historische Stätte in Australien" I can confirm this with the following test where I changed back to item.getClassLabel().getValue() and got the following result

[madhurgupta10]

The API gives us "de" instead of "en" for description that is why we are getting wrong lang

One way to solve this is to use back "classLabel" instead of "description"

[misaochan]

Interesting discovery, thanks for looking into it @madhurgupta10 ! I wonder why this only happens for some descriptions and not for others... the majority of the descriptions are still in English.

@nicolas-raoul could you weigh in on this please?

[nicolas-raoul]

The only solution would be for someone to write descriptions in English. Until there is an English description, we should continue using a description in another language, which might or might not be readable by the user but is better than nothing in my opinion. Like everything in Wikimedia, people will probably only start writing descriptions when they see a need for it.

[misaochan]

Merging this anyway as it fixes a separate bug. Thanks!