Many users on Newsvine are commenting that there is no way to really look for articles in their local languages. I agree that this is an important feature that should be implemented. I do not, however, agree with the assumption that it is because the developers are being US-centric. I would rather believe the fact that the lingua franca of the developers is English and therefore the simplest and easiest way to get through the initial stages of development is to develop in English without considering language files, l18n functions, etc. They reason they neglected to implement some sort of localization functionality is probably because the framework of the site is not even set in stone. The purpose of a beta phase is to recognize such requirements of a community and to accommodate them. After the framework is set, it is easier to set up functions that handle multiple languages because not only can there be separation of articles in various languages, it can also provide a localized interface with various languages. (Imagine Newsvine in your local language!) I know that not everyone agrees with the fact that it is an afterthought but you have to make certain tasks a higher priority when producing something that's still very much in development.

So what's the solution in the meantime? Tagging your posts.

I propose the following tagging system for all posts using a ISO-639-2 standard of three-letter coding for languages to tag one's articles: lang-xxx. For example, lang-eng would be used for English articles, lang-fre for French articles and lang-jpn for Japanese articles. You can find all the three-letter codes at the link above. Remember that if there are two codes listed, the first one is the one that is preferred. I would also suggest tagging all articles, including all those already entered into the server. The latter, especially, would be a task for the whole community. I will start the process by tagging all of my articles and any article I read.

If there's a standard across the board, what the developers can do is to implement a system to read that language tag on all articles. It makes things easier for them when they implement language filtering. Also, it would help you to search for an article by tag or set up a watched tag on your watch list.