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I had a quick look via a site-local google search for "hl=' which returned some localized links in answers & questions (to Google services). All in all 57 results.

What's the policy for those links?

Plus: Is it OK to manually edit all those occurrences or will I upset the reviewers when I do this? Should I wait until I gain enough reputation so that I won't?

The site is in English of course but there may be international visitors who'd like to view the linked content in its localized version. Nothing will change or be broken for English readers if the hl=en (or hl=en_us,...) is removed.

Some samples:

http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?hl=de&answer=55851 (English)
http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55851 (German)
http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?answer=55851 (defined by browser/system setting)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.maps&hl=hu

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Reset to default
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No, no policy on the links. That's just a function of people pasting the URL from their browser. I'd wager most people don't even know that "hl=x" is supposed to be a language hint. (And the rest that do don't notice it.)

So long as the link works without it I don't see a reason why removing it would be a bad thing. It might be too minor if that's all you're looking to change, though.

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    My personal thought is that international/agnostic links should perhaps be preferred when possible. Limiting multilingual links to English seems like it's an unnecessary inconvenience for anyone who speaks English as a second (or third/fourth/etc) language. Edits of that nature seem fine to me, too, provided that any other issues in the post are addressed as you note.
    – eldarerathis Mod
    Commented Jul 2, 2012 at 19:30
  • Thanks for the clarification. I'm only missing 250 to gain "2000 Edit other people’s posts", maybe I'll wait until then to not cause excessive reviews for you guys.
    – ce4
    Commented Jul 2, 2012 at 19:36
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    I also approve of this. We're an English site but there is no reason to force the language on links to be in English if the site is multi-lingual.
    – Bryan Denny Mod
    Commented Jul 2, 2012 at 19:55

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