This is also far above the beginner level

What would you consider as beginner material?

Welcome to Pimsleur's Italian unit 1... :D

Let's compare two Chinese "Beginner-1" lessons:

(1) Who is She?, Part 15

你想要多少钱呢？
我帮不了你，我需要跟你说多少次呢？
好吧，让我来告诉你事情的真相。
你终于说了。
我哥哥刚刚从一个过世的亲戚那里继承了一大笔钱。
那跟我有什么关系？
我想确认，他还没和这个女孩结婚，或者同居。
这怎么会跟你有关系呢？
我不想让那个女孩分到钱。所以我需要你的帮助。
即使他们住在一块，我想她也没有权利来分那笔钱。
你怎么会了解这样的事情呢？你又不是律师。

This is in my opinion not a "Beginner-1" level.
If you compare the used words with the most important "HSK 3" (= A2/B1) vocabulary (see http://lingomi.com/blog/hsk-lists-2010/ ), there are many that are not in this set, like:
同居, 亲戚, 继承, 确, 即使, and more.
"Who is She" should be considered "Intermediate-1"!

(2) Greetings and Goodbyes, Part 1

早上好。
晚上好。
晚安。
再见。
你好，最近好吗？
我很好，谢谢。你呢？
我也很好。谢谢。
你叫什么名字？
我叫刘陆。你叫什么名字？
我叫刘京京。

This is in my opinion a correct "Beginner-1" level.

I think the beginner-1 level should concentrate more on the singular and plural articles, pronouns and nouns, and present and past tenses. The use of the conditional, subjunctive and indirect object prounouns (and double object pronouns) is simply confusing and FRUSTRATING!!! and from my point of view ridiculous. I can understand wanting to use dialogues in the natural language but there are plenty of natural dialogues which don't contain the subjunctive and double object pronouns.

It's kind of the LingQ method to do it this way. I learned Spanish (starting with the Who is She lessons) and I can speak Spanish reasonably well, but I have no idea what indirect or double object pronouns are, nor do I consciously notice if someone is using singular or plural articles, conditionals or subjunctives. If you want grammar, I'm sure you'll find lots of different websites you can use as references to supplement your study on LingQ. My opinion is that you don't need to waste your time on it (at least not as a beginner).

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

It's also worth to notice that a "Beginner 1" text in one language can have any kind of grammar in another language. A text in Mandarin can have deceivingly simple grammar, while a simple text in another language can be full of case endings, conditional, subjunctives etc.

Yes, I also think that it is not a beginner level lesson. Actually, I think Podcast "Learn Italian Lesson1-20" is much easier than this text.

Is the level set automatically (e.g. according to some predefined wordlist) or by the provider?

It is up to the provider to set the level. Who is She is part of the LingQBeginner series so we set the level. Since these lessons are parallel in many languages, they may well be more difficult in some languages than others.

Who is She gets progressively more difficult. This is an issue, but if we have some of the lessons marked as Intermediate, the lessons and collection start showing up in a variety of lessons in the Library.

There are other beginner lessons to choose from,but the advantage of the LingQBeginner series is that translations exist for all languages.

In any case, I would buy a small starter book when starting a new language. If you have such a book, then the LingQBeginner series works quite well, in my view.

We are open to suggestions on how to do this better.

Alright, I think it's a good idea that all lessons from "Eating out" and "Who is she" have the same level (and the same level for all languages).

One can't expect a 100% perfect match grammar-wise.

Couldn't Who is She just be set at Beginner 2 in all languages? It would still qualify as beginner material.

Yes, why not. Maybe Beginner 2 is best (considering the length of the sentences at the end of the collection).

I agree.