[Theforum] langs

spinhead evolt at spinhead.com
Mon Nov 12 20:38:42 CST 2001


We're in a loop. If we're a predominantly English-speaking community
(assumption) how do we find out if there are predominantly non-English
speakers who want to be part of the community? What language do we ask them
in? (Us americans will just use English, only we'll say it REAL LOUD.)

I disagree with (someone's) posted implication that comments etc. could act
as a review for non-English articles. All articles should be subjected to
the same QA routine. If we can't provide the same quality checks in other
languages, responsibility for quality in those areas falls entirely on the
writers rather than with some administrative body. (If we can't read the
articles, we can't even begin to judge quality and content. Babelfishing
works for general concepts, but you can't review an article in a language
you don't read. Period.)

Are we more concerned about quality or multi-lingualness?

spinhead

p.s. Okay; you caught me, John.  Smarty pants. My post was almost stupid.
But I still think this is much more an admin/quality question rather than a
language/internationalness question. I guess part of my confusion/ambiguity
is that I'm used to speaking the language of my physical location (when my
father worked in Tijuana, across the border in Mexico, we didnt' dare speak
English in front of him. We were guests in another country, and we were
required to show respect by at least attempting to speak the language. How
do I apply this thinking to the web? If I'm chatting with Elfur, is our chat
in San Diego or Iceland? Just thinking out loud, here.


----- Original Message -----
From: "John Handelaar" <genghis at members.evolt.org>
To: <theforum at lists.evolt.org>
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001 6:20 PM
Subject: RE: [Theforum] langs


> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: theforum-admin at lists.evolt.org
> > [mailto:theforum-admin at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf Of spinhead
> > Sent: 13 November 2001 01:58
> > To: theforum
> > Subject: [Theforum] langs
> >
> > Isn't this exactly the kind of question that should be addressed AFTER a
> > survey?
>
> Broken sample.  No non-anglophones are being surveyed :-)
>
> > But why don't we wait until we know something's broken before we work
too
> > hard to fix it.
>
> How are you going to find out if it's broken or not? Broken sample.
> No non-anglophones are being surveyed :-)
>
> Slightly more seriously, all of us have seen a significant (where
> 'significant' != 'large') number of posts to thelist in - if memory
> serves -
>
> * Spanish
> * French
> * Portuguese
> * Cantonese/Big5
>
> All of them have made an appearance during 2001.  (Yes, I do have an
> Outlook folder with >26,000 msgs in it, thanks for asking.) Though the
> last of those was definitely along the lines of 'quit sending me
> all this foreign alphabet crap'.  Heh.
>
> ------------------------------------------
> John Handelaar
>
> T +44 20 7209 4117       M +44 7930 681789
> F +44 870 169 7657   E john at userfrenzy.com
> ------------------------------------------
>
>





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