in reply to Non-English posts on Perlmonks

Posting in non-english is not good for the following reasons:
Let's assume that someone posting here in a non-English language doesn't have the knowledge to post an understandable article written in English. Their alternative is to not post.
  • You will miss usefull comments of people that dont speak your language.
True, but you still might get comments of people understanding your language, which is better than not getting any comments, which happens if you don't post at all.
  • You will divide the power of the perlmonks community into 'islands' of knowledge
Yeah, and? It's not going to reduce the size of the "main", English-speaking island. But it might cause additional islands to form, increasing the total land-mass. And if their are people who understand both English and some non-English language, they can act as bridgebuilders, linking the various islands.

I don't get what you are saying with your first two points (maybe that's because I'm not a native English speaker).

Abigail

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: Non-English posts on Perlmonks
by wufnik (Friar) on Jul 10, 2003 at 15:54 UTC
    hola,

    i find myself defending Vennis again, surprised a little by your assertions, in particular:

    "Yeah, and? It's not going to reduce the size of the "main", English-speaking island. ". if i cannot understand a posting, it diminishes the information i am able to glean from perl monks. if there are many such postings, while they may be of intrinsic worth, i will just tend to switch off, more and more. like i do from my old spam-ridden email accounts. i will choose a medium less polluted by things i can make no sense of . likewise, can you imagine cb, if it were continually interspersed with comments you could not understand?

    perl itself is rooted in english to an extend it is hard to get away from; the pod is rooted in english, the source comments are in english - i find it odd that advocating, as Vennis has done, that the same should apply to perlmonks should so many hackles.

    particularly when he, from what i can gather, is dutch.

    yours respectfully,

    ...wufnik

    in the world of the mules there are no rules
[reply]

      if i cannot understand a posting, it diminishes the information i am able to glean from perl monks.

      I think you missed the part about bridge building. Yeah, most people post in English, but realistically should someone who wants to learn Perl, but does not quite have a good enough grasp of the English language to feel confident to post in English, be chastised for asking for help. If someone asks for help, regardless of language, they should be helped (and then let the bridge builders do their work, for the benifit of all.)

      If there are many such postings, while they may be of intrinsic worth, i will just tend to switch off, more and more. like i do from my old spam-ridden email accounts. i will choose a medium less polluted by things i can make no sense of

      If you know of (or find) a better medium for discussing Perl than PerlMonks, then I am sure you will not be the only one moving along to greener pastures. (I do like the language optional display of nodes). I also think, (hopefully not mistakenly), that nodes of great "intrinsic" worth would be high on the priority list for translation. In the end I don't really believe that you would notice a decrease in the amount of information you can glean from this site.

      likewise, can you imagine cb, if it were continually interspersed with comments you could not understand?

      I am almost certain that at times I have noticed a good amount of nonEnglish scrolling by on the CB. Nothing exessive, but had it become that, there is the option of "/ignore"ing those who are doing it, so I don't think it would be a problem there as well.

      perl itself is rooted in english to an extend it is hard to get away from; the pod is rooted in english, the source comments are in english - i find it odd that advocating, as Vennis has done, that the same should apply to perlmonks

      I agree, it is rooted in English, but that should not mean that we cannot extend a hand to those who are not fluent enough in English to post (or confident that they will understand an answer given back to them in English.)

      Besides, with the knowledge they are likely to get in their native tongue, they are likely to wonder what other wonderful information is hidden away in English on this site and in time, gain enough knowledge of English to be able glean the knowledge posted here throughout the years. (and then they will be the bridge builders of tomorrow.. community is IMHO a lot of what Perl(Monks) is about.)

      -enlil

[reply]
        thank you for this intelligent & measured commentary, in which there is nothing i really object to. in particular, i like your last point re: how it may encourage those who do not speak, and i wholeheartedly agree that community is what perl monks is about.

        at present it is emphatically not a problem, and you are right in that /ignore could be practically used and modified to deal with other cases. i do not propose censoring anything, i merely think it worth recommending posts be in english. why?

        my fear stems from the case in which non-english postings rise to a level where there become 'english', 'french' and 'german' perl monk sites, independent of each other. with the monastery divided, no-one bothers to translate posts they consider minor, the number of potentially useful nuggets in the information mine - for the community in general, not just english speakers - becomes less, and we are all left the poorer.

        regards,

        wufnik

        -- in the world of the mules there are no rules
[reply]
      if i cannot understand a posting, it diminishes the information i am able to glean from perl monks.
      As talexb said, it isn't about you, it is about the community. If someone posts in a language other than one you understand, move on and hope that someone else can answer their question. Perlmonks is a place where people needing help with Perl can come and get it. If they are forced to post in English, they might not be able to ask their question, even if one of the many Perlmonks knows their native language.
[reply]
      if i cannot understand a posting, it diminishes the information i am able to glean from perl monks. if there are many such postings, while they may be of intrinsic worth, i will just tend to switch off, more and more. like i do from my old spam-ridden email accounts.

      Each posting on perlmonks about CGI, or about Windows issues diminishes the information I glean from Perlmonks, because I've no interest in them. If there would be too many of such postings, I'd spend less and less time on Perlmonks.

      I don't have a problem with that. I'm not going to argue that because I don't like CGI or Windows, Perlmonks should have a policy not to accept such postings. At best I could argue Perlmonks should have some filtering options. Or I could run a local newsserver, hack together a perlmonks to NNTP gateway and use a newsreader that does have such filtering ability.

      But I don't think Perlmonks is there for me, or that the prospect of me leaving results in a policy change.

      Abigail

[reply]

      likewise, can you imagine cb, if it were continually interspersed with comments you could not understand?
      Half of the comments on CB make no sense to me and that has nothing to do with the language in which they are written ;-)

      CountZero

      "If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law

[reply]

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