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seth hett schreven:
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cite="mid:7d5b097704c369f947553cb724b8ac84.squirrel@srv4.sysproserver.de"
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<pre wrap="">Hi and 'gudn tach'!
On Tue, June 29, 2010 12:37, Marcus Buck wrote:
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">Andre Koopal hett schreven:
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">The solution we mostly take is to answer in dutch or swedish or
something :-)
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">Wow, how mature... Hoe durven ze geen Engels te spreken?
If River Tarnell does not speak German and recommends using English if
people want to get a quick answer from him without one of River's
co-admins being interpreter, that's of course okay. But intentionally
being unhelpful to people who in good faith use their native language
(which in the case of German will be understood on this list) is just
offensive and arrogant.
</pre>
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<pre wrap=""><!---->
On the other hand you could call someone offensive or arrogant (or at
least not-thinking-enough), if he uses his small native language in an
international project.
</pre>
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Interesting that you call it an 'international' project. That is
technically true, but Wikimedia does not involve 'nations' or
'countries' but rather 'language communities'. So the more appropiate
adjective would be 'multilingual'. And if you replace 'international
project' with 'multilingual project' in your sentence it doesn't sound
that meaningful anymore, does it?<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:7d5b097704c369f947553cb724b8ac84.squirrel@srv4.sysproserver.de"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Of course, in most cases none of them is really arrogant or maliciously
offensive.</pre>
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Arrogance and offensiveness rarely involve real maliciousness. Many
people act in good faith while being arrogant and offensive. They just
don't realize their rude behaviour.<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:7d5b097704c369f947553cb724b8ac84.squirrel@srv4.sysproserver.de"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">If someone replies in Swedish on a German request, one could
take it as nothing but a joke and a hint 'try using the common language,
please!', which mostly will be English, nowadays.
</pre>
</blockquote>
This "common language" is spoken by less than a quarter of the world
population. If we only count decent English it's more like 10%.<br>
<br>
If somebody asks a question in a non-English language what would happen
in the optimal case: <br>
a) one of the other list members knows the language, knows the answer,
answers the answer in the non-English language and adds a sentence in
English telling the other list members what he answered (so they can
make addenda if necessary which will be translated into the non-English
language)<br>
b) one of the other list members knows the language, but doesn't know
the answer: He acts as a interpreter between the original poster and
the list<br>
c) none of the list members knows the language: if some time has passed
and noone has initiated a) or b) one of the list members answers the
question with something like "Apparently nobody speaks X, perhaps you
could try to ask in English so more people can understand your
question." Either the original poster speaks English and asks in
English or he doesn't speak English. In the latter case he's lost but
at least the list tried to help without making jokes about him.<br>
<br>
Marcus Buck<br>
User:Slomox<br>
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