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Hi folks,
Just a reminder: although the Toolserver is hosted by Wikimedia Deutschland, not all our admins (i.e., me) are fluent in German. You will therefore get a faster response to your request when you write in English.
- river.
I am confident that many users already defaulted to asking questions in English out of the American presumption that everyone speaks English everywhere.
On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 3:25 AM, River Tarnell river.tarnell@wikimedia.dewrote:
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Hi folks,
Just a reminder: although the Toolserver is hosted by Wikimedia Deutschland, not all our admins (i.e., me) are fluent in German. You will therefore get a faster response to your request when you write in English.
- river.-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.15 (FreeBSD)
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James Hare:
I am confident that many users already defaulted to asking questions in English out of the American presumption that everyone speaks English everywhere.
Yes, but we still get a few tickets in German now and then. Since this doesn't happen with French or Swedish, it seems likely people are assuming that all admins are German.
- river.
On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 07:30:04AM +0000, River Tarnell wrote:
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James Hare:
I am confident that many users already defaulted to asking questions in English out of the American presumption that everyone speaks English everywhere.
Yes, but we still get a few tickets in German now and then. Since this doesn't happen with French or Swedish, it seems likely people are assuming that all admins are German.
Hi River,
I work for an international company where sometimes indeed the germans tend to mail in german to international lists.
The solution we mostly take is to answer in dutch or swedish or something :-)
Regards,
Andre
- river.
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Andre Koopal hett schreven:
On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 07:30:04AM +0000, River Tarnell wrote:
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James Hare:
I am confident that many users already defaulted to asking questions in English out of the American presumption that everyone speaks English everywhere.
Yes, but we still get a few tickets in German now and then. Since this doesn't happen with French or Swedish, it seems likely people are assuming that all admins are German.
Hi River,
I work for an international company where sometimes indeed the germans tend to mail in german to international lists.
The solution we mostly take is to answer in dutch or swedish or something :-)
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.
Marcus Buck User:Slomox
Hi and 'gudn tach'!
On Tue, June 29, 2010 12:37, Marcus Buck wrote:
Andre Koopal hett schreven:
The solution we mostly take is to answer in dutch or swedish or something :-)
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.
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.
Of course, in most cases none of them is really arrogant or maliciously offensive. 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.
iow: agf should hold for questioners _and_ repliers. :-)
cheers/prost seth
On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 01:13:41PM +0200, seth wrote:
Hi and 'gudn tach'!
On Tue, June 29, 2010 12:37, Marcus Buck wrote:
Andre Koopal hett schreven:
The solution we mostly take is to answer in dutch or swedish or something :-)
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.
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.
Of course, in most cases none of them is really arrogant or maliciously offensive. 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.
iow: agf should hold for questioners _and_ repliers. :-)
cheers/prost seth
Indeed, that is just the intend, a friendly reminderr, and almost always working as such.
Regards,
Andre
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seth hett schreven:
Hi and 'gudn tach'!
On Tue, June 29, 2010 12:37, Marcus Buck wrote:
Andre Koopal hett schreven:
The solution we mostly take is to answer in dutch or swedish or something :-)
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.
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.
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?
Of course, in most cases none of them is really arrogant or maliciously offensive.
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.
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.
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%.
If somebody asks a question in a non-English language what would happen in the optimal case: 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) 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 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.
Marcus Buck User:Slomox
Marcus Buck heeft het volgende geschreven:
seth hett schreven:
Hi and 'gudn tach'!
On Tue, June 29, 2010 12:37, Marcus Buck wrote:
Andre Koopal hett schreven:
The solution we mostly take is to answer in dutch or swedish or something :-)
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.
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.
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?
Of course, in most cases none of them is really arrogant or maliciously offensive.
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.
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.
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%.
If somebody asks a question in a non-English language what would happen in the optimal case: 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) 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 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.
Marcus Buck User:Slomox
I agree with Marcus here.
Though people shouldn't asume that because it's a project by Wikimedia Deutschland that the admins are German. However, they shouldn't get the impression of an English organisation either.
It's a multilingual project and it shouldn't be a problem for natives to speak with eachother.
-- User:Krinkle
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Krinkle:
It's a multilingual project and it shouldn't be a problem for natives to speak with eachother.
To be clear, I was talking specifically about mails to the ts-admins@ contact address.
If people want to speak German (or any other language) on the list, IRC, or any other forum, that's fine. (But from a purely pragmatic point of view, asking questions in English is still likely to elicit a faster and broader response.)
- river.
Hi folks
I hate to interrupt this fruitful discussion about the politically correct way of resolving languages issues, but can we get back to the issue at hand, please?
No one is forbidden from using their native language. For getting help quickly, writing in English is probably a good idea. That's all.
Please keep in mind that a basic level of English is a REQUIREMENT for getting a toolserver account, simply for the reason that admins need to be able to communicate with users directly, and users have to understand rules, announcements, etc.
I don't see how a general debate about netiquette in multilingual projects is relevant to the toolserver list. It's an interesting topic, for sure, but this isn't the place. English is the lingua franca on the toolserver. We'll all have to live with that.
Cheers, Daniel
On Jun 29, 2010, at 8:22 AM, Daniel Kinzler daniel@brightbyte.de wrote:
Hi folks
I hate to interrupt this fruitful discussion about the politically correct way of resolving languages issues, but can we get back to the issue at hand, please?
No one is forbidden from using their native language. For getting help quickly, writing in English is probably a good idea. That's all.
Please keep in mind that a basic level of English is a REQUIREMENT for getting a toolserver account, simply for the reason that admins need to be able to communicate with users directly, and users have to understand rules, announcements, etc.
I don't see how a general debate about netiquette in multilingual projects is relevant to the toolserver list. It's an interesting topic, for sure, but this isn't the place. English is the lingua franca on the toolserver. We'll all have to live with that.
Cheers, Daniel
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Well put. But this raises an interesting point: pooling all the sysadmins and such together, how many (and which) languages are spoken by the toolserver administration? Is this something that could be posted somewhere?
On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Marcus Buck wiki@marcusbuck.org wrote:
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%.
But it's spoken by everyone on this list and everyone with a toolserver account. German is spoken by a much lower percentage than 100%. You can post in German here, but it's going to be gibberish to most subscribers, and having nontrivial quantities of gibberish in your inbox is pretty annoying. So personally, at least I would get annoyed if we had a significant amount of German discussion going on here -- I'd suggest that it be moved to a separate German list so I wouldn't have to sort through lots of mail that's completely useless to me. (Although, this particular list is so low-traffic that it wouldn't matter.)
On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 2:10 PM, Aryeh Gregor Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Marcus Buck wiki@marcusbuck.org wrote:
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%.
But it's spoken by everyone on this list and everyone with a toolserver account.
If it's good enough for ICAO it's good enough for us :)
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