[Foundation-l] Multilinguality (Was: Wikimedia Communs)

Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu
Wed May 26 11:49:32 UTC 2004


Anthere wrote in part:

>I'll add that comments stating it is inappropriate to
>write in french on a multilingual list, and requesting
>an explanation, do not exactly help asserting the fact
>this mailing list *is* multilingual.

While I'm primarily in sympathy with your position, anthère,
still it's important to distinguish "stating it is inappropriate"
from "requesting an explanation".  The latter is a good thing!
Since more people here know English than know French (I assume),
it's very helpful to the readers in general to have English explanations
(such as Chris's nice summary to one of your recent posts).

French posts are not /inappropriate/ by any means,
but they may be /ineffective/, relatively to English.
That's something that every poster must keep in mind,
as a practical matter, if they want their posts to be read.


-- Toby



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