[Toolserver-l] ts-admins language

[Krinkle]

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