h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Howdy,

This is a serious but minor question, not trying to pester anybody or protest this time, I've done it enough elsewhere.

The question that I've been debating with several people is whether posting in a language other than English is seen as "breaking the House Rules?" Would continued posting in other languages result in a researcher being suspended or banned?

I imagine that the Italics aren't that mean, but it seems to me by the current House Rules that the line about "Postings or entries containing languages other than English may be removed" is in the same section with "No spamming" and "Please don't imitate others." So I interpret this to mean that a person who consistently wrote in a language she knew might be censored would be seen as breaking the House Rules in the same way that a persistent spammer might be breaking the House Rules.

I don't intend to give moderators this kind of headache either way, but I keep warning people that they could get banned for using other languages and my interpretation of the Rules may be wrong.

Thanks.

(Like I said, no big hurry on this question. Just curious.)

Hi Subcom

If we thought that someone was doing it *just* to create work for the moderators it's possible, but it's pretty unlikely. As you say, we're not that mean. Posting in other languages isn't a banable offence but being deliberatly irritating and anti-social is. So for instance, if someone kept posting foreign postings in an English conversation, just to break up the flow of the conversation, with 'post removed' comments, then I'd count that as anti-social behaviour. If they kept doing it, when asked not to, I'd consider banning them.

A bit about banning to add though. No-one ever gets banned without being warned first (Oops, sorry one exception to this, I did an outright ban on a person who posted links to a really nasty kiddy-porn site once) I normally email the person and try to have a conversation with them about what they're doing, and why, and try to encourage them to act differently on h2g2. Banning really is a last resort, and I do it very, very rarely, which just goes to show how nice everyone is.

Thanks. I knew you guys were pretty cool about things like this. I just wanted to know so I could warn Zaphodistas that if they want to make protests like this, it could realistically be seen as anti-social behavior, and could get them in trouble. (I knew you gave warnings before outright banning. And I certainly wouldn't defend that person who clearly deserved to be banned without warning.)