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

Hi there!
Right, ok. I understand that once the mods are alerted to non-Enlish content they'll deal with it as usual.
The one thing I'd like to know is this:

What am I to do with posings in a non-English language which I understand as it is my native language?


The House Rules say:
"Postings or entries containing languages other than English may be removed."

A864236 says:
"We'd like you to click the complaints button if you see something that you think breaks the House Rules, or that you personally find offensive. Don't use the complaints button if you think someone else might possibly be offended by the material, or we might find ourselves reviewing loads of content unnecessarily." (...) "For the time being, we'd like you post in English."


Now, if I see a posting in, say, German, posted by another researcher this posting does not break the House Rules. The Rules say that the posting *may* be removed, but not that it is not allowed. The act of posing in German goes against Peta's (and, presumeably, the rest of TPTB's) wish in A864236.
So, am I do yikes a posting which I know is not offensive, (as I am a native speaker of the language), which does not break the Rules but which is against the Italics' wish and which not necessarily understood by all of the community?

Under the wording regarding unnecessary yikesing, I feel that I need to to alert the Mods. It's not against the rules and it's not offensive to me personally.



Tube

If you know it's not offensive, no matter what language it's in, don't yikes it. Non-English languages aren't forbidden as such, they're discouraged - nowhere in the House Rules does it say "you must only post in English".

However, everyone should bear in mind that even if everyone the post is intended for will understand it and know it's okay content-wise, someone else might yikes it anyway. So if you do post in another language, don't bet on it staying around all that long

MaW has pointed out the main problem. If it's readable to you, but not to (say) MaW, you can tell that it's okay, but he can't. We have no way of knowing which Postings have been ignored (ie not complained about) by people who speak that language because they don't break the House Rules and which have simply not been seen.

However, I am going to discuss this with some of the other italics, so that we can give you a definite answer. Please bear with us.

Tube

PS: You could maybe involve the inofficial TransVol scheme, e.g. by telling people to post links foreign language postings at the TransVol page and the TransVols look at it ASAP...? Hmmm, maybe the reaction time is a bit long for that procedure.

The only trouble with that is that the translator scheme didn't work out when I tried running it.

Hi Tube, The h2g2 team drew my attention to this conversation. I've posted another fuller reply to your original foreign language question over on the Hub, that you can find here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/hub/F102943?thread=220532&post=2617132#p2617132 This is a bit of a grey area at the moment...

Thanks Peta.

Ok, thanks! Now I know what to do.