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

it could be a folded towel

I want one made of otherwise objectional material and containing embroidered non-english words

Oh, then I'd suggest the following:

Doppelganger, Rinderpest, Kindergarten, Blitzkrieg, Dachshund,
Ersatz, Angst, Glockenspiel, Poltergeist, Spiel, Gestalt, Rucksack, Stein...


just for a start

or: "Zugzwang", which is a german word that is used (to the best of my knowledge) by many chess players all over the world (esp. even by those in Russia).

Jeremy

Not everywhere. We call it 'zetdwang', or a forced move if someone wants an english translation for the record.

I'm glad to see that after rejecting my claim that the House Rules' wording was offensive, they then went and changed them. I'm happy now.

Oh, man, that's quite a lot of backlog that was piled up here during the last few hours ...

I feel like the man who was about to leave the party and wanted to have "just one more for the road".

Seriously: There has been some discussion about the use of "regional" English (sorry if some of my blethering sounds weird to native speakers). Especially three words were mentioned: Blether, fash and puir. And, as far as I remember, it was said that the moderators couldn't identify these words as proper English. Now that sound somehow funny to me. I had to look up these words in my online dictionary I guarantee it's ok, just a service of the Munich Technical University.

This dictionary could identify at least the word "blether", a fact that made me doubt the qualification of the moderators for a couple of minutes .

On behalf of all the foreign speakers who are still present, I would like to see less English dialect postings. I know that dialects are an integral part of our cultural identity, and he who fights a dialect holds up the flag of the dark side of globalization. But if the discussion should be understood by all those who are interested in it (and from my point of view it's definitely worth it), at least the frame of the thread shouldn't be dialectized. Examples of dialect (with a translation to something we foreigners have a chance to understand) are absolutely ok. Contributions which are meant to be substantial (I can't be sure about that, as it's almost imposssible for me to understand some of the above postings) should rather not be in dialect.

Maybe some native speakers have learned some German. Would you think it was fair if I wrote German sentences in my dialect? You wouldn't stand a chance to understand it.

Example (moderators have mercy , and let your decision be influenced by the fact that I have been trusted enough to be a German Translator Volunteer):

"Wenn I so schreim dad wia mia da schnowe gwochsn is, dann kunnts es koa woat net vasteh."

"Wenn ich so schreiben würde, wie mir der Schnabel gewachsen ist, dann könntet Ihr kein Wort verstehen."


"If I wrote the way I talk, you could not understand one single word."



You know what I mean?

Jeremy

Can someone add regional english versions of that sentence for completeness?

I am beginning to believe there should be an addition to the rules:
"For comprehencability regional English is considered equivalent to a foreign language"
This would make standard English (whatever that may be) the standard method of communication for everyone, and everything else a potential violation of the rules.

Sounds funny, but nevertheless rather sensible to me:

If the House Rules say that standard English is the standard method of communication and official language of the Guide, that would mean that anything else that is used (regional English dialects, UK minority languages and foreign languages/dialects) run the risk of being moderated out.

Keywords are "runs the risk". This might mean that non-English content could possibly stay in the threads if a legitimate interest in the use of these phrases is declared (this declaration would have to be proper English, of course).

Once again: No sneaking-in-the-back-door intended here, I just would like to be allowed to talk *ABOUT* languages (with an approproate use of words and phrases of that language and the immediate translation).

Jeremy

g302> "why don't you (the researchers in the UK) lobby your MP's to have the licence fee doubled so that the BBC can afford all these things you want from it."

I want the BBC to switch to reactive moderation. Switching to reactive moderation would *save* money, not double it. And we've seen that doing so is legally valid. The only damage would be to the egos of the good folks at Editorial Policy.

> "Hey, Marjin, better wait until we know whether that could get you banned for life..."

I previously cleared a couple of such games with Mark: A530849 (the Advocation Game) and A522127 (The Copyright Game). He did ask for a couple of changes, though, to some of the wordings.

I've learnt something today. Apparently, rumours of Manx's death have been greatly exaggerated. It has followed the examples of Hebrew and Cornish and revived itself as a spoken language.

That'll learn me for being a pompous git.

Not to engage in too deep a description, as I understand the graphics for smileys is limited, but I always think that a towel looks nicer on a rack...

And of course, there is the alternative of making up our own words...
building a kind of HooTooEse....

HooTooEse will almost by definition be a foreign language, as it only contains words not included in the sacred dictionary of allowed standard English words.

To summarise, it looks like we're back to number 3 on Natalie's list... in other words the only language we guarantee to support is the Queen's English, but if Moderators can understand other content (whether local English dialects, Bubblish, German or whatever) then they should try to process them as best they can. Otherwise such content will be referred until such time as they can be processed.

This *will* mean inconcistencies in moderation of content that contains words that the Moderators might not understand, but as long as you're happy to live with that, it means that the initial announcement in this Conversation is no longer true.

Yahooo!
(sorry not meant as advertising)

Great!

I can live with inconsistencies in favour of foreign languages.

Will the Eds continue working towards #4 on Natalie's list?
Will there be a counter-anouncement?


Tube

Number 3 works for me. I don't mind inconcistencies, even though I don't quite like being moderated. I do understand why it has to be done, though. I'm just impatiently waiting for number 4 to happen..

Btw, thank you for re-wording the house rules, Mark.

If anyone wants to discuss this issue further, and particularly which of Natalie's options is most palatable (or least unpalatable), I've started a simple entry here: A774452. Alternative solutions welcome.

-myre

A question.
The rules say:
It's also polite when posting to a Conversation to stick to the same language as the other Postings in that Conversation; posting something in a different language halfway through is not very constructive.

Does that mean that if the first posting is accepted in non-english, the rest of the thread has to stay in that language?

Idea: Could you publish a roster which indicates which moderator is responsible at what time/date so that we know that someone can read, say, German from 3 am - 7 am on Tuesday week?