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

TC, how's that for an announcement:
"The Summer meet will be an all-English-spoken event. Researchers caught using a different tongue will be immediately tarred, feathered and banned from the event. If they claim to be official then this applies to Dutch/Danish/German/... meets as well."



Re Posting 108: YES, THINK POSITIVE!
Herewith I'm awarding the BBC the Bossel's Big Bowl award for being the world's last bastion to stand against globalisation. We need you!



Could someone please amend the front page to read:
"h2g2, the Ultimate Guide to Life, the Universe and Everything British"





Sorry everyone, I needed to release some

Excuse me?

My posting included 2 words in English - Isn't it? were the words. Which one of them is offencive? Or was it the smiley?

I suppose it was the subject line which TC changed into something German, I changed into something else in German and you perhaps didn't notice and left it that way. Try the 'back' button of your browser, perhaps it's still there.

No, it is not there, but I guess you are right. I didn't pay much attention on subject line.

Well, the postings are back, but the subject lines are gone.

I've changed the subject line back - I wouldn't normally do that, but in this case it has caused people to inadvertantly include a non-English language in their Postings.

Thank you.

Excuse me Post 111 had nothing but English in it.
I even pointed that out in the post - and all it said otherwise was that I would have to be careful from now on and didn't like it one bit.

Are we to understand that we're not allowed to use English words that London-based moderators might possibly not have encountered in their provincial little lives?

Or is this just thon famous London contempt fer Northerners - since ah see they left the Glaswegian post immediately efter?

Whey Hinnies, ah divvent lyek t'way ah wor tret.

Makes me wonder what happened to the Noo Yowk Langwich Skool

To paraphrase HappyDude:

Peta, ENGLISH dialects other than BBC English are NOT foreign language and should not be included in this sort of ban

BBC English is merely a dialect spoken in the Home Counties, not the mother tongue for the majority of English-speaking English people.

It might also be pointed out that there are many researchers on this site who are dyslexic, and sometimes their posts look like they could be written in a foreign language. Will they also be moderated? Since their posts are merely poorly spelled, does that mean that we must all be extra careful to make sure every word is spelled exactly correctly in British English or be moderated as well? I'm finding more and more words which are spelled differently in US English as opposed to UK English.

Hear hear!

There are also many words that have different emanings in US English and BBC English (Please don't call it UK English - it is only one variant.)

meanings Sorry - I normally proofread very carefully.

Is ok.... there are also some different spellings

aluminium - aluminum
colour - color

Looks like we aren't the only ones who complain though. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/h2/h2.cgi?thread=%3C1024686349-15589.29%40forum1.thdo.bbc.co.uk%3E&find=%3C1024686349-15589.29%40forum1.thdo.bbc.co.uk%3E&board=ouch.general&sort=Te

Frankie

Warning: Sarcasm, in second gear, left rear brake dragging:

1. Despite years of vicious propaganda to the contrary, there is NO
SUCH THING as the "English language". In order to be a language,
you must not be a patois, pidgin, creole, or dialect.
2. Despite years of vicious propaganda to the contrary, there is NO
SUCH THING as the "English". In order to be an ethnic group, you
must not be an interraccial and intercultural bouillabaisse comparable to the genetic heritage of a Venetian moggie.

3. It must be assumed that the BBC, having once been a "news gathering" organization that was involved in light broadcasting, still has not gotten into it's collective head the idea of anyone actually talking to it, let alone "talking back."

4. I am not wearing a tie.

5. I am not a person. I am a virus from the Unviversity of Texas at Pigs Knuckle, designed to infect the BBC and you'all with the dialect that Dubya grew up with.

6. Repeat after me: I really like Rattlesnake Roundups and Personalized Ammunition...

(Warning: That there was sarcasm, Bubba!)

I am in every way to blame for post 135.

Hi all,

It's interesting to see the language issue elicit such hot debate on h2g2. I feel i should warn you that this post is 'rather' long. sorry about that!

the later bits are divided into sections, if that helps at all.



I am interested in languages generally, and enjoy many of the languagy-type stuff that goes on here. The Brit English thread is great and I have certainly noticed a very positive German presence, both in English and their native German.

I opened up a 'French Stuff' type page a while ago to see whether it would get some similar kind of French input, but I must say most of the response has been from non-French Francophiles (in the loosest sense, of course, ).

I have followed this debate, and feel I'd like to comment, though i am not so 'vexed' as some seem to be. I *do* however think it may be possible to reconsider this decision and *don't really understand why a feasible solution could not at least be attempted.

My comments come in the form of a c&p from A694497, The French Connection. the smileys got lost, sorry!



There have been some French posts in threads from this page that have gone untouched 'so far'. Perhaps it is foolish to draw attention to them; but I do feel there is something to be said for having specific, 'authorised' threads in a given language. A policy of reactive self-moderation would seem feasible given a sufficient number of bona fide 'responsible' volunteer researchers, such as exists on the Transvol page - here.

An alternative

I don't know exactly how the TransVol scheme was supposed to work. In any case, I am going to volunteer today, despite its opening statement of closure. Interestingly, I see someone had only recently volunteered enthusiastically to get cracking do some translation! This is just *before* this announcement.

To my mind, the point here is that if there are enough volunteers to 'police' a single authorised thread for a given language (how many would be needed?) such a scheme, then perhaps that would indicate that there is enough 'demand' for that foreign language.

If h2g2 cannot offer total freedom to use foreign languages *everywhere* on the site (understandable), perhaps the question should become 'can the site offer a *specific* location via this kind of self-moderated thread (or perhaps group of threads).

A Feasible Solution

The obvious example here is German - you have the tremendous resource of a volunteer bilingual community, willing and (arguably) able to provide responsible self-regulation. Why not use it? At least a trial could hardly do any harm, imo.

The next obvious contenders must be French and Spanish, though I have found scant use of French here so far and never Spanish. But then, that makes it easier *still* to guarantee responsible self-regulation! There's no work to be done!

Come to think about it, based on *that* logic, you could open up threads offering the possibility of all kinds of languages that would almost never get used. Any offers to keep an eye on the Swahili thread?

Rejected from h2g2!

This brings me to a different point, which is that a highly motivated h2g2er - Jeremy FS - offered exactly this kind of volunteer service and has kicked the h2g2 dust from his heels and hit the info highway in search of pastures new as a result of this issue. This seems a terrible shame.

*coughs*

:: Fails to unerstand why most postings here seem to be ignoring the far more important issue of the banning of British Minority languages ... ::