61

Please note that I am proposing a Policy Change in this post and not a Software Change on purpose. That's because software changes are hard to make, and policy changes are easy. I can propose a million changes to the chat software, and in fact, many have been already proposed.

It happened again. It keeps happening and no one is doing anything, so I've decided to.

I don't mind other languages. In fact, גם אני לפעמים מדבר עברית בצ'אט. As long as it's contained and doesn't bother anyone, let them be. But it's not.

It's very often now that I see messages in other languages getting flagged in chat. Those flags appear to anyone with 10k+ active in chat, and it's getting rather annoying seeing a popup with a bunch of nonsense that you can't read. Every. Single. Time

Seeing that room localized flags are not happening in the next 6-8 weeks, I am suggesting to eliminate rooms which are designed for chat in languages other than English on Stack Overflow.

This isn't one of our language Q&A sites. We don't allow anything other than English on the main site, we shouldn't allow it in chat.

An example:

Gibberish Flags

28
  • 10
    I have the feeling there have been some more comments here. Anyway, I don't really like the idea. Chats are a separate thing and should be handled less strict. The most important thing is that someone at the moderation level speaks the language in case, so exotic languages might not be a good idea. More intelligent solution for the flagging would also be highly welcome but are quite improbable unfortunately. I think that for example insults in a foreign language are as grave incidents like insults in English and therefore moderation is important.
    – Trilarion
    Jul 10, 2014 at 21:36
  • 39
    @Trilarion: "Exotic languages"? That's pretty offensive. They're not "exotic" to those who speak them natively and daily. Jul 11, 2014 at 9:21
  • 23
    @LightnessRacesinOrbit Exotic regarding to the frequency of which they are spoken. A synonym would be rare. Therefore it isn't offensive, rather a misunderstanding.
    – Trilarion
    Jul 11, 2014 at 10:50
  • 4
    @LightnessRacesinOrbit I always thought that in natural languages there is hardly ever a 100% right or wrong. But I'm happy to admit that the misunderstandings was mine as long as we agree that it wasn't meant offensive. Using rare languages in chats just isn't a good idea - is what I wanted to say.
    – Trilarion
    Jul 11, 2014 at 11:22
  • 5
    @Trilarion: I hardly think you can call Hindi a "rare language"... Jul 11, 2014 at 12:23
  • 4
    @LightnessRacesinOrbit The idea was that modertion must be ensured. Someone at the moderation level must be able to speak the language. While Hindi is spoken by many I don't know if it is spoken on moderation level here? If so good but if not or not by sufficiently many people I would still count it as kind of "rare" for the purpose of moderation. How many 10k+ Hindi speaking users who are actively chatting do we have?
    – Trilarion
    Jul 11, 2014 at 12:27
  • 1
    @LightnessRacesinOrbit Okay, I didn't know that we have many 10k+ users speaking Hindi. In that case I think moderation of flagged chat messages is no problem. For other languages which are more rare among the 10k+ users moderation might be difficult however.
    – Trilarion
    Jul 11, 2014 at 12:31
  • 2
    @LightnessRacesinOrbit: Given that almost all of these end up as "valid", even though (from what I hear) almost none of them are, tells me that there aren't that many 10k+ Hindi speaking users. Jul 11, 2014 at 15:17
  • 2
    @SecondRikudo: That's quite a deductive leap you're making there. Jul 11, 2014 at 15:28
  • 1
    @SecondRikudo - Perhaps moderators should state their language(s); and chat should require a language. Then, flagged comments can be routed to a moderator who speaks the language. Its not a perfect solution, but it should reduce cross-contamination for those who don't speak the language.
    – jww
    Jul 12, 2014 at 7:42
  • 1
    maybe, we can have people who can recognize the language and then sort it out. The flags in question are in hindi (hindustani/Indian language), and both are invalid/spam flags. The first one says- "Wait for a while", the second being "do it today itself". So, maybe create a new private room for the sake of such translations and invite some people there to help translate. Or try to get the flagger in the private room and ask him. Or the OP of the comment and let him clarify in English. Jul 23, 2014 at 16:51
  • 3
    @AwalGarg: No. This is an English site, talk English. Also, we've already agreed that it's impossible to programmatically detect romanized languages. Jul 23, 2014 at 16:55
  • 3
    @AwalGarg if you don't care for the rule of the system, you are not allowed to participate in it. Not acknowledging the rules does not exempt you from being suspended if you break them. That's like saying "I don't acknowledge your laws!" in a murder trial, it doesn't make any sense. Jul 28, 2014 at 11:21
  • 3
    @AwalGarg What you are proposing is impractical at best, and harmful at worst. Not all languages can be translated easily, and not all languages have people who can moderate it. No. English is the language, and so we shall talk English. Anyone who doesn't want to talk English on Stack Overflow, is welcomed to not talk on Stack Overflow. Jul 28, 2014 at 14:27
  • 2
    It's not practical to detect romanized languages. It's not practical to create a translation room for each language known to man, and it's not practical to gather people to translate texts. It's harmful because we're trampling our own rules and allow for "Wait, but you allowed this, why not that?" arguments. Jul 28, 2014 at 14:35

11 Answers 11

70

As previously discussed, we cannot effectively moderate non-English chatrooms. If concerns are raised over the appropriateness of a room's conversation, then either the conversation or the entire room is subject to deletion.

If you're seeing flags like this raised, re-flag with a mod-only flag and request that they do so. Link to this discussion or the previous one for reference.

22
  • 1
    Does this apply to Portugese and Italian too? Jul 9, 2014 at 19:55
  • 12
    Both of those sites have moderators who can and do monitor the conversations, @Martin. I talk about this a bit more in the previous discussion.
    – Shog9
    Jul 9, 2014 at 20:00
  • 6
    Notice: "If concerns are raised". That means moderators won't search proactively for non-english chats and won't deleted them without reason. Jul 10, 2014 at 9:43
  • 1
    This answer is completely missing the point. "We cannot effectively moderate" -> Take no responsibility for it, and be done, period. Jul 11, 2014 at 6:50
  • 5
    @FinalContest You can't not be responsible for the content you host.
    – badp
    Jul 11, 2014 at 9:38
  • 1
    @badp: are you responsible for the action the money spent on that you send to a charity? Not as much as you would like, and that is 99% fine, isn't it? You are just having good faith and trying to help them with good intention. Of course, if the situation becomes very sorrow, you can take actions, but that is neither the case there most likely, nor here. There is no point in being over-zealous about helping others with good intention just because you cannot sit on the top of the emperorship while controlling all the details, too, without inviting community members to do so. Jul 11, 2014 at 10:11
  • @FinalContest Charity is a completely different thing from content hosting. Stack Exchange kinda have to be responsible for the content users post to the sites, because they're hosting it. Their servers are sending that content out to people constantly, and even putting a legal disclaimer on their stuff wouldn't prevent them from getting a reputation as "that site where you can have unmoderated discussions as long as the mods don't speak the language", which is very much not the sort of reputation they want. Jul 11, 2014 at 10:44
  • 1
    @BillyMailman: that is a misinterpretation of what I said. What I am saying is that there is no point in having bad faith instead of inviting valuable community members who can moderate those rooms as the owners. I am not sure why they could not become moderators for that part of the network. Tell me, who moderates the technical content of a tag now? Not the moderators most of the time, surely, so what? The problem you strongly fight against already exists. However, this is not a problem in my book, but how a healthy community works; being inclusive rather than destructively exclusive. Jul 11, 2014 at 10:47
  • 3
    @FinalContest I don't see how that is even remotely relevant with anything. The community, like it or not, is an English speaking one; this point is not up for debate.
    – badp
    Jul 11, 2014 at 12:12
  • 4
    @FinalContest Let me try to explain Shog's point (as I understand it). Yes, sometimes you are responsible for the money you give to charity. E.g. knowingly giving money to a "charity" which supports terrorism is a criminal act in some jurisdictions (e.g. the UK). Similarly hosting a web discussion which includes promotion of terrorism is a criminal act in the UK. It is not a sufficient defense to claim that you (the host) didn't understand the language. So flagged content in an unsupported language must be deleted.
    – MarkJ
    Jul 11, 2014 at 13:52
  • @MarkJ: you do not get it, do you? What I am (and probably many others?) saying is that it is not any different from the current situation. StackOverflow is already community moderated. That is the site's main strength. Without that, Mr. Heyer and co would go nowhere. How this is different for community moderated chats, I do not know. Jul 11, 2014 at 13:56
  • 6
    Just to clarify: when I say "we cannot effectively moderate non-English chatrooms" I don't mean "we don't want to" or "we haven't tried" - I mean we tried, failed, had a bunch of nasty stuff to clean up as a result, and really have other things we're better off spending time on.
    – Shog9
    Jul 11, 2014 at 17:20
  • 1
    @Shog9 I see but people of India prefer to use native language sometime in chat, they dont have any issue but I know sometime it creates a issue when people flag it wrong when they don't know what exactly it mean. Can't you go to have a moderator who are from India and can review these stuff in good aspect that won't create any issue anymore after that.
    – Ajay S
    Jul 14, 2014 at 4:32
  • 1
    @TGMCians Moderators are elected by the community. You can't just make someone a moderator and order him to be in chat all the time and handle flags. That's not how it works. Jul 14, 2014 at 7:13
  • 3
    @TGMCians I prefer to elect moderators based on their demonstrated abilities and my personal trust in them. Not based on their country of origin or mother tongue. I seriously hope that the day where moderators are elected by language or country won't arrive. Jul 14, 2014 at 11:44
96

I appreciate and even half agree with the intention behind this, but I don't think it's enough of a problem to ban non-English chat rooms. That seems pretty draconian; chat rooms do not need to be as stringent as SO main. We already allow pretty arbitrary conversation in chat so I don't see why we should be restricting language.

Half the flags raised may already be about topics you know nothing about, or about a scenario for which you don't have the backstory, and in those cases you hit "not sure" and get the flag off your screen. I see no reason for the same not to apply here.

Looking at it from the other side, it would be immensely rude for a mod to step into a chat room and say "oi, no, you must speak the language of SO in here" when they're effectively doing no more harm than any other chat room about, say, a programming language you don't speak.

25
  • 16
    I agree. Chat should not be restricted like that. It has nothing to do with the main site.
    – berserk
    Jul 9, 2014 at 10:43
  • 37
    I think the biggest problem here is: How are they moderated? How can Stack Overflow make sure it is not held accountable if people there discuss illegal actions or wares? What if people there post racism? A different language strictly reduces the ability to moderate such a chat room. Jul 9, 2014 at 10:44
  • 26
    @BenjaminGruenbaum: You assume that all moderators, and people in other chat rooms across the network, only speak English. Jul 9, 2014 at 10:45
  • 2
    For starters, "I'm not sure" flags are practically half "not valid" flags. Second exactly what Benjamin said above me. Jul 9, 2014 at 10:45
  • 1
    I don't know a mod that speaks their language who is also active on chat. Jul 9, 2014 at 10:46
  • 11
    No, I only assume that all of them speak English and only a subset of them speak other languages for every other language. Jul 9, 2014 at 10:46
  • 4
    @SecondRikudo: I have reason to believe that you grossly underestimate the degree to which moderators lurk. Jul 9, 2014 at 10:47
  • 6
    I actually know most of the Stack Overflow moderators because I myself am a moderator on a different site, and we share a common chatroom. There aren't many mods in general who speak the language. Jul 9, 2014 at 10:51
  • 17
    @SecondRikudo: Which language? "Non-English"? Jul 9, 2014 at 10:52
  • 6
    There is also Google Translate if no "outsider" seems to be able to speak their language.
    – user3717756
    Jul 9, 2014 at 16:49
  • 3
    One more argument to handle chat differently: When creating an answer, a question or a comment you got plenty of time. Even if your english isn't good, you could spend some time with translation and finding the right words. But in chat you have to type fast to keep the conversation going. Jul 10, 2014 at 9:53
  • 7
    This is the correct answer. Be inclusive towards the community rather than exclusive. Do not prohibit certain languages just because you want to moderate everything. Make a disclaimer that those rooms are out of your control, but allow the majority there to work together and leave it with the chat room owners how they moderate. Jul 11, 2014 at 6:53
  • 8
    @BenjaminGruenbaum, StackOverflow is hosted in the US, not the UK. In the US, racist speech is annoying, but it's not criminal, nor illegal. Illegal wares are dealt under the safe harbor provision/DMCA laws. digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise33.html And in the US, a web site isn't responsible for the discussion of illegal actions in its chat rooms, unless those chat rooms are strictly moderated (so your argument for stricter control may incur more liability, not less so, at least in the US). That being said, I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not a definitive source on this topic. Jul 11, 2014 at 11:21
  • @StephanBranczyk: Who said it was hosted in the UK?! Jul 11, 2014 at 12:24
  • 1
    @LightnessRacesinOrbit, Nobody. The criminalization of online racist speech is such a foreign concept for the US. I just thought that the commentator was thinking that the site was hosted in an English-speaking country that had such laws. Jul 11, 2014 at 19:08
37

I don't think rooms without English should be removed. Although Stack Overflow is mainly English, there are many cultures and languages that encompass the group of people that make up Stack Overflow. Many popular rooms have multiple languages being used, Lounge<C++> by itself has German, Dutch, English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese. Lounge<C++> also moves relatively quickly, so maintaining the fast pace with removal of languages other than English would be more troublesome than the situation you propose.

It'd be a shame to essentially hinder the culture pot that Stack Overflow has in yet another place. Chatting is completely different from the main site. It's a lot more casual so many of the rules of Stack Overflow don't make sense in the context of chatting.

That being said, on the topic of flagging. The issue with flagging is mainly due to the overall problems that chat itself has with flags. Many flags are chat local and don't make sense to the outsiders, but I'm sure you know that and this would be one of those issues that have taken forever to fix and probably will never be "fixed". The only thing I would suggest doing when coming in contact with a flag in a different language would be to be careful with them.

A chat flag is used for two purposes: offensive material and spam material. You can use judgement regardless of language to see if something is spam (for example, it links to some material that is "spammy"). Offensive material is something else entirely. This is something that is clearly subjective and in those cases it's hard to make a call to whether to accept a flag or not. This also crosses culture boundaries as well; even in English some things are considered offensive in varying cultures. Some think swearing is offensive, others don't, etc. The list goes on and on.

This isn't an easy issue to fix (or maintain) so in my opinion it's probably best to leave it as-is.

6
  • Perhaps, add a setting specifically for chat flags?
    – Shade
    Jul 9, 2014 at 11:02
  • @LuiggiMendoza may I ask why you rolled back my edit?
    – user456814
    Jul 9, 2014 at 15:50
  • 1
    @Cupcake because it is a minor edit. Jul 9, 2014 at 15:51
  • 2
    @LuiggiMendoza those were the only corrections that this answer needed, there is nothing else to fix. I'm not going to get sucked into an edit war over it though.
    – user456814
    Jul 9, 2014 at 15:55
  • That was the last edit, I won't touch it again, sorry. Good answer though, very well written and articulated.
    – user456814
    Jul 9, 2014 at 18:39
22

Yes.

Chat.SO is a different beast than Stack Overflow, but it also is a different beast than chat.SE. On chat.SE, we have to potentially deal with Japanese, French, Hebrew, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Chinese and going forward virtually any language, but:

  • Chat.SO is a site for Stack Overflow only, and this is an English only community (which is the whole point why pt.SO is a thing that exists)
  • Somewhat unlike Chat.SE, Chat.SO is supposed to be a place where you can expect professionals to entertain professional, on-topic discourse. In programming, virtually all online documentation, code, bibliography, resources and so on are in English or require basic comprehension of the English language. Even in a more informal discussion, all parties only have something to gain by practicing their English.
  • Chat.SO has a long and verified history of trouble with its off-language communities. On the other hand, I am a moderator on chat.SE and I can't remember the last time I had to handle a flag that was not in English.
  • Even in the case of a flag on chat.SE that was raised in a language other than English, chat.SE has over 400 moderators that can deal with them — including moderators from the specific language communities covered on the site. Chat.SO, on the other hand, is much shorter on diamond manpower.

So it only makes sense to have an English-only chat.SO.

Now, I'm not suggesting that there should be some sort of English Police that flags every sight of French on chat: I don't believe in moderation through Turing machines. If there is, however, a room that's not being held in English that starts creating even a hint of trouble, I would consider closing that room perfectly reasonable, with further attempts to recreate it worthy of a long chat suspension. Of course, moderators lack the tooling to police room creation effectively and a new chat account is only 20 reputation away, so again such a measure could only be applied where necessary.

Put it another way: if you did get 20 reputation on the site, you must've done so by contributing in English. Using that to start talking exclusively in a different language on chat means you are not on Stack Overflow for the right reasons; you could be talking in English, but you'd rather let the language barrier shield you from the consequences of what you're writing. There is a bajillion of other online chat services that are more than happy to host gossiping in whatever language. Chat.SO only stands to gain from not being one of them.

7
  • Google translate, bad as it is, is still good enough to show whether the conversation is "appropriate" or not. So even if no moderator can understand the language, …
    – WGroleau
    Jul 9, 2014 at 16:35
  • 13
    @WGroleau Google Translate chokes on both "Thodi der ruk ja yar" and "aaj kar de bhai"; it thinks the first is Indonesian and the second Dutch, giving no translation for either. If you know they're Hindi, you can switch to that language, accept the transliteration suggestion and get two inoffensive-looking messages back. Who am I to say that those inoffensive-looking messages actually are inoffensive? They might be in context. It might be something lost in translation. They might be making local cultural references that are lost on us. How can you know? Why did the messages accrue 13 flags?
    – badp
    Jul 9, 2014 at 16:49
  • 1
    On Chat.SE I know I can rely on the other ~410 moderators and 10kers to make this call. There are language-specific communities that can look at the transcript and vote on the flag in a meaningful way. None of that's necessarily true on chat.SO
    – badp
    Jul 9, 2014 at 17:01
  • "Chat.SO has a long and verified history of trouble with its off-language communities." What is this trouble you speak of? Jul 11, 2014 at 13:21
  • 1
    @MatheusMoreira: Firstly, you can't moderate in a language you don't understand. Stack Exchange is directly responsible for the content posted all across its sites, and that includes chat, when a flag comes up, I for once have no way of knowing what it is, if it's valid, and can't even lookup the context! Second, let's not pretend we don't have severe content and behavioral problems with certain... geographic subcultures, shall we? Jul 12, 2014 at 12:41
  • @SecondRikudo Stack Exchange is not held liable for the content posted in here. It's in its terms of service, section 9.
    – Rapptz
    Jul 14, 2014 at 4:29
  • 3
    @Rapptz: Of course they are. Those terms of service are a "contract" between you and Stack Exchange. They don't reduce Stack Exchange's responsibility and accountability in front of the law. Trust me, I've been there. Jul 14, 2014 at 7:04
15

I think any decision on this has to take into account an important fact of life: There are many programmers in the world who have reasonably good technical English skills, and so can contribute to SO, but for whom it is a second or third language.

I can see a lot of value in those programmers being able to discuss a potential question in a chat room that uses their first language, before posting it. At least that use of chat rooms should be supported and encouraged.

Maybe a non-English chat room should be required to have a moderator squad with at least a total of e.g. 10,000 reputation each of whom has native speaker fluency in the chat room's language. They would be responsible for monitoring the chat room.

7

I think chatting in other language is nothing bad except one thing --- it's not understandable by other language users. (which is annoying and prevents proper moderation) I think adding a property to set major languages of a chat room will solve this issue. Then people in rooms of matching languages will get the notification.

Even further, a heuristic to detect a language can be applied where possible.

4
  • It's impossible to detect romanized language properly without knowing it. Ata lo teda she-ani medaber ivrit im lo haiti omer leha. <<< You wouldn't know this was Hebrew unless I told you (That's actually the direct translation) Jul 10, 2014 at 7:48
  • @SecondRikudo I agree. Heuristic seems to be almost impossible.
    – eonil
    Jul 10, 2014 at 7:58
  • 1
    I'm not sure that's true. For some phrases it might be ambiguous, but often distinctive words give it away. For example, I don't know Hebrew, but the first Google search result for "medaber" is Useful Hebrew Phrases - Omniglot. So it would be quite possible to auto detect that that is Hebrew. Jul 10, 2014 at 19:30
  • @DavidConrad That also sounds reasonable. Though I am not a natural language expert, but there can be a part where can be covered by heuristics.
    – eonil
    Jul 10, 2014 at 19:38
1

While not a blanket fix, would it be possible to get assistance from senior users on the various language SE sites? If there are enough people interested in ex German to maintain a site for it, then it seems there's a reasonable chance of someone being willing to keep an eye on ex a German Programmers chatroom on SO.

Adding cross site chatrooms would make this easier. Using the same example if the German Programmers chatroom was on both SO and German.SE it would broaden the pool of people who have both the language skills needed to understand the content and rep needed access the moderation tools.

2
  • 4
    The solution is language specific stack overflow sites like we have for Spanish. Jul 9, 2014 at 15:39
  • @SecondRikudo It appears that type of site is on hold pending upgrades to the core SE platform. For languages with enough support to sustain an entire site, that'd be the best option when it's available. My suggestion is potentially doable now, and if not would probably require less work by SE developers. It could also scale out a lot farther. Specific language versions of most of other *.SE sites probably would fail from low usage; but that would make moderating a cross site chatroom only require minimal effort. Jul 9, 2014 at 15:54
-3

The main site is different from the chat section. I don't agree on banning non-English chat rooms. People must be allowed to share and explain their problems in their language on in at least the chat section. It's not spamming or offensive.

For the flagging system, I think only the chat room owners must be notified of flagged messages. It will be his duty to keep the chat room clean. And I don't think other users might be having problems if two different people are talking in some different language.

11
  • Given that I posted this message, and I am not a moderator, should be enough of a hint to tell you that chat flags are not mod only. Everyone with 10k reputation or more can see those flags. Jul 9, 2014 at 11:02
  • 2
    @SecondRikudo I was suggesting that flags should be for chat room moderator only.
    – berserk
    Jul 9, 2014 at 11:03
  • 1
    This was discussed to death. I am suggesting a policy change rather than a software change, because it's much easier to implement. Also, the problem begins when it does become spamming or offensive, and no one has the tools to correctly deal with the problem because there are very little capable users who speak the language. Jul 9, 2014 at 11:04
  • 1
    @SecondRikudo And how will you manage it? Are you suggesting to close the chatroom if someone come there and speak in different language? I don't find any reason for other users to be bothered by notifying about other chat rooms.
    – berserk
    Jul 9, 2014 at 11:10
  • 3
    I am suggesting that rooms should be primarily in English. I don't mind the occasional message in whatever language, but the main discussion should be in English. Jul 9, 2014 at 11:11
  • This is a terrible idea all around. Flags being shown to every single 10ker ensure that no one room can drift too far from what's generally acceptable network-wide, and this is a good thing.
    – badp
    Jul 9, 2014 at 12:25
  • @badp and what if room owners can do the same thing too as 10k+ users for their rooms only not network wide? Jul 9, 2014 at 12:31
  • @TheLittleNaruto If you're simply suggesting that room owners get notified about flags in addition to all other 10kers, that might be reasonable.
    – badp
    Jul 9, 2014 at 12:34
  • @badp Yes, that's what I meant, Sir :) Jul 9, 2014 at 12:44
  • 2
    Room owners are not intended to be moderators; the term "owner" is somewhat misleading. Jul 11, 2014 at 9:23
  • @badp: Yeah that really works with the Lounge Jul 11, 2014 at 9:23
-4

In my opinion, this is a non-issue.

As has been pointed out in a number of down-voted answers, the internet is not just for English-speakers, and neither is SE (though I guess there's some policy points concerning this). Also, just because you can't read it (i.e., it's not English or Hebrew or whatever else you can read) doesn't mean it's nonsense—that's pretty insulting to speakers of the other ±7000 languages out there.

Also, why must non-English content be "contained"? What do you even mean by that?

If there's a bug with spam flagging, perhaps it would be best to report that without your own insular offensive nonsense about the rest of the world. If I could flag your question the same way the messages you're complaining about are flagged, I would definitely flag it as offensive.

4
  • 3
    The internet isn't only for English speakers, and neither is SE, but currently, as it stands, SO is. All that's being suggested here is that the same level of enforcement is applied to chat. Because Stack overflow is a moderated place, and there's no effective way to moderate languages we (the moderators, the high rep users with moderation privileges, etc) don't speak. Alternative solutions to make such moderation possible were offered (by the community team, no less) but none caught with the community. Jan 22, 2017 at 5:17
  • Thanks for alerting me to the English-only policy/practice on SO before I contributed anything constructive. I will be dedicating my time and efforts to a more inclusive venue. Jan 23, 2017 at 7:11
  • A policy that states that only English can be moderated because the moderators only know how to moderate English-language content entrenches the result of few moderators who know other languages. This is a social justice issue, and the policy is discriminatory and a form of harassment. The policy creates a hostile environment, and makes SO less welcoming than some posts in various languages needing moderation would. I wish that some work-around could be found so that SO were a more inclusive environment. May 25, 2018 at 0:33
  • In fact, the policy puts in place a barrier for gaining moderators who know other languages. There are more constructive ways to deal with content in other languages. Perhaps people speaking something the current moderators don't know can self-moderate, and call in an official moderator when there are problems. Or perhaps the moderator policy could be more inclusive, so that people who normally wouldn't be moderators (but know other languages) could moderate. This just requires a little creativity on the part of the moderators (and a desire to support people who aren't like them.) Feb 29, 2020 at 20:54
-19

This has nothing to do with the language and everything to do with the fact that the flag system is broken, which ain't gonna be fixed.

Also, banning non-English would probably count as chat maintenance.

10
  • 5
    What a great answer!
    – Jimbo
    Jul 9, 2014 at 10:25
  • The flag system is broken, and not fix is in sight. So this is me making the best of a bad situation. Jul 9, 2014 at 10:26
  • 6
    It's not the best at all. The best would be just banning people from flagging.
    – Puppy
    Jul 9, 2014 at 10:27
  • 2
    Removing the flag system fixes the stated problem by the OP but it creates a series of other problems. This is hardly a "fix".
    – Neil
    Jul 9, 2014 at 10:28
  • I agree with this answer - but I still think we should ban rooms only in other languages since those are problematic - just like questions in other languages. Jul 9, 2014 at 10:31
  • 1
    We close, delete and suspend posts and OPs which aren't in English on the main site. Why should chat be different? Jul 9, 2014 at 10:34
  • Also, note that this suggestion is only a policy change, not a feature change. It's much easier to implement and doesn't cost dev-time. There are a million other better solutions that won't get implemented, so what's the point? Jul 9, 2014 at 10:35
  • 1
    Why should chat be different that you can't downvote messages? Why should chat be different that nobody maintains it? Why should chat be different that we discuss whatever we want? Fact is, chat's a completely different place, and this is really the smallest of the differences.
    – Puppy
    Jul 9, 2014 at 10:38
  • When your response to everything about flags is "the flag system is broken", and you've repeatedly failed to explain why that's relevant or what it even means to you today, your response is totally meaningless and invalid. Jul 9, 2014 at 10:39
  • 13
    @SecondRikudo: Chat is different from main SO in almost every conceivable way. Jul 9, 2014 at 10:40
-22

Please disallow other language than Chinese and Arabian - that is stupid to convert all people to one language, one thinking - you should learn other languages and do not be English only :)

It will be no problem if stackoverflow will be multi language - Wikipedia has no problem with this and not promote "rasizm" like all must use English.

It is very important for young people which is not able to learn languages since it requires some years to master other langauges - so you block them chance to ask :)

For me this discussion is pointless and it is clear that is no problem if questions will be asked in any language and answered in any language - now with use translation tools there is not problem to show Polish answer to limited with English only now is not Colonial age - computer translation works good not perfect.

Let us finish English occupation esspecially if that language is not the one advanced or expresive langauges in the world - rather average and little cold and simple :)

Colonial age and slavery should be finished but looks that same idea rebirth - people should have choice not be forced to use English or be dominated by English only people.

My native Polish language is untranslatable to English since many grammar construction is not possible in this language what many time confirms me English language expert. I do not want to be forced by English only people they can learn as I can - whatever Polish will be hardcore for English people even Polish learns it two years more :)

It is one the most hard languages in many aspect apart reading and writing - no force order - no forced words (like a, an, this, the, is it, it is, ...) - no problems with pronunciation - very high expression precision - not like in English.


See how many people mark this with minus - it shows some state of mind against this idea :)

Slaves of slavery age ideas - not peace and globalization age :)

22
  • I learn't other languages but neither Chinese nor Arabian are among them. Chinese has too many symbols and Arabian doesn't write the vowels... it was too difficult for me.
    – Trilarion
    Jul 10, 2014 at 10:54
  • 1
    Arabian is similar to Jewish that is why Bible translation is hardcore. Chinese is simple whatever not in reading/writing. Forcing English is typical rasism - the most people of world not using English or are forced to use English (Chinese, India, Africa). Colonial age and slavery is finished mostly :) My native language is much more expressive and I have to reduce all expression to very flat English - some grammar is not untranslatable at all - especially aspect. I am using the one of the complex languages Polish.
    – Chameleon
    Jul 10, 2014 at 10:58
  • 2
    You aren't forced to use English. You can as well try to open up a StackOverflow in your own language or maybe there is already one. Just because this site decided to be in English doesn't mean that this is a sign of racism or that any of your freedom is taken away. Using one language, especially one that is quite easy to learn and English is quite easy to learn, has some very nice practical advantages like that we all understand each other. So there is no slaveray and colonial age anymore but StackOverflow will almost certainly stay in English.
    – Trilarion
    Jul 10, 2014 at 11:05
  • You should definitely take part in area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/72768/… but I fear that there might not be enough interest for a polish SO currently.
    – Trilarion
    Jul 10, 2014 at 11:08
  • See also this interesting discussion: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/261910/… I bet polish questions about programming would be translatable to English quite well.
    – Trilarion
    Jul 10, 2014 at 11:11
  • You not understand racism - English only people with always hate you if you miss on word and never forgive you - it is common and often - I do not like to speak for example with some British :) Polish man will almost never say you that you not use correct Polish and definitely will never not use this as an argument to discredit or humiliate you. It is because we accept multicultural environment much more that British.
    – Chameleon
    Jul 10, 2014 at 11:13
  • There is not possibility for SO for Polish - it is not mean that is not interest - see Wikipedia it allows Polish and there is interest. I want to see Polish SO or better multilingual but it is not possible now - maybe because some brains closed fully for such option so has not perception - it is like you have cut hand - you will not feel pain at all even it exisits :)
    – Chameleon
    Jul 10, 2014 at 11:16
  • Let them hate me, I don't care. However I will probably also never learn Polish in my live because .. well because there are too many languages around and my time is too short. So in order to speak with each other we (you and me) must agree on a third language. There is no other way. English sounds ideal. And to hell with what the real English speakers think about the English of the rest of the world. We chose their language, they need to learn less, so they should show some tolerance. And if not, who cares anyway. As long as people understand me...
    – Trilarion
    Jul 10, 2014 at 11:18
  • 1
    Multilanguage SO: Now this is the only interesting alternative to several single language SOs. You could propose it here and we might discuss it. You might even add that small languages have a difficult time otherwise. But I guess the people here will probably not be that broad-minded about the idea, programmers tend to think that English is almost like what C is for programming languages. Then you maybe could accuse someone of racism but practically this won't change anything probably.
    – Trilarion
    Jul 10, 2014 at 11:21
  • If Stack Overflow were a Chinese or Arabic site to begin with, I would have agreed with you. It is not, however. Stack Overflow is English, you're expected to speak English. If you refuse, Stack Overflow and yes, even Stack Overflow Chat isn't the place for you. That's my opinion. Jul 10, 2014 at 11:34
  • I agree with you roughly or more softly. I think that it is impossible since stet of mind of some people :) I also think that marking this as duplicate is simple expression of some kind censorship mixed with hidden racism or other hidden agendas. Some people as such political correct that hard understand the true goals - to hidden :)
    – Chameleon
    Jul 10, 2014 at 11:34
  • 3
    Jewish is not a language. Jul 11, 2014 at 9:40
  • 4
    -1 because this answer is a load of bollocks. Using one language, English in this case, is because of practicality. It has nothing to do with racism, the colonial age or slavery.
    – user247702
    Aug 25, 2014 at 10:03
  • 1
    @Chameleon I didn't say those aren't the cause of the situation we have today. But using those things as an argument against how the situation is on this present day is silly. History has led us to English being a major language in the world, and we should make the best of the situation.
    – user247702
    Sep 5, 2014 at 12:38

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