this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2020
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Asklemmy

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What's your stance on non-english posts in international communities? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 4 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hi rodents,
since two weeks at max I started seeing new people posting on international communities (aka communities not strictly linked to a language or nation) in other languages than english.

While I'm ok with seeing multiple languages in the main page, I personally think it's not so ok to post not in english in communities like c/asklemmy, c/technology or others.

I'm not expecting to understand anything when snooping in c/espanol or c/hispagatos because they are not international communities, in the sense that they chose to specifically target spanish-speaking people and It's completely understandable.
It is their choice and that must be respected.
The same could be said if anyone wandered in c/italy and tried to understand the couple of posts in there, without knowing a word of italian.

Still, when I came across the new posts made by a newly subscribed rodent, written in persian (I think that's the language, another user said it was persian, I'm not sure), I must admit I felt they were out of place because only a handful of people might be able to understand them without a translator.
From what I saw, other people downvoted them, probably for the same reason.

I'm conflicted because on one hand I'm all for niches, foreign cultures, local communities and so on, but on the other hand I'm also in favour of internationalization and since english was chosen for us for quite some years now, I feel in those communities we should try to stick to it, for the sake of understandability.

Am I too strict about this? After all, no rules were put in place to say something about this.
Maybe I just need to shut up and use a translator, I don't know.

What is your opinion on the matter?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 4 years ago

I must admit I felt they were out of place because only a handful of people might be able to understand them without a translator.

I think it is the other way round -- in using whatever language they choose, they are seeking individuals who understand said language. If no one on the platform can understand the language, it is a miss for them, not you. For some reason, and even though I don't mean that you are doing it, this sounds like those convenience store "speak English, this is America" moments. But the discussion it elicited is really helpful in understanding language issues on platforms.