We should not force people to post in English

["Oscar Stiffelman" <stiffelman@cs.stanford.edu>]

There is no reason to demand that people only post in English, *especially*
for an international list.  The initial dominance of a language does not
justify its further domination.  Non-English speakers do not have to be
marginalized in the cause of internationalism.

One downside of Udo's posting in German is that his audience is restricted,
so he may not receive an answer, but a restricted audience is better for Udo
than no audience at all.  Recipients who do not speak German may be annoyed
that they receive email that is of no consequence to them.  However, this
problem of getting information to the right people, and only the right
people, occurs frequently with the Internet.  We should either accept it as
a fact of modern life or look for technological solutions.  This policy
(dare I say political?) solution that demands all posts be in English only
reduces our awareness of the problem-- it does not solve anything.


Oscar Stiffelman,
Stanford University Computer Science Department, Masters Student in AI,
stiffelman@cs.stanford.edu


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-netboot@baghira.han.de
> [mailto:owner-netboot@baghira.han.de]On Behalf Of Richard Gooch
> Sent: Monday, March 08, 1999 2:30 AM
> To: netboot@baghira.han.de
> Subject: Re: etherboot-ram disk
>
>
> vicente aceituno writes:
> > Richard Gooch wrote:
> >
> > >This is an international mailing list. Please use English.
> > >
> > >Udo Roettgerding writes:
> > >> Hallo!
> > >>
> > >> Ich bin neu hier und ich hoffe das ich nicht nur englisch schreiben
> > >> muss.
> >
> > I think that english has no other prominence that being the most widely
> > understood language in the Internet. If someone chooses to use another
> > language, they are limiting their scope of audience, but that is their
> > choice.
>
> I'm afraid it simply doesn't work that way. It is understood that all
> international mailing lists use English, unless specifically
> designated otherwise (such as for cultural/language lists for ethnic
> groups scattered around the world). It's considered bad form to use a
> national language rather than English.
>
> Bottom line: English is the world language and is also the language of
> the Internet.
>
> 				Regards,
>
> 					Richard....
> ==================================================================
> =========
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