Olá Christian!
First of all, thank you for the wonderful job that you and the other
developers are doing with this unique tool that is LyX!
Next, I would like to thank you because today I learnt my first word in
Swedish and that was agreeable to me.
Now, about the issue in discussion, I must say that I resent the title
that you chose to your message: "Why the list is 'English only'". It
sounds as there's no discussion about the list being or not English
only, when you say yourself "I think it's safe to say it is 'English
only'". If you "think it's safe" it means that you're not sure and if
you're not sure is because there is no policy set about that, at least yet.
In fact, you have placed, in your answer, two *very* different hypothesis:
As for a user that is uncomfortable or unable to express himself in
English, he could for instance start by asking for help in translating
the question. As long as the question and answer are understandable in
English, it really doesn't matter how the question is originally
posed. Again, this is so that most of us will be able to benefit.
and
I think it's safe to say it is "English only" (...) As for letting
people know it's "English only", this should of course be done in a
polite manner that is easy to understand. (...) Put differently, it'd
be selfish to for instance ask to get a reply privately because then
only that person benefits. Somewhat similarly, getting a reply in a
language that a minority understands could also be construed as
selfish. Since English is the language most users are likely to be
able to read, it makes sense that questions and answers should be in
English. (...) If this is not desireable or inconvenient for a group
of people, then they can and have started separate forums (...) We can
only hope that they will also follow this list, and contribute
non-local issues here as well.
Lets call your first hypothesis the "ENGLISH TRANSLATION REQUIRED"
hypothesis and the second one the "ENGLISH ONLY" hypothesis, shall we?
The "ENGLISH ONLY" hyphotesis is:
* *Totalitarian*, as it doesn't give any alternative option.
* *Exclusivist*, as it defines the list as a select club where only
English speakers/writers are welcome.
* *Disregarding an uncaring*, as as it is equal to saying "if you do
not speak/write English, we do not want to know about you and we
sure do not care about your problems or difficulties".
* *Segregationist*, as it suggests that different "kinds" should be
set apart.
* *Prejudicial*, as it tries to establish the strange notion that
"English is the language most users are likely to be able to
read", which, even if it was true, disregards the fact that LyX
itself is translated to 21 different languages and that there's a
great chance that a sizable percentage of those other languages
LyX users are not English speakers.
* *Unethical*, as disregards minorities just for being minorities.
* *Unhacker*, and lets not forget that FOSS (free and open source
software) exists because of what Pekka Himanen, Manuel Castells
and Eric Raymond, among others, call "Hacker Culture", which has,
as you know, a very strong ethic, based namely on liberty --
liberty to create, know, contribute and divulge --, collaboration,
reciprocity and informality.
* *Oposed to the concepts of Open Access and Free Culture* which are
concepts that should be dear to scientists and academics as to us all.
Unlike Sweden, that has high English learning success rates, there are
many countries where that doesn't happen and I know myself many people
that refuse the idea of participating in these lists because they do not
know enough English. I am not a linguist, so I do not know how similar
the two languages (Swedish and English) may or may not be. It seems that
"the modern name Sweden is derived through "back-formation" from Old
English Sweoðeod, which meant "people of the Swedes" (Wkipedia), and
Swedish belongs to the Germanic languages, as English does, so I guess
that they share some structural similarities and that might be not so
hard for you to learn it. By my own experience I can assure you that's
not so easy for all the others to learn English and that it took me many
years before I felt confident enough to participate in these kind of lists.
Even in what regards operationality, I think that the "English Only"
option generates a great potential loss to us all. You say and I quote "
If this is not desireable or inconvenient for a group of people, then
they can and have started separate forums", and you've pointed a French
one. I was there and found that in the last two months they've exchanged
6 messages. I found as well that in the French LyX page --
http://yann.morere.free.fr/lyx/configure.html -- their link "Liste des
Utilisateurs" (users list) points to this list and not to the French
forum. Anyway, their forum could be exchanging hundreds or thousands of
messages, that's not the point. The point is that all messages that are
exchanged elsewhere make this list poorer and that information that is
shared there will not help any of us. Reversely, those that follow this
list (even those that speak French) will never be able to help any of
those users.
To "hope that they will also follow this list, and contribute non-local
issues here as well" is not, IMO, a reasonable hope. It's just too
unfairly demanding and it's much more reasonable to gather those
contributions in one place just from start. That also provides a much
better search functionality to those that want to search about a problem
before actually questioning the list.
And, lets not forget also that there are some language communities that
may just not be big enough or have enough knowledgeable users to create
an useful forum for themselves. So, forbidding them to ask a question in
other language than English, may in fact mean forbidding them to put
questions at all. That's why the "English Only" option is in fact
totalitarian.
The "English Only" option reflects, IMO, the desire to be in control and
to be sure that list's policies are kept. Well, I really do not think
that total control is ever a good thing, and communities of users have
shown that, no matter which language they speak, they always do their
best to keep approved policies in use -- take the Wikipedia example.
What this means is that if some other language speaker disrespects any
of the list's rules, it's obvious that other users that understand that
language would flame that user and point him to the list moderator(s)
explaining the situation.
Now, about the "ENGLISH TRANSLATION REQUIRED" hypothesis:
This is a much more considerate and thoughtful proposition. Mainly, it
returns to all users the actual possibility of participating, which
should be our main concern here.
But it is not exempt of problems also:
* it places a considerable burden on the speakers of the language in
which the question was posed, that would feel obligated to
translate everything -- questions and answers --, even those
questions that were already successfully answered and that have no
interest to the rest of the community;
* it may still inhibit some users to place their questions, knowing
of the increased burden that they would be imposing to other users;
* it contributes to a greater traffic and congestion of the list,
where many of the translations, as said above, might not be really
needed.
This hypothesis also reflects the idea that not only the "English is the
language most users are likely to be able to read" but that things
should be kept that way. While recognizing that each community should
decide freely which language should be pointed as preferably spoken, I
strongly disagree with the idea of English as an international language.
English requires many years of continuous practise to master and using
it as international support of communication on all situations creates
an unfair disadvantage to those that do not speak natively that language
and in fact a sense of awkwardness that constraints many not to express
their views. In my opinion, international auxiliary languages should be
used in these situations -- specially Interlingua, as naturalistic
international languages have proofed themselves more easy to learn than
schematic ones like Esperanto. I know, off course, this is a polemic
issue, to say the least, but I remind you that if English is still
probably the language in which the majority of most important contents
are expressed in the Internet -- and I'm not even sure about that --
other languages contents are growing exponentially and it is a shame
that we do not take the opportunity to set an easy learning language as
a preferable "lingua franca" on the Internet. That will be surely
penalizing for us all in a short time.
Anyway, I would like to propose a third way to this list, a different
hypothesis that we could call "ENGLISH TRANSLATION APPRECIATED".
Calling for some further explanation at the list policies document, for
example, where it could be made clearer that the translation would be
considered a way of contributing for the common knowledge but not
necessarily required in all times, this third way, IMO, would not
inhibit the participation of any user while keeping the list as
organized and effective as possible.
A variant to this third hypothesis would be keeping the "English
Translation Appreciated" policy while setting Interlingua as the
official language of the list, thus promoting a better future and
setting the example.
Sincere regards,
Roberto
P.S.:
Regarding the history, AFAIK, English was not the native language of
the original LyX developers. However, English was, and still remains,
the language used to communicate between the developers. At the latest
LyX developers meeting I think there was one Finn/(Dutch?), one
Norwegian, one Swede, one German, one French and two
Portugese/(Italian?). AFAIK, none of them has English as a native
tongue:-)
We are talking about *users*, not about developers that might choose
what language is more operative by different criteria. Those criteria
shouldn't be imposed to *users* just because...
_________________________
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hejsan Roberto
That's a Swedish greeting since I'm a Swede:-)
--
-------------------- Roberto Gorjão
freelance designer and web designer
personal site: www.castelosnoar.com
PORTUGAL / BRAGA / PÓVOA DE LANHOSO
