Lately, there have been threads that have shown up almost entirely in Chinese, thereby excluding the vast majority of Head-Fi'ers (though I have a touch of Chinese in my blood doesn't mean I can read it). Our moderators have asked that the people posting in these threads in Chinese post in English from now on, as it is the obvious primary language we use to communicate at Head-Fi. Well, one of our moderators was told he was being "arrogant" about this. I disagree.

So far, we haven't specified in the Rules and Terms of Use any specific language preference -- but we're about to. If you haven't already guessed, we will state in the Rules and Terms of Use that English is the language we use to communicate at Head-Fi.

Let's take a look at this thread:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showth...&threadid=7509

I suspect that 95% or more of the users at Head-Fi can't make heads or tails of most of the posts that make up the first page of that thread.

Head-Fi is obviously a community of strangers, acquaintances and friends from all over the world, so I'd like to think we all respect the many cultures and nationalities represented here. But we have to have some common language that the overwhelming majority of us can communicate with, and at Head-Fi that has obviously been (and will continue to be) English.

The argument can be made that this is arrogant, but I'll argue that I don't visit primarily German-language forums, or Spanish-language forums (though my grasp of Spanish is so-so -- okay, maybe not even so-so), Chinese-speaking forums, etc., because I understand the intended primary languages of these non-English forums.

Another example: The web site TNT Audio comes in English and Italian versions -- publishing in these two languages is their choice, and not publishing in Swahili, Hebrew, Aramaic, French, Chinese, or any other languages that aren't English and Italian, doesn't make them arrogant. Some sites are published only in French, only in German, etc. -- a fact that alone doesn't make them arrogant either.

At Head-Fi, it's English.

Jude, I think your decision is reasonable and not at all arrogant. (Easy for me to say, of course, as one who can't help abiding by the all-in-English rule.) However, you have another justification that you can use to avoid the charge of arrogance.

The forum costs time and money to operate. Having non-English posts uses bandwidth and storage assets that should be reserved for posts that the majority (in our case those using English) have a chance to benefit from. It also makes the job of moderating impossible when the posts cannot be understood by the moderators.

In principle, there should not be a sort of parasite forum using this platform in a language that bars participation by the bulk of the members. Those who prefer to post in other languages need to set up their own forums and assume the overhead for the users who also use that language.

So the issue is not one of nationalism or prejudice but one of simple fairness. Since sharing is the whole reason for the existence of a forum, those who cannot broadly share should withdraw.

Here's what I think:

They have their own forum, JDDSY, which is just about as well-formed as Head-Fi.

It's a shame we can't share our knowledge properly...

Jude,

Thanks. English is somewhat of a universal language.

I'm not sure what it says about us (USA) that so many people in other countries speak their native language and English, while the huge majority in America is single language and possibly not terribly good with it.

However, this forum is sponsored by and primarily populated by English speaking people. 1st or 2nd language. The posts I've seen from Jan seem to indicate a command of English and Headroom is an American company and they are listed as paid sponsors as well as X-Dream phones.

I don't think there is arrogance involved. Practicality, most benefit to the most people, a sense of community. In the short time I've been on this forum, I feel I've gotten to know a lot of the members, and I can almost predict responses to topics. It's fun, it's informative, it's a group of people with at least one interest in common. I order to maintain that community, we all must communicate. Most of us can't in Chinese.

And, these posters obviously understand English or they wouldn't have gotten into this forum in the first place. They are the arrogant ones, thinking that they can either force us to learn Chinese, or that they can use this forum for their own private messages. They also wouldn't be able to call you "arrogant" if they didn't understand what you said to them.

Enough of my rant. Thanks again for all of your work, especially now that you've gotten a little older.

When my kinsfolk - the Welsh - were struggling under the yoke of the English, the kids were all forced to learn English (as a foreign language) at school. These days, the kids mostly speak English as a first language, and getting them to learn Welsh again after all this time is proving to be almost impossible. I will not support a global community that does not at least make the effort to accomodate another's mother tongue.

Cymru am baeth.

Oh puh-leeze! Same thing happened to the Cajun culture when Huey Long tried to modernize Louisiana, and hardly anyone speaks Cajun French anymore. We have retained our cultural identity brilliantly with the English language, and now we can more fully participate in our American society. Anyone who defends their culture against the inclusion of new ideas damns themselves to obscurity.

We all have a hard enough time understanding each other in our native tongue; this board would soon fracture and splinter into single language threads if we were truly an anything goes forum. Then, the whole idea of communicating new ideas to each other would fall apart, and the concept of a global community disintegrates.

One world, ready or not...

Personally, I don't think it hurts anybody if there are some occasional posts in a language other than English.

I think we need to exercise tolerance and appreciate diversity - while it still exists.

There won't be many of these posts, so why get excited about it?

I would rather see a few posts I can't understand than see some people excluded because they can't communicate in English.

Ross

Agreed, Ross, that the occasional post does no harm. There's nothing wrong with, for example, intial contacts being made here between non-English users.

But there was beginning to be a rash of non-English posts, and the trend did not look good. Maybe the language policy was invoked at a very early stage in this development, but the policy and the need for a language policy are both reasonable.

That said, diversity is definitely to be encouraged. We are only disagreeing about the best way to go about that.

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1) There will be many of those posts... heck! didn't you see how many we've have these last few days?

2) They do understand English, if they didn't, why would they even come here? how do they even operate the forums?

A forum is based on communication, if we can't communicate it just doesn't work. There is no reason for them to pollute Head-Fi with threads that most Head-Fiers don't stand a chance at understanding. Head-Fi is run by English speaking people, all text on Head-Fi is English and the bulk of the Head-Fiers have English as their first language, thus all the posts should be in English.

English is my second of 3-5 (depends on how you look at it) languages, and I am by no means fluid in it, but I'm not complaining or starting posts in Danish.
Why post in a community if only a few understand? the point of Head-Fi is that a large number of people from all over the world share their experience, why post if only the few people from your own region understands?

Some of the people that came here can only read and write English marginally... one of the first threads in Chinese started with 'I saw all these people here hotly discussing power supplies for the D-25S, but I can't learn anything from them, and there's nothing I can do about it because my English is so poor!' (in Chinese of course)

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He has my symphathy, but why didn't he just post that (with a link to the discussion) on the chinese forum?

I suppose so

Joe, that does merit the frowny face. The guy was uncomfortable and upset, and that deserves our sympathy. And, if he was fishing for another Chinese-using member's help by posting here in Chinese, there's nothing wrong in that. (But that would need one, maybe two posts, and a response in Chinese, not a series of them.) Those kinds of contacts should not be discouraged or interfered with.

Marginal English is, of course, fine for any post. Although having the confidence to use a second language is hard, the results would be something none of us would want to squelch. All we ask is an attempt at communicating with all of us.