[Odin]

Quote:

Originally posted by pigmode What they did was plain rude. It was a slap in the face. They came into a board in which postings are open to all, and then proceeded to hold private conversations in front of everyone. That is not nice. There should be a rule, if for no other reason than to prevent people from whining the next time a mod closes such a thread.

What they did was rude??? Excuse me? So in this forum, we don't even have what we call the freedom of speech now? Just because the thread is established in English that mean it has formed it's little english community that all other languages are excluded and be criticized as rude? We should be honors for these people to come in! That shows head-fi has built up some degree of reputation in the headphone world and it's making contacts with the Asian market, they're here because they wanna share their knowledge and learn what we've got here. But just because there's a language barrier between us and majority of us are english speaking that takes away their right to communicate? It's not their fault that they don't know english, I actually feel sorry for them and at the same time for us, not only we're unable to get into their community, but also we're so conceited to believe that we don't NEED their knowledge. I agree with what most people said here, true that a new foreign language section would bring too much hassel for the moderaters and the site itself. I'm not blaming anyone. This is nobody's fault and there is no right or wrong definition. It is the culture difference between the east and west that's causing our barrier.

Quote:

Originally posted by ai0tron Example: The official language of NATO is English. Just speak ENGLISH. Like Onix said it's POLITE to speak english on these forums. I am always bothered by foreigners who will speak their home language in a classroom or even sometimes just in public places. It bothers me that some people live in America and don't even learn to speak english. If I went to a foreign country my FIRST goal would be to learn the local language. I would not walk around EXPECTING others to know my langauge so that I could maintain my cultural identity. That is just stupid, if you want to maintain your cultural identity, coming to America, or posting on American forums is not the way to do it. YES, America IS ENRICHED by the many different cultures that make it up, but, those cultures are no longer sovereign, they are ADOPTED, and are in fact more American than their origin. In other words, you cannot be FOREIGN on the forums. You can be ENGLISH with FOREIGN ideas. IF you ARE foreign on these forums, you are invisible. .

Let's say that there's a war going on between US and China, and the refugees from both countries headed to Russia or whatever, then the country says "You guys can't come into our country because you guys can't speak our languages" And imagine you're one of the refugees, how would you feel? How wouldl you feel to be excluded. True, some of the people migrate to the states without the ability to fluently communicate in English, so that mean they can't communicate at all? Hell no, you find it bothering you to hear people speaking stuff that you don't understand, well then take my advice, stay home. Don't ever go travelling. As for your last quote, "if you are foreign on these forums, you are invisible" But after a couple thread it proves that they are not! They are getting replies and there are people who are willing to do the translation and giving them suggestions (Joe Bloggs). But only you guys are too ignorant to even bother understanding what they're trying to say, and don't even give Joe a chance.

 

[Neruda]

Quote:

Originally posted by Odin What they did was rude??? Excuse me? So in this forum, we don't even have what we call the freedom of speech now?

now come on, freedom of speech is an entirely different thing. It wasn't wait they said, it was how they said it (or more speicifically, in what language). Are you trying to turn us into nazis or something?

Try and think about what this forum would be like if we had threads going in Chinese over here, Japanese over there, Finnish over there, german there, Spanish here, with some english thrown in. That's what we're worried about. personally just these Chinese threads have bothered me, I don't even want to imagine a head-fi where dozens of languages were being used at the same time.

 

[Tim D]

Dustychalk:

I like this following analogy...mainly because it amuses me and perhaps only me.

A fairly large guy walks up to a strawberry stand and decides to try a strawberry so he takes one and eats it. The attendant then says, "please if you want to eat the strawberries you really should buy them first". The large man says, "oh I'm sorry I won't do that again". Another person who is watching all this thinks the attendant is behaving rudely and says "Why are you being so arrogant? Do you have something against heavy-set people?". The attendant says "no, it had absolutely nothing to do with that!"

A crowd gathers and there is a big commotion over the rights of being able to eat a few strawberries before buying them, or the potential fear of a thousand strawberry tasters ruining the produce for other buyers. A few people start arguing about how rude the large person is for doing what he did, a few others seem to think the attendant was the rude one. Some people feel there should be a dedicated strawberry tasting stand. The strawberry stand owner is forced to come and to settle matters puts a sign that says "Please don't eat strawberries before buying". This is done to not only settle matters once and for all, but because it is obviously an inconvience to both regular buyers and the stand attendent to deal with. A few are truly offended by all this and the going ons that they decide to never visit that strawberry stand again.

Most people however shrug and wonder why people are so weird and have nothing better to do but argue over silly matters. They are thinking "dood, the guy took a friggin strawberry, yah thats kinda annoying, but it really isn't grand theft auto, and the situation should have been long resolved". One nerdy guy in the corner starts babbling about how it all reminds him of some silly threads on a headphone website. Another person steps in and says "What, are you talking about?...this has absolutely no resemblance with whatever you are blabbing about".

 

[Audio-Me]

No it isn't.

Yes it is!

Nyah

, w00t!

Errrrr, whatever.

What's with all the nonsense ramblings and arguments lately? This language matter is not an important issue, Tim D says it right, ignore the ruckus and go on with things...

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Odin, although I agree with your general sentiment -- I feel sorry for them, and sorry for us -- I have to disagree with your war/refugee analogy. THIS ISN'T A POLITICAL DISAGREEMENT. It's a technical one. I would like to be able to communicate with/to/from them also. But likening their inability to come here -- which in itself is wrong, they can come here, and at least two of them have stayed and are participating on an ongoing basis -- to wartime is...just so wrong...

I definitely agree with the software development analogy. Being a software developer, myself, I understood it immediately. "We're writing our code in C++." "But I only know Java." "Write in C++ or find another job. There are plenty of other jobs in Java. But we don't have anyone to write the tools to integrate C++ and Java at this time, and we are already tight on budget and behind schedule, so we really need you to hit the ground running..."

 

[zoboomofo]

Tim, are you saying I'm fat?

 

[BenG]

These political arguments and examples are complete red herrings. I studied Political Science and have a great interest in Free Speech, yet I have a hard time buying these emotive arguments of Head-Fi being 'arrogant' for making English the official language. The descision to make English the official language used at Head-Fi was the completely practical & rational thing for Jude to do. It's not a big deal imo.

 

[kaiwei]

Sorry to hit the party so late, I've been getting stuff & clearing up my room for the Chinese Lunar New Year.

Yup I'm chinese & I'm proud of it. However, as someone who was borned in Singapore & having to struggle with mandrian through school, I feel that ENGLISH should be the official languge here. i mean, c'mon, YOU know perfectly well that this site is in english & you guys choosed to come here. Well whatever happened to the famed chinese manners?

It isn't that Head-Fi is not sensitive to the member's culture but just that jude does not have the necessary resources to provide the level of coverage that having a multi-language site requires. What if the next time this happends it's for the Japs, french or german? Will we still be able to understand each other?
Having multiple language is good, but it also restricts the amount of people who takes part in a thread.

Besides, isn't the latest news in China is that the gov itself is behind a LEARN ENGLISH movement? Perhaps this will be good practice?

Just to let you know, I'm behind you jude!

 

[jude]

Quote:

Originally posted by Odin ....So in this forum, we don't even have what we call the freedom of speech now?....

Huh?

Odin, I think you should read the rest of the thread -- there really is no practical way to accommodate non-English languages in Head-Fi at this time. And if you're suggesting that a foreign language sub-forum is something we should do, I'll say again that it's not practical, and so it's not going to happen (if you want my reasons, read my posts in this thread -- I think I'm up to, like, 83 or something like that). If you think this position is unreasonable, so be it. I guess that means every other forum I visit is unreasonable too.


Quote:

Originally posted by zoboomofo (in another thread) ....Well after reading the entire thread about setting guidelines on language (all 5 pages), I'm a little less worried, and I too feel this stuff has been blown out of proportion. Its a shame to lose a member, but Jude is right. He's the admin, and he needs to control these boards, so how can you do that if you can't understand the guests? Nobody's censoring anybody. We're just trying to keep the language manageable. < / beatdeadhorse >.

I'm with zoboomofo.

And he's definitely correct in saying that this horse died a long time ago.

Quote:

Originally posted by kaiwei Just to let you know, I'm behind you jude!

Thanks, kaiwei. Seriously. The background you gave in your post, followed by your opinion on the matter, was very well stated.

 

[RMSzero]

Interesting.

Jude, I support your decisions for the reasons that you have stated. I know I'm really new here but just wanted to add my tuppence.

I'm not sure why some people thing that being unable to communicate with others is a Good Thing. It isn't. Retaining your heritage is great, but speaking so that others can understand you is important as well. These are not mutually exclusive. I don't see any evidence that anyone's heritage is being repressed in this instance, rather, people are being guided into communicating with the greater population WITHOUT being forced to unlearn their old language Welsh-style.

Jude made the correct call in a difficult situation, and I think it will pay off in the future. What good are new Head-Fizers if we can't understand them? How can we know when to tell them that Sony MDR-V600s are crap and when instead to say bass boost is evil?

Those of you thinking Jude is an evil tyrant should pay attention to the many English-speaking fora on the internet that don't allow posting special characters, meaning that chinese can't even be posted to begin with. He's not doing this. Instead, he's asking that threads be conducted for the most part in a language that we all seem to (kind of) understand.

It is quite reasonable to imagine that this forum could get Babylon-dotted from a few non-English websites, and to have it overrun to the extent that it isn't worth visiting because you can't understand 50% or more of the posts. I'm sure that among the members we can probably translate almost anything into anything else, but how many members (let alone admins!) would like to visit Head-Fi one day to see 10 new threads in the Member's Lounge in 5 different languages (and they may not be the 5 you happen to know). I don't enjoy staring at things I don't understand unless I'm doing physics. On the other hand, how cool would it be to get all kinds of members from all over the world that you can actually communicate with! I think that's what Jude's trying to accomplish.

Perhaps I'm adding to the problem by jumping in an arguement that has already been resolved, but I just wanted to express my support for the management. Not many admins have to state their reasons and continue to support them the way Jude has. I like that.

 

[mcbiff]

As one of the (I assume) few Swedish (speaking) members of Head-fi I want to say that I am also 100% behind Jude. To be perfectly honest I don't even see the issue here, to me it's all a matter of common decency to speak the native language when visiting at someone else's place.

I would never dream of coming to an English forum and demanding I could post things in Swedish just as I imagine most of the English people here wouldn't come to a Swedish forum and start posting in English. Think about it, if someone invited you to their house, would you speak the same language they speak or another one? I didn't think so.

And what does it matter if one does not spell perfectly or if the grammer is a little off, we're all a friendly community here. Right? As long as a person tries I can't imagine anyone ridiculing that person, at least I know I wouldn't. (Well, it would be strange for me to do it since I'm Swedish, but you get the point.

)

I don't know if that made any sense, but that's how I feel.

 

[fredpb]

I have lived many years in foreign countries, mostly not knowing the language well. It stinks.

In many countries, hifi enthusiasts are few and far between and those in need of help are stuck. Why not help them out?

Compromise.

Create a forum for foreign languages, covering all topics. As far as moderator related issues go, ask for volunteer moderators for each requested language. A moderator in Chinese, for instance, can also be fluent in English, and act as a translator, to a degree.
Some Chinese headfi friend who knows little English can post on the "foreign tongue" forum, and perhaps the moderator/translator can post a question in the regular Head-fi groups and then translate data to "foreign tongue" forum.

If people are worried about database storage, just time out the messages in the "foreign tongue" forum to 60 days. That way questions can be answered, and everyone is happy.

And another suggestion, we also need a regular usenet group for headphones. But I have not a clue on how to do this.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

As some people had suggested I had added an advertisement in my sig offering to be a guide for Chinese-using Head-Fiers. Don't know if its any use anymore though

Damn my sig is turning into something like the Classified Post

 

[sterlingy]

I'm all for Jude's decision to only allow posts in English

To come here and post in your own language EXCLUDING the vast population here on head-fi.org is not upholding your
culture- it is simply rude. It is like barging into a neighborhood party with a group of your own friends, eating all the food, chatting only with each other and leaving.

I can symphathize with the Chinese. I also have to put up with mediocre forum/billboards here in Korea that are a pain in the a*s to read/post/reply. But it has taken the people here a great deal of work to put it together and maintain it so you and I can come home from work and fantasize about buying our next headphone(for me-the w100, tomcat has practically sold it to me) The moderaters are not asking that you pay homage to the English language-they are asking that you use it so people from Europe, Australia, both Americas, and other Asians can also be able to trade ideas with you.

I'm extremely sorry but English *is* (for now at least) the universal language of the Internet(because of that Japan even made it the official language alongside Japanese)
It is not culture wars here, it is basic common sense.

I respect your unique viewpoint but I am not going to understand it if you do not use English.

 

[lini]

jude: I guess, you're right - moderability is an issue. And of course it's your right to refuse a Babylon forum - especially as long as there are good reasons to doubt that people show enough self control and sensibility. I just thought it would be nice to include the additional knowledge of people who can't communicate in English on Head-Fi, too, instead of that knowledge being located on many other forums worldwide, which I'll probably never find. Well, we can't have everything, I guess. In addition, I have to admit that even I sometimes don't add my knowledge, when I have a lazy day and find it too complicated to translate my thoughts in English. So sometimes it would be nice to have a forum where I could type away my thoughts in German, discuss these with a fellow German like Tomcat for example and finally transfer interesting results to the main forums for further discussion... Well, anyway, if you decide to give it a try one day, I hereby apply for German (& Bavarian!

) moderation.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini