BUT if you are going to post, and English is not your first language, you need to make sure what you type can be read in and understood in English, to a point. If someone is making a good enough attempt, AND are clearly stating that English isn’t thier first language, okay. Sure. Folks are probably going to be asking what they are trying to say time and time again, but it’s an attempt.

But if they’re not using English AT ALL, well, yeah, then you need to kinda step in there and go “English, Please’ on a predominatly English Website.

I do not belive it is a Websites responsibility to provide moderators, or adminstrators, who can speak other languages //when// thier website is intended for one language only.

No one is every not allowed to join the forum because they don’t speak english. If they don’t use a translator so that everyone can understand, it’s not about whether they should be there or not, but seriously what’s the point if no one understands them?

Seriously, what is the point?

On internet forums, most posts are kept in one language for the main reason that having to create two copies of the same paragraph takes up space – something that people don’t want to excessively scroll through. It would be very bothersome if the huge majority of users have to scroll through a translation that has no meaning to them. It would be even worse if every post came with six other translations – nothing users want to deal with. It’s a matter of convenience really.

The real world and the internet has came up with its own set of solutions.

In the real world, one solution for people who have trouble with other languages is to of course learn English (or some other main language). The other is through a translation aide. Of course, you can always say the same sentence in both languages (as with many Canadian political speeches) at the expense of some convenience to the audience. There’s nothing too wrong with that when it’s commonly accepted.
For the televised debates however, they were held in two separate languages – French and English. Why? Because televised debates both have the aim to gather many views and squeeze as much content within the allotted time, and in order to do that, favour the consumer. For the French debate, all those who could understand French watched it with ease. Those who didn’t relied on having the French translated into English. So two separate versions of the same debate were offered.

The Internet has came up with their own solutions as well. As well as free translation services of questionable quality, users who speak a common language will gather in a forum that uses that common language. Sonic fans who speak English will gather in English forums, fans who speak French will gather in ‘mirror’ French forums, and etc.
For the case of Portuguese-speaking members, it would make sense for them to gather in a Portuguese-speaking forum. If DragonSky00 wanted to promote his beta in two languages, it would make sense for him to make two posts – one in English in an English forum, the other in Portuguese in a Portuguese forum (granted there is one). This would save unnecessary anger to users who don’t speak Portuguese.

If I wanted to visit a foreign-language community (2ch for example), I had three choices – learn the language, use guides (Google, Babelfish, etc), or go on its English equivalent (4chan in this case). Sure, the two may not be the exact same, but too bad for me. Same with NicoNico Douga – either learn the rules, or don’t use it.

And even then if poeple wanted content from a foreign-language community, there’s always translators who can help. If there is enough demand for it, translators can translate content into their native tongue (as done with many Touhou yukkuri stuff).

tl;dr The Internet works differently from the real world, forums should be in one language to prevent redundant paragraphs for the convenience of most of its userbase. Those who want foreign content ought to either learn the language, or seek translators for their own forum.

See, modern journalism is no longer about “facts” (finger quotes!) but about controversy. Truth is boring and pedestrian, but Truthiness gets people’s attention and, more importantly, ratings.

He even said it himself yesterday: “our story was the second most read story of the day yesterday and, at present, is our most read story today. ” How much money do you think he made in ad revenue? What do you think that did for his search engine ranking with all the new links to this article?

With something like this on his resume he could get his own show on Fox!
=Smidge=

You completely missed the point of “We’re an English speaking forum”. it’s matter of communication, NOT discrimination, as what DW said. If some guy who only spoke in a completely different language comes to English dominant forum, would you understand what he was saying? And vice versa, what if an “English speaker” went to a Portuguese or Russian speaking forum, would they be able to understand us? Has not a damn thing to do with race.

I don’t care how long this guy has been on SFGHQ, he obviously has no fucking clue what’s going on.

As you probably didn’t know, Tristan, *I’M* the owner and Admin of SFGHQ. I know you are likely ignorant of that fact since you made no attempt to contact me regarding the matter. Please make some effort to do so if you plan to slander my site and its users again.

Hugs and kisses;
=Smidge=

Thanks for the clarification on your stance. I understand where you’re coming from, although one might still argue that Tristan never really claimed TSSZ was a super serious news source to begin with (I don’t really know, maybe I’m wrong on that). Sure, he’s got flashy graphics and “breaking news” banners, but if I’m not mistaken, Tristan’s real job is actually creating such graphics for news broadcasts. The way I see it, it’s all in fun. I mean, Sonic isn’t really serious business, but it can be fun to pretend it is

I agree that the article really isn’t newsworthy. Still, I actually enjoy “fan news” like this (trivial as it may be at times) and wouldn’t mind seeing more of it. The reason this particular article seems awkward–and maybe even a bit suspicious–is that it is so selective and seemingly random. If Tristan started reporting on the updates and drama on SMS (not that we have a lot) and every other semi-large Sonic site it might make more sense, but obviously that would be a monumental task.

As for the jabs at other sites on Sonic Stadium, I definitely understand that they can be lighthearted and fun, it just that some of the ones aimed at TSSZ seemed to reek of resentment and some sort of personal grudge. Slingerland’s response in the above comments seems to confirm my suspicion.

All and all, I like and agree with your new philosophy on the community, Svend. The only thing that I would argue is that drama is unavoidable and necessary to some degree in any group setting. I think that when it arises it needs to be dealt with, and I don’t think that ignoring it, making fun of it, or suppressing it helps–It only leads to more drama and resentment. I’m not accusing you or anything, I just think that it’s something everyone in our little corner of the Internet should be aware of.