Foreign members who cant speak your language

If a foreign member who couldnt speak any of your own language signed up to your forums what would you do if they were posting in their own language in response to threads?

Personally I would send them a message asking them to post in English and if they continued I would more than likely have to ban them - that sounds cruel doesnt it. Thats the problem with people posting in languages you dont know, they could be saying allsorts without you knowing what theyre on about.

One thing we would like to do on our forums in the future if we get enough of these people is to create a forum specifically for those non-english speakers so they can converse amongst themselves. It sounds like segregation but I would hate for their posting to ruin the experience of other members.

 

i would do the same as you,

A game i play called Soldier Front on their company's forums they only accept english but we made some european boards which where good for about 1 week and now im thinking of closing..

Because another thing you have to have a moderator who speaks their language, and you never know..That moderator might not be moderating atall and you wouldnt know.

 

I completely agree, having an on board translator would be perfect so you know if theyre slagging you off behind your back or even spamming Plus it would be nice to know what is actually going on, especially if they needed site support.

 

Que? No entiendo. /end

English only, it's a rule for both forum and chat[Pisoga]. We try to reason with them by using translators and such, if they don't understand then ban. =\

 

My board is English only. Posting in anything else, you get told to post English. If you continue, ban.

 

Basically the same here.

I haven' had the need to enforce it yet, but it is a rule that I will stand by to the end.

 

I have an international section just for people like that - they can post there. All post in the regular forum has to be in American English. Not British english, not aussie english, because that aint real english,,,,,,,.

But seriously, some of the members of my forum speak broken english. When we have a non-english speaker sign up, their directed to the international section.

 

We let them have a social group.

:shrug:

 

i havent yet come across this issue, we have members from all round the world, but all of them speak some english. maybe its cause the forums buttons, logo, name, and all of the posts are in english so they might have been unable to find which button to register, or not post cause they cant understand what the threads are about.

on one of my forums, one of the other admins can speak chinese, french, spanish, polish, finnish and german. he posts things in other languages, but only with a translation, and tried to teach us words in different languages (i have a big long list of swear words in these languages, on my computer), and if someone said something rude in one of these languages he would mod it.

our forum has its own secret language too, which is writing backwards, but thats only in certain threads that we do it (or in a few sentences on other threads)

 

I don't have a problem with foreigners who can't speak English; I see my forum as being an international site, and though the majority of the visitors are from the U.S. I see it as a point of pride to be able to say we have members from Africa, China, Russia, etc.

The few times I've had someone post in another language, I've used Google's language tools to get an idea of what they've said, and posted it along with a request for a native speaker to offer a better translation/help the person out. If there was enough demand, I would start a subforum for that language, but so far that hasn't happened.

Now it's the Americans who barely speak English I don't know what to do about. And a contingent of British, Scottish, and Welsh; just last week one of them had to translate a poem he'd posted making heavy use of Yorkshire slang. No one understood it, not even me (and I've had some training in middle/old English)...

 

Do l337 or txt count as foreign languages? :doh:

I'd rather deal with someone who is not a native English speaker than one who is and posts in those "languages".

I know I had a pretty harsh view above, but for my newest forum I may relax it a bit.

But I do admit, quite sadly, that I am one of those lazy Americans who cannot be bothered to take the time to learn another language.

 

^This (except for the part about not "being bothered" with learning a new language *is a language nerd and knows the basics of about 20 or so languages, and Spanish/Swedish above a beginner level*)

I'd rather have someone who speaks a legitimate foreign language than some idiot who thinks they're speaking English wen dey typ liek dis lololol >.>

Besides, among me, my girlfriend, and a good buddy of mine, most common languages (and some not-so-common) are covered. If not, translation services are a wonderful tool *coughlikeSolisaidcough*

 

I've never had users post in foreign languages, but if I did, I would try to include a translation or request one from a native speaker.

I would also do the same as you in regards to sub-forums for different languages if there was a great enough demand.