A couple of weeks ago, someone posted an article in comp.lang.c which
was (as far as I could tell) on-topic for the newsgroup, but which,
unusually for the newsgroup, was in Dutch. This has led to some, how
shall I put this, sharply worded debate as to whether discussion
in the newsgroup should or should not be in English only. I decided
to conduct a little survey in the newsgroup -- I hoped that there would
actually be a strong consensus on the question, and that when this was
pointed out, the debate would die quickly.
This hope was not realized. The consensus was in favor of the use of
English only, but the numbers are not overwhelming, especially considering
that there were only 52 responses from the readers of so busy a newsgroup.
The conclusion seems to be that if you want to post in some other language
than English in comp.lang.c, then a considerable number of readers will
feel that you've acted improperly, while a considerable number of other
readers (including me, by the way) will feel that you haven't -- though
clearly your article will have a smaller readership. There were a couple
of suggestions that you should restrict distribution if you do this: you
could post in French with distribution only to France, say.
The last thing to observe is that people in comp.lang.c generally are
getting pretty tired of this thread, and followups are directed, with
some emphasis, to news.misc.
And now, here are the results. People were asked to agree with one
of two statements, or to write in a one-line response of their own.
The responses in favor of English only:
"I think postings to comp.lang.c should properly be in English"
And write-ins in the same general vein as the above:
"I think all postings to comp.lang.c should be in English"
"I think that postings to comp.lang.c should be in English"
"i think post to comp.lang.c should be in english"
"I think that all posts to comp.lang.c should be in proper English"
"I think postings to comp.lang.c should properly be in proper English"
"ENGLISH unless distribution is local"
"comp.lang.c postings with world distribution should be in English;
more restricted distributions may use more suitable languages"
The responses in favor of all languages:
"I think all languages can properly be used to post to comp.lang.c"
And the write-ins in the same general vein as the above:
"I think all languages can properly be used to post on comp.lang.c"
"I think all languages are acceptable, however it would be courteous
if the subject announced which language it was in"
"All languages should be OK. But they're not helpful to monolinguals"
And there were 5 write-ins expressing other opinions, or declining
to express any opinion.
"I believe it is an offensive waste of other people's resources
to post in two languages (in the same message). Messages should be
posted in one appropriate language:
1) A language widely understood by users of the net.
2) The poster's first language"
"English (most people now *use*) and Esperanto (country-neutral)"
"comp.lang.c is conducted primarily in English"
"I don't care, just get the non-C postings *out* of comp.lang.c!"
"I think that comp.lang.c should not be used for surveys, dammit"
Thanks to everyone who responded, and once again, TAKE IT TO news.misc
IF YOU WANT TO SAY MORE. Please. S'il vous plait. Bitte. Por favor.
--
Mark Brader "... given time, a generally accepted solution to this
Toronto problem will evolve, as it has in the past for ... [other]
utzoo!sq!msb issues, only to be replaced by the next issue, which no-one
This article is in the public domain.