🚀 go-pugleaf

Bruce Geerdes (bgeerdes@igs.com) wrote:
: Harlan Messinger (gusty@clark.net) wrote:
: >Albert Dorofiev (albert@sonytel.be) wrote:
: >: Would you mind using English, please? I do NOT have
: >: a russian font and many of people do not speak russian.
: >: 
: >When you post in English, do you feel you are doing 
: >some terrible disservice to all the people in the world who don't read 
: >English? If you didn't happen to know English, would you feel that you 
: >didn't deserve to use the Internet, and leave it to those of us who do? 
: >Did it occur to you that this person may not know English?
: 
: For what it's worth, it is considered a breach of netiquette to post
: non-English posts to newsgroups that are not specifically chartered for
: that language.
: -- 
: bgeerdes@igs.com (Bruce Geerdes)

Does the charter for THIS group specify English? If so, that's 
reasonable, and then I was wrong about the acceptability of the Russian 
posting here, though not for the reason that was complained about 
(postings that English speakers can't understand) but because it was a 
posting that didn't conform to the charter.

However, if a specific group's charter doesn't mandate a requisite 
language, I think it's the height of arrogance to suggest that one 
particular language alone is proper in the absence of specific 
authorization of any other. Why would netiquette single out the speakers 
of one language for preferential treatment? Why would netiquette single 
out the non-speakers of one language for exclusion from the broad range 
of Internet facilities that the speakers of that language are able to 
take for granted?

I have heard of people who think it's impolite to speak in a foreign
language in public, such as when two people speak in Spanish to each other
on a bus in New York. The implication is that people speaking privately
but within earshot have the responsibility to enable you to understand
what they're saying! This is sheer audacity. And what you are calling
netiquette is just as much so. 

Where are all these charters anyway? rtfm somewhere?