On 2018-07-03 16:47:43 ESA Forum Admin said:
ESA forum administrators would like to hear from the forum users as to how we should address individuals who violate our language policy.
2 warnings. Third strike and you're out.
I wanted to suggest being placed under moderation after a first violation, but it might be admin intensive?
Anyway, that's my 2 cents.
On 2018-07-03 17:53:19 Sibyl said:
I stand to be corrected, but I assume that the vast majority of Esa forum users are South African. South Africa has 11 official languages.
English is not the first language of every single South African forum member, yet most forum users have always in the past tried their best to interact on the forum in English (without the language policy being stipulated/enforced as English only), this despite facing the possibility of becoming the recipients of ridicule and attack by the spelling Nazis, as a result of it. This effort by forum members in the past, whose 1st language is not English, should be commended and also points to the fact that a forced language policy is not really needed.
I feel that things were fine as it were before the English Language policy was imposed, because very few people interacted exclusively in Afrikaans or any of the other non-English South African Languages, so most users understood what was written in anycase. Besides, a multitude of translation applications can be found online, which can help one translate languages into English. I certainly do not have an issue with people conversing in their 1st language.
Language is part of our identity and imo our diversity should be celebrated, not suppressed. Therefore I feel that people should not be banned for using any of our remaining 10 official languages and that the English language policy should be abolished.
If Esa feels that there is absolutely no room for completely abolishing the English language policy, then may I suggest than banning is only implemented when a thread title and thread content is exclusively written in one of the 10 remaining official languages, as opposed to banning people who express themselves in one of those languages with only a few words or a sentence.
Once again, Sibyl remains the forum's primary source of clarity, reason and critical thought. Hell of a woman, this.
In my other post I offered the recommendation below but also support Sibyl's suggestion.
Previous proposal:
"English is the preferred language for the forum.
Members are discouraged from posting in other languages especially where such posts are deemed to be for the purpose of deliberately alienating and confusing other members.
Management reserves the right to temporarily or permanently ban members that disregard this policy."
I fully understand why an 'English Only' forum would be required, to put everybody on a level playing field, but at the same time we live in a diverse country with MANY languages, and how big is our international membership anyway? If they are accounting for more than 25% of all members, then by all means stick to the current policy. If not, well then it makes no sense punishing people for a SINGLE word in a hundred word post that is in the wrong language - it's just overkill.
Find a happy medium. Be flexible. The end goal can still be achieved without being a dictatorship.
Finally, have a lekker day. ;)
Cheers.
On 2018-07-04 07:39:13 Former_Vuyisile said:
Willy777 I think we echoed similar sentiments but are you aware lekker is Afrikaans?
WHAT???
Are you serious? I thought it was South African...
Agree with Sibyl on this...also would like to add that "slang" is an accepted form of speech among locals...especially with greetings, referring to the national football and rugby sides etc...this should be allowed -without moderation.e.g. I was banned for using the afrikaans equivalent of sh*t...LOL
On 2018-07-03 16:47:43 ESA Forum Admin said:
Dear ESA forum user
This is a very serious post where we as ESA forum administrators would like to hear from the forum users as to how we should address individuals who violate our language policy.
We are all ears to any and all sensible suggestions.
I would like to qualify that we get no joy from banning any party for any reason, all banning does is dilutes our user base which is bad for ESA as a website and our users.
Kind regards
Seeing that I am a newbie here, I read the rules and will obey to ESA management. However my question is how does management want to moderate afrikaans or other language posts if management themselves struggle with the English language?
For example an Afrikaans speaking person must struggle to get his or her message accross in English, one slip of an afrikaans word gets them banned
Secondly a person speaking another language has to struggle even more, not just to get the message accross in english but to understand it too
Now you type qualify instead of clarify?
Goes to show, let the english rule fall, speak english yes I agree but leave the slang words to be used. We are South African's it is how we speak informally. Nothing to do with lack of education
When people get together and chill they don't speak proper english, but everyone understands them
Antionette
ESA support.
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