Hello everybody,

recently, I saw many posts on Spanish (correct me, if I am wrong). Since, this forum is supposed to serve anyone, I’d suggest, that international communities should stick to English. Otherwise, it discriminates people who aren’t able to talk the alternate language.

Additionally, nobody will join an international community, if 3 of the 4 lasts posts are in a non-neutral language.

If someone sees an interesting newspaper article or blog entry, just try to find another article about the same topic on English. There’s barely any topic, that isn’t also covered on English. Especially not in the domain of “world politics”.

If you think, the article you found, covers the subject better in the native language, then post this entry in a community, that is more related to your target group. e.g. Portuguese articles about the rain forest catastrophe in Brazil can be posted in c/brazil (haven’t checked if it exists). If there’s a similar newspaper article, that covers the same topic on English, then feel free to post it here.

It would be amazing, if the community agrees with my concern to not discriminate other people of the community.

Thanks, if people consider this.

EDIT: To offer the result of the discussion (for mods and other people who prefer a summary)

TLDR: My claim does not represent the common opinion. Hence, English should not become a rule in c/worldnews. Apparently, the community agrees that English, as a universal language, would restrict others from actively participating in this community.

  • nutomicA
    4·
    5 years ago

    1: Reddit has plenty of non-English subreddits. This is exactly what happens when a platform gets more and more common. With a larger diversity in people, it gets more diverse in terms of languages and subcultures.

    Which languages do you speak? In my experience, there is almost nothing in other languages than English, outside of country or city specific communities.

    2: I did not ask for shaping lemmy to an English-only community. Otherwise I wouldn’t request it in c/worldnews

    Luckily this is a community decision, and so far it seems like the community doesnt really support your proposal. I dont understand Portuguese either, but thats how things work in an international community. Banning other languages is not a good solution.

    3: My plea is related to c/worldnews. If someone is incapable of finding a source on English, shouldn’t the person reconsider if it is actual c/worldnews? Or maybe a more regional community as c/<insert country of choice>

    There are plenty of news that are important, but might not be translated in other languages yet. This logic means that anything from English-speaking countries is fine, but there will be almost no news from countries that speak other languages.

    4: I think English is the only non-restricting language. Posting something in another language restricts the majority of users from participating in the discussion. If c/worldnews aims for a diverse community, then it should aim for a rather neutral language.

    No, it doesnt restrict anyone, no one is forced to read those posts in other languages. In fact, you are trying to restrict anyone who speaks other languages from posting here.

    There is no such thing as a “universal language”, just languages that a particular number of people have in common. For people in the western world that might be English, but there are plenty of places where this common language is something else, for example Spanish or Mandarin. Limiting this community to English only would be a very western-centric view and I dont like that.