Another thing: Babelfish, as with any other machine translation, isn’t anywhere near as good as a human provided translation, provided said human is competent in both languages concerned.
Ack! Curse your oily hide for reminding me of that thankfully brief trend!
As others have mentioned, this isn’t about censorship or a lack of respect for Latino cultures. If we can’t read it, we can’t moderate it. Hell, even if we can eventually translate it with some effort it’s still a pain in the ass for us.
If you posted entirely in French, German, Hausa, morse code or semaphore you’d get the same response.
What about the drum language? Can we post in that? How about the one with lots of tongue clickings?
tclouie, how about I explain it in a way that’ll make you feel better? The mods absolutely positively trust you to do the absolute honest thing. They know that when you post in Spanish, it is only friendly banter and is nothing ever to get worked up about because you are a fine, upstanding member of this board. It’s the other people the mods are worried about. The scallions and dregs of the internet who will see your Spanish and decide that they can post in it too. But they won’t be as ethical and upstanding as you. With no one there who can translate what those evil doers have typed, this board would spiral out of control. You are the gatekeeper. We’re counting on you to post in English and stop the tital wave before it begins. May the force be with you.
tclouie-
Paashol v’chorte, per-ee-staan haameetca, mudak!
http://www.jps.net/scritch/swear.html
If this link is inappropriate, I appologize-it’s just really really vulgar swears in different languages.
Sign language.
You’d better stop all this before a young, ice cream slinging Canadian pops in and demands to post in his favored langage. He will of course claim this devilish tounge brings together English and the other latinate languages and well… it’ll just be a mess.
has there ever been a pig latin trend? Hehehe.
[sub]crawls back under the rock from which he came…[/sub]
hmmm… this language stuff gives me an idea…
OK! i am saying this now, for historical purposes…
at the end of the year, when i finish second year latin, i am going to post a thread chronicling the events of my sophomore year in high school, entirely in latin!
so, brush up on your latin there, buckos… ten points to the translator! just wait 8 1/2 months…
Scallions? Tasty vegetables from the onion family demanding to post in Spanish! Oh the humanity!
Or did you mean these scallions?
http://www.thescallions.com/
First of all, administrators don’t get paid for message board duty. Cecil and Ed get paid, but that’s to write and edit columns, NOT for administrating the message board. Tuba, Dex, and I don’t get paid, other than the traditional coffee mug, and a calendar once a year. Or if THEY’RE getting paid, they haven’t told ME about it.
Who is going to pay for this message board for other languages? I think that the SDMB is STILL losing money for the Reader, particularly after that last hack.
The message board staff is not located, for the most part, in Chicago, much less in the Reader’s offices. I, for instance, live and work in Fort Worth. However, it’s just not possible for me to call someone over to translate something on a message board. For one thing, I don’t KNOW anyone who’s awake and can come over to my house at 2 in the morning to translate. Nobody sober, anyway. Coldfire lives and works in Amsterdam (the Netherlands). He and Arnold Winkelreid are both multi-lingual. I don’t know if either of them speak Spanish. In any case, it would be unfair and impractical to send all Spanish posts to one or two mods.
Take note of Euty’s warning, as I back it up completely. Don’t post in Spanish, even if you provide a translation. And if you want to leave a message for your friend, USE EMAIL. This message board is for PUBLIC messages.
Lynn
Administrator
For the Straight Dope
Actually, if they are providing the forum in which you say it, I’d say they are damn well entitled to know what you are saying. Contrary to the misinformed opinions of some, this message board is the private property of the Chicago Reader. There is no intrinsic right to say anything here. Likewise, the Chicago Reader has no obligation to allow any speech, much less speech that it does not have the resources to properly moderate.
And as good of an idea as a message board of the quality of the SDMB for other languages might be, the Chicago Reader cannot afford to set it up. Nor do they have any obligation to. You want one to exist, go make one yourself.
To reiterate, the Chicago Reader, whose property the SDMB is, doesn’t owe any of us anything.
:eek:
:eek:
:eek:
:eek:
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: !!!
MUAHHHHHHHHHHH
tclouie, you seem like a decent person, based on your past posts. Don’t screw up my impression of you over a non-issue like this.
Anthracite, you must have missed his Heinlein was a fascist thread. After seeing the movie Starship Troopers, and reading two of his books, he felt perfectly comfortable making statements like:
What’s so tough about that, Louie? All the eek faces in the world won’t make it any less ridiculous that you want to post things the moderators won’t understand. The moderators need to understand the posts, so they can do their jobs. Therefore, post in English.
And as to your translation… how do they know it’s an accurate translation? I could post a sentence in Spanish, then a supposed translation in English, and there could be no correlation between them. All Spanish posts would have to be run through a translator anyway.
And, for the record, I speak Spanish. Castillian Spanish, so I lisp a bit, but what the heck. And I do log onto a Spanish-speaking message board every so often. But I won’t tell you which one. Because you’re being a jerk.
tclouie, you know, there’s also an English Only rule at most poker tables. Freedom of speech my ptootie, when the cards are dealt I need to understand what you’re saying to your friend. Doesn’t matter if you’re just talking about the weather or the hot waitress, you could be talking about your cards and that costs me money. I’m not going to bring along a personal translator nor ask you to translate what you’ve said and trust your version.
heh. Scallions make the baby Jesus cry.
:eek:
:eek:
:eek:
MUAHHHHHHHH
:mad:
All righty then. This is me, humbly recanting that statement.
You are a dick.
:mad: