I Noticed Something Tonight
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I have no idea how such a forum would work or whether it would be useful, but I agree 100% with the sentiment you expressed. :thumbsup:
Best wishes, Hans
Hans Dietrich wrote:
I have no idea how such a forum would work
Just advertise it as "Help with the English language", and they'll beat a path to the door. the internals of will be decided by what the "customers" are looking for.
Hans Dietrich wrote:
or whether it would be useful
It's knowledge. If that's not enough, it could be the difference between, say, a CV that gets you the job and one that doesn't, or could tip the balance for a project proposal.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Or it just now sunk into my old, feeble brain... We are seeing a lot of really terrible questions being posted to the forums. I read a lot of complaints here about the stupid wannabes posting homework questions. But what I'm seeing is a great deal of activity from parts of the world that don't speak or write our language. The worst questions come from the Middle-East, but Asia isn't far behind. These people don't speak our language, and don't understand our culture or sense of "manners." Yet the answers they receive, if any, are often very harsh - undeservedly so IMHO. While we will always have a portion of lazy, stupid posts for help with homework and attempts to obtain free software, such posts are not nearly as plentiful as I'd thought before. Most of the extraordinarily obtuse posts are coming from third-world nations, and I think that cultural differences and language barriers are more to blame for their inscrutable content than simple stupidity. These people are, for the most part, sincere in their desire to learn from CP, but they don't know how to express that wish in a manner that we can understand. They are not stupid, or lazy, but they are limited in their abiltiy to express their thoughts in a manner that is acceptable to those of us in the developed world. Perhaps it is time to open a new forum, a place for language and cultural tutoring. We could evolve into a center of multi-discipline learning and cultural exchange. Wouldn't it be great to offer a haven where a Pakistani C# programmer can chat with people who live in the part of the world where she'd like to sell software and be taught how to write a coherent sentence, make a sales presentation that won't be laughed out of the boardroom, and ask a simple question about a programming problem at CodeProject, without being insulted and humiliated? Can't we do better than that? Whatcha think?
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
Great Post Friend. English is third language where i live, and i can understand how much difficult for person who want to ask question and make it understandable for all members. But there are also good members which always help full no matter how bad the question is. So like to thanks them all to take some of there important time to help someone like me. :rose:
Viral My Site Tips & Tracks
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Or it just now sunk into my old, feeble brain... We are seeing a lot of really terrible questions being posted to the forums. I read a lot of complaints here about the stupid wannabes posting homework questions. But what I'm seeing is a great deal of activity from parts of the world that don't speak or write our language. The worst questions come from the Middle-East, but Asia isn't far behind. These people don't speak our language, and don't understand our culture or sense of "manners." Yet the answers they receive, if any, are often very harsh - undeservedly so IMHO. While we will always have a portion of lazy, stupid posts for help with homework and attempts to obtain free software, such posts are not nearly as plentiful as I'd thought before. Most of the extraordinarily obtuse posts are coming from third-world nations, and I think that cultural differences and language barriers are more to blame for their inscrutable content than simple stupidity. These people are, for the most part, sincere in their desire to learn from CP, but they don't know how to express that wish in a manner that we can understand. They are not stupid, or lazy, but they are limited in their abiltiy to express their thoughts in a manner that is acceptable to those of us in the developed world. Perhaps it is time to open a new forum, a place for language and cultural tutoring. We could evolve into a center of multi-discipline learning and cultural exchange. Wouldn't it be great to offer a haven where a Pakistani C# programmer can chat with people who live in the part of the world where she'd like to sell software and be taught how to write a coherent sentence, make a sales presentation that won't be laughed out of the boardroom, and ask a simple question about a programming problem at CodeProject, without being insulted and humiliated? Can't we do better than that? Whatcha think?
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
I agree with your overall sentiment and I'd certainly try to help anyone who needs help with English. I lived and worked for 11 years where I needed to speak, read and write Spanish, rather than my native Amer-English. I made my mistakes, and learned. I found most other cultures are happy to see an effort made to use their language and most are quick to help and slow to criticize. It seems that some French and some English speakers are the exception -- and that's both sad and disturbing. That said, there do appear to be quite a few more "bad" questions being posted recently, that's true. It also appears to be true that many are posted (apparently) by non-native English speakers, but not all. I make it a point to see where someone is from before I jump to conclusions -- if they're from an English speaking country, then I interpret their words as written. While I think quite a few of us would be willing to help and show more understanding, I also think that there will continue to be bad questions, not just due to poor language skills, but due to laziness, etc. I think if we all just give everyone the benefit of the doubt, things will work out OK. But I'm still willing to help anyone who wants some language help.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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Or it just now sunk into my old, feeble brain... We are seeing a lot of really terrible questions being posted to the forums. I read a lot of complaints here about the stupid wannabes posting homework questions. But what I'm seeing is a great deal of activity from parts of the world that don't speak or write our language. The worst questions come from the Middle-East, but Asia isn't far behind. These people don't speak our language, and don't understand our culture or sense of "manners." Yet the answers they receive, if any, are often very harsh - undeservedly so IMHO. While we will always have a portion of lazy, stupid posts for help with homework and attempts to obtain free software, such posts are not nearly as plentiful as I'd thought before. Most of the extraordinarily obtuse posts are coming from third-world nations, and I think that cultural differences and language barriers are more to blame for their inscrutable content than simple stupidity. These people are, for the most part, sincere in their desire to learn from CP, but they don't know how to express that wish in a manner that we can understand. They are not stupid, or lazy, but they are limited in their abiltiy to express their thoughts in a manner that is acceptable to those of us in the developed world. Perhaps it is time to open a new forum, a place for language and cultural tutoring. We could evolve into a center of multi-discipline learning and cultural exchange. Wouldn't it be great to offer a haven where a Pakistani C# programmer can chat with people who live in the part of the world where she'd like to sell software and be taught how to write a coherent sentence, make a sales presentation that won't be laughed out of the boardroom, and ask a simple question about a programming problem at CodeProject, without being insulted and humiliated? Can't we do better than that? Whatcha think?
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
I agree with most of your post, but don’t you think that this: “… but they are limited in their ability to express their thoughts in a manner that is acceptable to those of us in the developed world” sounds kind of patronizing?, there are smart people in the part of the world you call “third-world” (I thought we all lived in the third world from the sun, but it looks that’s not the case), this smart people have the ability to express their thoughts in a manner that is acceptable to you the people of Mercury (I guess that’s where all you developed people are located), maybe they can’t do it in English, but you can be sure there are people cable of smart interaction here in the underdeveloped world, don’t get me wrong is a great post but I think you took a wrong turn in the way of expression your thoughts. (Please forgive my English since I come from one of these third-world countries)
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I agree with most of your post, but don’t you think that this: “… but they are limited in their ability to express their thoughts in a manner that is acceptable to those of us in the developed world” sounds kind of patronizing?, there are smart people in the part of the world you call “third-world” (I thought we all lived in the third world from the sun, but it looks that’s not the case), this smart people have the ability to express their thoughts in a manner that is acceptable to you the people of Mercury (I guess that’s where all you developed people are located), maybe they can’t do it in English, but you can be sure there are people cable of smart interaction here in the underdeveloped world, don’t get me wrong is a great post but I think you took a wrong turn in the way of expression your thoughts. (Please forgive my English since I come from one of these third-world countries)
mrMercury wrote:
sounds kind of patronizing?,
Not at all. By 'acceptable', I refer to phrasing that, in Western society, is taken as rude, pushy, or demanding. It's quite common in the forums, and I'm certain that in most cases the poster is not aware of the fact. Many of the unkind responses these people receive are directly caused by the way the initial question was asked, not the content, and that probably causes a lot of unneccesary hurt and confusion.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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mrMercury wrote:
sounds kind of patronizing?,
Not at all. By 'acceptable', I refer to phrasing that, in Western society, is taken as rude, pushy, or demanding. It's quite common in the forums, and I'm certain that in most cases the poster is not aware of the fact. Many of the unkind responses these people receive are directly caused by the way the initial question was asked, not the content, and that probably causes a lot of unneccesary hurt and confusion.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Or it just now sunk into my old, feeble brain... We are seeing a lot of really terrible questions being posted to the forums. I read a lot of complaints here about the stupid wannabes posting homework questions. But what I'm seeing is a great deal of activity from parts of the world that don't speak or write our language. The worst questions come from the Middle-East, but Asia isn't far behind. These people don't speak our language, and don't understand our culture or sense of "manners." Yet the answers they receive, if any, are often very harsh - undeservedly so IMHO. While we will always have a portion of lazy, stupid posts for help with homework and attempts to obtain free software, such posts are not nearly as plentiful as I'd thought before. Most of the extraordinarily obtuse posts are coming from third-world nations, and I think that cultural differences and language barriers are more to blame for their inscrutable content than simple stupidity. These people are, for the most part, sincere in their desire to learn from CP, but they don't know how to express that wish in a manner that we can understand. They are not stupid, or lazy, but they are limited in their abiltiy to express their thoughts in a manner that is acceptable to those of us in the developed world. Perhaps it is time to open a new forum, a place for language and cultural tutoring. We could evolve into a center of multi-discipline learning and cultural exchange. Wouldn't it be great to offer a haven where a Pakistani C# programmer can chat with people who live in the part of the world where she'd like to sell software and be taught how to write a coherent sentence, make a sales presentation that won't be laughed out of the boardroom, and ask a simple question about a programming problem at CodeProject, without being insulted and humiliated? Can't we do better than that? Whatcha think?
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
I would be more than happy to reply to posts in Arabic.
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
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Ah ok now I get it, I think the way you phrased in the original post gave a wrong tone to your idea, and still think it’s a good post, just got a problem with that line.
I don't blame you, but I was stuck on finding a better way to express my thought. One of the problems with English is that so many words have multiple meanings, and there are many words to choose from which can mean almost, but not quite the same thing. The difference is usually in the emotional shading of the word, and that can be variable, too. I've seen many a fight started because of a word spoken correctly and exactly, but heard and interpreted incorrectly by a listener - or vice versa. I usually don't have trouble selecting exactly the word I want to use, but I sometimes get stuck when I'm very tired (or really drunk). I have to watch myself constantly here in Arizona - they're not the sharpest tools in the shed. A high school graduate here has a vocabulary I'd consider acceptable for a third grade child - a slow one. You wouldn't believe what the schools here consider passing performance in math. X| My apologies for tapping a sore spot... That wasn't my intent.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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I would be more than happy to reply to posts in Arabic.
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
Cool! :-D But it would be courteous (and a PITA for you) to include an English version of the response for those who browse the forums. Can you handle Farsi, too? I see growing activity from Iran (nee Persia) here, and I bet many of them would appreciate the help you can provide. This thread, started late at night and probably more charitable than my usual because of the season, has caused me to think at length about the structure of technical society and the rapid pace at which it is changing. When it was first started, CodeProject was almost exclusively a community of Western technocrats; it has grown to be a truly global community since then. With the emergence of third-world nations as centers of technological production, if not innovation, we can expect the demographics of CP to continue to change. It's not hard to imagine a day when the English-speaking members will have to struggle to express their questions in some other language in order to get the help they seek here. That wouldn't be a bad thing, as most of us know only one (human) language and it would broaden our horizons to add a few to our toolboxes. :-D I expect the next dozen years of CodeProject's life to be very interesting...
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Cool! :-D But it would be courteous (and a PITA for you) to include an English version of the response for those who browse the forums. Can you handle Farsi, too? I see growing activity from Iran (nee Persia) here, and I bet many of them would appreciate the help you can provide. This thread, started late at night and probably more charitable than my usual because of the season, has caused me to think at length about the structure of technical society and the rapid pace at which it is changing. When it was first started, CodeProject was almost exclusively a community of Western technocrats; it has grown to be a truly global community since then. With the emergence of third-world nations as centers of technological production, if not innovation, we can expect the demographics of CP to continue to change. It's not hard to imagine a day when the English-speaking members will have to struggle to express their questions in some other language in order to get the help they seek here. That wouldn't be a bad thing, as most of us know only one (human) language and it would broaden our horizons to add a few to our toolboxes. :-D I expect the next dozen years of CodeProject's life to be very interesting...
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
Sorry for the late reply Roger. Sorry, Farsi is not part of my linguistic repertoire :) I don't mind posting both and I think if a user does not have Arabic scripts installed on their computer, they wouldn't be able to see them and so, replying in English would be required. Here's an example: روجر رايت That's Roger Wright in Arabic :)
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
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Sorry for the late reply Roger. Sorry, Farsi is not part of my linguistic repertoire :) I don't mind posting both and I think if a user does not have Arabic scripts installed on their computer, they wouldn't be able to see them and so, replying in English would be required. Here's an example: روجر رايت That's Roger Wright in Arabic :)
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
Now that's very interesting, Mustafa. I would not expect it to be possible to translate any word or phrase that has no inherent meaning. That is, yes, in English tradition Roger is supposed to mean 'famous with a sword' and a 'wright' is a maker of things ( as in stairwright, wheelwright, etc). But the words 'roger wright' have no direct meaning in English. How is it possible to translate to Arabic, other than by a direct character-by-character substitution, which could very well result in something insulting, or utterly unpronouncable? Is that a phonetic transcription, duplicating sounds rather than meaning? By the way, I can see the characters perfectly and I've never installed a character set other than the default English. Ain't Windows wonderful? :-D I should steal that translation to use as my sig, but too many people would interpret it as a sign that I understand Arabic. Hell, I never even liked Peter O'Toole's movie. :-D
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Now that's very interesting, Mustafa. I would not expect it to be possible to translate any word or phrase that has no inherent meaning. That is, yes, in English tradition Roger is supposed to mean 'famous with a sword' and a 'wright' is a maker of things ( as in stairwright, wheelwright, etc). But the words 'roger wright' have no direct meaning in English. How is it possible to translate to Arabic, other than by a direct character-by-character substitution, which could very well result in something insulting, or utterly unpronouncable? Is that a phonetic transcription, duplicating sounds rather than meaning? By the way, I can see the characters perfectly and I've never installed a character set other than the default English. Ain't Windows wonderful? :-D I should steal that translation to use as my sig, but too many people would interpret it as a sign that I understand Arabic. Hell, I never even liked Peter O'Toole's movie. :-D
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
Well, that is a phonetic translation that reads as "Roger Wright" rather being a translation of the meaning. It would be awkward to translate my Arabic name (Mustafa Ismail Mustafa would translate to "The Chosen One, God Hears, The Chosen One" Mustafa == The Chosen One and Ismail is Hebrew for "God Hears [the prayers]" :laugh::laugh:) That's why my proper first name is the compound "Steve-Mustafa" :) Well, if you see them then that's one thing solved I suppose. But so is *nix (I use Ubuntu 9.04 for my day to day stuff and non-windows development sees me on either Centos or Gentoo or FreeBSD) You could always use that and cite me as the translator ;)
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?