Planet material

[William Jon McCann]

Hi Michael,

On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 7:08 AM, Michael Tiemann <tiemann at redhat.com> wrote:
> Máirín Duffy wrote:
>>
>> Hi Jon,
>>
>> William Jon McCann wrote:
>>>
>>> I think we'd be a little put off if mailing lists, wikis, bugs, or IRC
>>> conversations were conducted in many languages at the same time.  For
>>> these we've adopted a lingua franca.  I propose we do the same for the
>>> "default" Fedora Planet feed.
>>
>> Many multilingual posters post both in their native tongue and also
>> provide an English translation on the bottom. What do you think about those
>> posts and their appropriateness for the main planet feed?
>
> I think they rock!  I think they shout from the rooftops that this is an
> international community, and an inclusive one, too.

I haven't seen what Mo had in mind so I'm going to comment on how much
it may rock.  It may :)

But I think there is a subtle and important difference between being
international and being multilingual.  We are indeed both.  There are
various ways of demonstrating that.  However, I don't think that the
best way to demonstrate that we are international or global is to
demonstrate that we are multilingual.  A community shares a language
in order to communicate.  That is pretty much the precondition for
community.  Have to agree on terms.

As people living in the US know, being multilingual doesn't mean that
you are international.  I grew up listening to both English and French
(though they didn't bother to teach it to me - my family used French
when they didn't want me to know what they were talking about).  But,
my family isn't international.

It is pretty amazing that we can have a community as diverse as
Fedora.  We've all come here to share, to work, to learn.  In order to
do that we need to agree on the terms of the language.  And not just
negotiate between the parties engaging in the conversation because in
open source the entire world takes part, even if sometimes only as an
observer.  Anything else is very much not inclusive.

We can all have our own languages but when we come to the town square,
village center, meeting place, in order to trade, learn, complain,
motivate, etc, we should have one conversation.

Thanks,
Jon

PS. We should totally do that Fedora map.  It would rock too!