Speaking English as a referee

Hey,

This is something that has been bothering me on this website for a bit now, and although it is always a joke on the internet that the French don't wanna speak anything other than their own language, it seems to be quite true on here. This post is specifically about referee's but should act as a general reminder to other non-english native speakers on this website. 

I've recently wanted to add a medal to the french issuer and i got met with this reply:

I know what it means now but i'm starting to get annoyed by some people (seemingly mostly french) just not translating their own text. I think of this as rather disrespectful towards other users, since i myself do not speak English as my native language. So i think English on a now international website (I'm aware that this used to be a french website at some point, but being stuck in the past is not a valid counter argument in my opinion) should be the default. Especially as a referee! 

I get that not everyone speaks English, but i think we all have to put some effort in to make communication possible. I have to speak English as well or what would you think if i just made this post in German? 
And google translate exists, so there is in my opinion no excuse to not do it (And don't say “but what if google translate translates something wrong”, because i will have to translate their message with it anyway)
And this is not about me being lazy to translate, this is about just being respectful towards others and pushing the task of translating to a common language to the recipient i think is just not that.

It is already annoying to me when users do it, but i usually just ignore those messages. But i think (and that is the point of this post) that a referee, someone who needs to be able to communicate with others, should be able to speak English or at least translate his own text.
If a German referee only answered in German, or a Russian one only in Russian this would be equally a problem for me, so this is also not about the french language in particular.

I probably sound like the biggest a** ever here, bashing down on someone that doesn't speak English if i could just translate it myself without issue. But i personally feel like this is valid criticism because again, we all need to make an effort to understand each other and if your English isn't good enough just use google. But don't push your own laziness on others cause that is just disrespectful. 

Thanks for (hopefully) your understanding

Bonjour,

Je vais pouvoir vous donner un exemple concret en répondant en français.

- En ce qui concerne le forum,  Numista a ajouté la fonctionnalité « traduction » qui facilite grandement la qualité des échanges, car quand un interlocuteur ne répond pas dans sa langue maternelle il y a souvent des incompréhensions et quiproquo. 

Personnellement, étant la plupart du temps sur mon smartphone, switcher entre Google traduction et le forum est bien trop long et compliqué. C’est pourquoi je ne répond plus qu’en français sur le forum. Et je peux constater que l’on se comprend bien mieux depuis. 

- En ce qui concerne les décisions de référents comme vous venez de l’indiquer, effectivement dans la mesure où il n’y a pas de traduction automatique, nous faisons en sorte de répondre en anglais si le membre n’est pas francophone. Il y a d’ailleurs un petit drapeau UK ou FR qui s’affiche pour nous guider. 
Étant ancien référent exonumia France,  la majorité des demandes sont faites de membres francophones, il y a un certain automatisme à répondre en français et effectivement une demande anglophone dans une centaine de francophones peut être oubliée. 

Votre message peut être une bonne idée de nouvelle fonctionnalité pour ajouter la traduction dans ces échanges.  
 

Polette

Bonjour,

Je vais pouvoir vous donner un exemple concret en répondant en français.

 

- En ce qui concerne le forum,  Numista a ajouté la fonctionnalité « traduction » qui facilite grandement la qualité des échanges, car quand un interlocuteur ne répond pas dans sa langue maternelle il y a souvent des incompréhensions et quiproquo. 

Personnellement, étant la plupart du temps sur mon smartphone, switcher entre Google traduction et le forum est bien trop long et compliqué. C’est pourquoi je ne répond plus qu’en français sur le forum. Et je peux constater que l’on se comprend bien mieux depuis. 

 

- En ce qui concerne les décisions de référents comme vous venez de l’indiquer, effectivement dans la mesure où il n’y a pas de traduction automatique, nous faisons en sorte de répondre en anglais si le membre n’est pas francophone. Il y a d’ailleurs un petit drapeau UK ou FR qui s’affiche pour nous guider. 
Étant ancien référent exonumia France,  la majorité des demandes sont faites de membres francophones, il y a un certain automatisme à répondre en français et effectivement une demande anglophone dans une centaine de francophones peut être oubliée. 

 

Votre message peut être une bonne idée de nouvelle fonctionnalité pour ajouter la traduction dans ces échanges.  
 

Ah, i didn't even know about the translation feature here, thank you for that.

A similar translation feature in that referee chat would probably be helpful for both sides. Since i obviously write my information on the bottom box for the referee in English, having that feature would also help the referee that might not speak English. 

Does that translation feature also exist in Direct messages? i often get swap requests from French or Spanish people fully texting in their native language, and like previously mentioned i usually ignore or cancel them. If a translation feature does actually exist there and i just missed it then i guess i'm actually in the wrong here and i do apologize for making this post then. 
(I guess my annoyment came from other places of the internet where i've experienced similar issues with no translation feature, so my opinion sort of carried on from there)

Thanks for your kind answer and giving your perspective as a referee :) 

 It was added three years ago 

https://en.numista.com/forum/topic125974.html#p1021122 

and nowadays includes the topic title. 

As contributor, I write the sources in English because this field is saved in the history of the page.

As referee, I write the comments to the contributor (they are not saved) in Spanish (when we  both speak this language) or English. Sometimes, if I know the contributor speak French, I use the translator to write in French.

JustLikeMC

A similar translation feature in that referee chat would probably be helpful for both sides. Since i obviously write my information on the bottom box for the referee in English, having that feature would also help the referee that might not speak English. 

Does that translation feature also exist in Direct messages? i often get swap requests from French or Spanish people fully texting in their native language, and like previously mentioned i usually ignore or cancel them. If a translation feature does actually exist there and i just missed it then i guess i'm actually in the wrong here and i do apologize for making this post then. 
(I guess my annoyment came from other places of the internet where i've experienced similar issues with no translation feature, so my opinion sort of carried on from there)

This feature exist in messages of forum, and private messages, but not in the private messages displayed in the swap process, or in messages of the request process.

davidhs

JustLikeMC

A similar translation feature in that referee chat would probably be helpful for both sides. Since i obviously write my information on the bottom box for the referee in English, having that feature would also help the referee that might not speak English. 

Does that translation feature also exist in Direct messages? i often get swap requests from French or Spanish people fully texting in their native language, and like previously mentioned i usually ignore or cancel them. If a translation feature does actually exist there and i just missed it then i guess i'm actually in the wrong here and i do apologize for making this post then. 
(I guess my annoyment came from other places of the internet where i've experienced similar issues with no translation feature, so my opinion sort of carried on from there)

This feature exist in messages of forum, and private messages, but not in the private messages displayed in the swap process, or in messages of the request process.

A suggestion for display the automatic translation button in messages of the swap process was published some time ago here https://en.numista.com/forum/topic129296.html. I published a suggestion related to the request process https://en.numista.com/forum/topic170885.html