How to introduce newcomers successfully?

[Olin]

@ArtOfCode

… in fact, I can’t think of any other languages off the top of my head that do capitalize “I”.

You are missing the point. It has nothing to do with other languages. As I said, it’s a rule in English. English has a bunch of obscure rules with even more obscure exceptions, but capitalizing the word “I” isn’t one of them. It’s a simple rule with no exceptions.

Therefore anyone that has learned enough English to be able to write anything vaguely understandable has certainly learned that “I” is always capitalized. Therefore failure to do so consistently (I’m not talking about an occasional typo) is simply due to laziness or a disrespectful attitude.

@ArtOfCode

But in my experience moderating on Stack Exchange, the vast majority of badly-written questions (or answers) are badly written not through malice but through inability.

Citation needed.

@ArtOfCode

Why should we penalize people for making the effort to write in a second language?

Why should everyone else have to put up with annoying to read posts? We don’t insist on quality for the sake of penalizing people. Quality is so that we can clearly understand what you write, and so that it is not annoying to read because it doesn’t follow the conventions.

That all said, you seem to have missed my suggestion for how to handle ESL writers without penalizing them.

[ArtOfCode]

@Olin

You are missing the point.

And you’re missing mine: whether or not it’s a rule in English, it’s a rule that’s not shared by any other language that I can think of. In other words, anyone who speaks English as a second language will not be used to the capitalization, and may unintentionally and without malice miss some capitalizations because it’s unnatural to them.

@Olin

Citation needed.

My citation is my experience, and the many thousands of posts from ESL users I have seen and moderated without evidence of malice, laziness, or disrespect.

@Olin

Why should everyone else have to put up with annoying to read posts?

Nobody’s insisting that you read every post; if you don’t have the time or the inclination to read a post from an ESL user and potentially help to fix it, or if you find it unclear or annoying to read, you don’t have to. On the other hand, given that a significant proportion of the world’s communication and of the Internet at large is in English, often English-language resources are the only option for people who need help answering their questions. Allow me to rephrase: why should we insist on perfection before we deign to answer these users’ questions, when we have the ability to simply fix the post and move on?

[Olin]

@ArtOfCode

why should we insist on perfection before we deign to answer these users’ questions, when we have the ability to simply fix the post and move on?

Because then we’ll be doing it a lot. It’s not someone else’s fault they aren’t good at English, but its not anyone else’s fault either.

However, that’s why I suggested the voluntary ESL queue. If someone knows they are not that good with English, they take their best shot at writing a questions, and flag it for ESL review. Anyone that feels so inclined can then read thru the post, edit as necessary, and release it onto the main questions list. Posts in the queue can’t be voted on, so the OP does not get penalized for the original badly written post. They only get judged on the edited version.

[ArtOfCode]

@Olin

Because then we’ll be doing it a lot.

Why is that a problem? There will always be users who are willing to do that fixing-up; as long as the post shows some effort, I see no problem with this.

[manassehkatz]

I will (or used to…not as much any more) frequently go in to questions on SE (especially DIY SE but sometimes elsewhere) and clean up i/I, apostrophes (missing or extra), spelling errors, basic grammatical errors, etc. Sometimes those questions are because of ESL, sometimes people who are either not as well educated or not very good at typing (and yes, that sometimes also means “too lazy to reread and edit their own stuff”). But if that is irrelevant to the core content of the question (as is indeed usually the case in DIY) and they are writing in a friendly, reasonable tone, I see nothing wrong with taking < 1 minute to clean up a question so that others will be more likely to read & answer it.

[Olin]

@ArtOfCode

Why is that a problem?

Because it noises up the site and dissipates volunteer energy.

[Laf]

So you are saying that only the “English as the first language” elite should be allowed to post questions or answers? Otherwise your question will get reviewed by a member of this elite group before being deemed worthy of an answer? I fail to see how this could lead Codidact’s community to be perceived as being inclusive and welcoming.

Learning a second language is hard for many people, and I know people in my immediate entourage that can’t even formulate a single English sentence without making 4 or 5 major mistakes. How are they less worthy of getting help? The fact that your question is full of language errors doesn’t mean the question itself is a bad question.

I will say that I agree with you when you say you want high quality content, this is essential to the site’s success, but not by segregating the non-English speaking plebs from the English native elite.

N.B. For the record, I’m not implying you see non-native as being the pleb, or yourself as being part of an elite group. I’m using those words because that is how I felt when reading your posts on this question. And I’m quite sure that is how other people will feel too if they are being treated in such a way by a website that exists to provide help to everyone.

[Lundin]

Ten years of bad SO questions demonstrates that language barrier is rarely the reason why a question gets a bad reception. It’s not much of a problem unless someone posts a post entirely in a different language, which happens, but it is rare.

The most common bad questions by far are rather the zero-effort ones, such as asking why your code isn’t working while not actually showing any code. Anyone can tell that the question isn’t answerable, yet someone asked it still.

These should preferably had been prevented from getting posted live on the site in the first place, through smart scripts, wizards or review. If that fails, the question should simply get deleted, as quickly and as frictionless as possible.

Lots (all?) of the new user friction on SE comes from the bad question just sitting there while everyone is raging at it, down-voting, posting comments, close-voting, closing… and the question is still there, even after closing. Really rubbing it in - and the Internet never forgets. If the question had just been rapidly deleted instead, it would have been better for everyone.

Programming communities in particular have a long tradition of elitism and rudeness - why it is like that is another story, but you don’t want to throw newbies at these kind of people. It just takes one rotten egg to ruin the reputation of the whole site.

Instead I would favour an approach with less drama. If you post something on a site and get a private message back (personal or auto-generated): “Hi there were some problems with your question so we couldn’t keep it. Could you do x instead and re-post it?” You’d sigh and mutter a bit, but you’d probably still make the attempt. Like when failing some captcha.

The key is: if you want people to improve, don’t shame them in public. That will just cause tension and aggression, and the chance of them actually improving after that is slim. Rather, they will leave and talk trash about you elsewhere, to get revenge. Instead take them to the side and explain the problem in private. This is just management basics: give praise loud in public, give critique discreetly in private.

[Nathaniel]

@Olin

Questions require a positive score to be answerable. For new users, questions start out a 0, meaning they are not immediately answerable, but a single upvote by anyone makes them so.

This is an intriguing idea. One additional thing to consider would be the practice of “pity upvoting” that new users sometimes benefit from, particularly on smaller sites. A rule like this would introduce an interesting dynamic between those who think “oh nice try, I think I’ll encourage this person” and “ugh, another off-topic question with an upvote” – and in practice, people may move even further away from the ideal of voting based on quality/usefulness alone.

[Olin]

@Laf

So you are saying that only the “English as the first language” elite should be allowed to post questions or answers?

I’m saying only good-enough written questions will be answered. It doesn’t matter how that is achieved, or why it is not achieved. What matters is the result.

@Laf

Otherwise your question will get reviewed by a member of this elite group before being deemed worthy of an answer?

Otherwise, if you so decide, a group of people can help you, for free, to get your question written better.

@Laf

The fact that your question is full of language errors doesn’t mean the question itself is a bad question.

Of course it does! Badly written questions are ambiguous and annoying to read.

@Laf

Learning a second language is hard for many people,

Agreed, but you are confusing effort and intention with results. Only results matter. A badly written post is still a badly written post, whether it is because the author doesn’t know the language, just didn’t care, is having a bad day, got interrupted in the middle, or whatever. We don’t care. It’s not everyone else’s problem.

I suggested the additional review queue to help those that are trying but don’t have the English skills to write a good enough post. They get their writing improved and the question asked, without getting downvoted for low quality, and without the site getting hurt.