[John]

Okay, so the title of the thread is a bit of an exaggeration. But it is eye-catching

Originally Posted by Never use any other language than English over public channels. You may use whatever language with your friends in gsay, tell or any personal channel. If you use say/gsay or any public IC channel where someone can hear you that is not proficient in that language, use English only.

That ****es me off whenever I spot that as a rule in a non-RP mud. In RP muds, I can understand. Because ICly, Japanese doesn't exist, so while the code says your speaking common, no-one can understand you, making for very awkward roleplaying. However whenever I see it in a non-RP mud, I get ****ed off.

Why can't I talk to my friend publicly in my home tongue? Why do I have to group with them? I think it ridiculous, that non-roleplayers can't just ignore that lines of spam (and in all muds, there are TONS of lines of spam) and let the people speak openly.

All this rule does is discourage non-English-speaking people from playing your mud. Now obviously they have some command of the English language, but if they're more comfortable speaking their own language in non-roleplaying roles. Why not let them?

I also hate seeing it as a rule, even in RP muds. It's unnecessary. Armageddon doesn't have the rule, and I've never come across someone speaking italian in the game. Has your mud been plagued by so many people speaking other languages that you need to make it a rule?

[Hephos]

Originally Posted by (John @ Feb. 22 2004,10:29) Okay, so the title of the thread is a bit of an exaggeration. But it is eye-catching Originally Posted by Never use any other language than English over public channels. You may use whatever language with your friends in gsay, tell or any personal channel. If you use say/gsay or any public IC channel where someone can hear you that is not proficient in that language, use English only. That ****es me off whenever I spot that as a rule in a non-RP mud. In RP muds, I can understand. Because ICly, Japanese doesn't exist, so while the code says your speaking common, no-one can understand you, making for very awkward roleplaying. However whenever I see it in a non-RP mud, I get ****ed off. Why can't I talk to my friend publicly in my home tongue? Why do I have to group with them? I think it ridiculous, that non-roleplayers can't just ignore that lines of spam (and in all muds, there are TONS of lines of spam) and let the people speak openly. All this rule does is discourage non-English-speaking people from playing your mud. Now obviously they have some command of the English language, but if they're more comfortable speaking their own language in non-roleplaying roles. Why not let them? I also hate seeing it as a rule, even in RP muds. It's unnecessary. Armageddon doesn't have the rule, and I've never come across someone speaking italian in the game. Has your mud been plagued by so many people speaking other languages that you need to make it a rule?

Yes we did have had A LOT of spanish, european (swedish for example) players using our PUBLIC channels with other languages than english in the past. Basically this rule was added because so many people find it annoying to have to be listening to it on global channels etc, and not being part of discussions.

People are free to use it whenever they talk to their friends, when they group with them and so on, but not on global or public channels that everyone hear. People can talk perfectly fine in groups, with tells, ooc, and guild chat in their own whatever languages they want.

And our game is not a non-rp game. Being rp encouraging does not mean it is a non-rp game...

(The rule was copy-pasted from our rules it appears, so just wanted to give some feedback).

[Sidmouth]

Aside from the spam, if an imm doesn't know what players are saying on a public channel, they can't enforce profanity guidelines, etc...

For all they know, you're telling their players to go play another mud.

[welcor]

Not having english as a first language myself, I fail to see why anyone should take offense to a simple rule that make sure you're not spamming your fellow players. However, I'd probably do it the other way around, and add a 'non-native english' channel instead. This way people could select not to receive it.

Og kan vi så få ro!

[Realedazed]

While I understand where you are coming from, I don't really agree.

Ever been out with a group of friends. And two or more start whispering to each other and giggling.  Think that's rude?  Or, what about if that same two or three people started talking in a French, and the rest of the group knows nothing but English.

I find this a bit annoying. If its a global channel, you are pretty much talking to the whole mud (or everyone who is tuned into that channel).  I think isn't nice to broadcast something that only a few poeple understand to the whole MUD.

Now, if he game was a RP mud, and the channel was IC, that is something completely different.

[Eagleon]

Originally Posted by Basically this rule was added because so many people find it annoying to have to be listening to it on global channels etc, and not being part of discussions.

Originally Posted by Ever been out with a group of friends. And two or more start whispering to each other and giggling. Think that's rude? Or, what about if that same two or three people started talking in a French, and the rest of the group knows nothing but English.

One more reason for other countries to hate the US. Yay!

Seriously, the US needs to be chopped up into several countries so that we'd have to deal with more people speaking different languages. Are people speaking another language than your own around you really rude? Or are you simply unused to it?

[Jazuela]

We do have people who speak other languages besides English in the States.

Try coming to my upper-middle-class predominately white, skilled-trade and white-collar neighborhood some day and visit the local Dunkin Donuts. Most of the people there don't speak -or- understand the language of the neighborhood they're in. Trying to explain that you want 2 sugars instead of 3 in there is about as enjoyable as experimenting with your fingers in the blender and hitting the pulverize button just to see if the fatty pieces will splatter a pretty design on the ceiling.

In a game that is created by the English-speaking population, which desires to cater *mostly* to the English-speaking population, I don't see any problem with having an English-only rule.

-She who has given up asking for 2 sugars and drinks her mid-day cup sweeter than she'd prefer

[Burke]

I think this issue is a bit more easily understood with another situation.

Imagine I designed a simple replacement code in my MUD client that translated english to some gibberish and could translate it back if other people spoke it over the public channels. Now obviously my friends and I can understand each other, but no one else can (barring that they break this simple code).

Now the immortals of that MUD have a problem policing any communications that use this code. On muds that have no rules about what you can or can not say this is not a problem. Most every MUD I know has at least a few though. Its really a control issue. Languages outside the knowledge of the immortals can get around any of these rules.

So I don't see any elements of american imperalism or even racism here. Its just a control issue. I imagine if someone used a difficult to understand slang on the public channels the reaction would be the same no matter that it was a form of english.

[Venomz]

Originally Posted by I imagine if someone used a difficult to understand slang on the public channels the reaction would be the same no matter that it was a form of english.

Quite so. Heh. I speak from personal experience.

[Treestump]

We have a similar rule on our MUD.

From "help gossip" :

NOTE: This is an English only MUD. All conversations on public channels should be conducted in English.

I can understand why it would bother some people. However, our management staff is pretty much all english speaking and enforcing channel rules when people are speaking in other languages is impossible.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by I also hate seeing it as a rule, even in RP muds. It's unnecessary. Armageddon doesn't have the rule, and I've never come across someone speaking italian in the game.

An RP enforced mud has two choices: (1) recruit staff who (between them) speak all languages spoken by the playerbase, or (2) put a rule into affect which states that players must only speak English (or whichever language is the primary language of that mud). As option 1 is simply not viable in most cases, any mud which wishes to do a decent job of enforcing roleplaying will be forced to use option 2. If Armageddon doesn't do either, then presumably it hasn't had to deal with the situation of players speaking foreign languages yet - but other muds have.

[Amnon]

Ani lo mevin al ma hamehuma... sah hakol anashim omrim dvarim she-atem lo mevinim...


Now that wasn't so bad, wasn't it? Just one line of spam in this whole discussion. And it probably put a smile on the faces of the people who did understand it, so no harm done.

[Frostflower]

I am a Finn and it is a given to me that I do not speak neither my native tongue nor any other I know except the official one of the MUD I play.

Years ago, when I was staffing on a long lost mud, there was a group of Swedish schoolboys playing. Now, being a Finn I am required to know Swedish, so I could understand when they were planning to cheat. Needless to say, their plans started to go oddly wrong.

What I could not understand is why they typed it in at all, since they were all actually playing in the same Computer Lab...

Seriously, I have always considered using a language not all in the company don't understand rather rude.

[Realedazed]

Originally Posted by (Eagleon @ Feb. 22 2004,14:40) Originally Posted by Basically this rule was added because so many people find it annoying to have to be listening to it on global channels etc, and not being part of discussions. Originally Posted by Ever been out with a group of friends. And two or more start whispering to each other and giggling.  Think that's rude?  Or, what about if that same two or three people started talking in a French, and the rest of the group knows nothing but English. One more reason for other countries to hate the US. Yay! Seriously, the US needs to be chopped up into several countries so that we'd have to deal with more people speaking different languages. Are people speaking another language than your own around you really rude? Or are you simply unused to it?

This isn't another reason to hate the US.

Maybe I'm just too polite. But you should talk in the primary language being used. Its basically the same as the whispering example I just used.

I don't mind people speaking in another language. I'm hoping to learn another soon, myself. But if you speak in French at a table where a majority of the people sitting there speaks English, it is basically holding a private conversation. That is very rude to have a private conversation right in company of a group.

If those people were sitting at another table speaking another language, why should I care.

[Eldorian]

On our MUD it's not an official policy to speak only English but sometimes we will tell people to speak English, under our rule saying to follow an Immortal's orders. We do so usually only when it's facilitating OOC or otherwise cheating. For example, we've had cases where people got their good-only friends to identify stuff for their evil characters, done so via talking to each other in a foreign language (couldn't identify which one), and giving each other the same equipment as well. Generally, though, our unofficial policy is that we allow it unless it disrupts gameplay, whether due to the above (breaking roleplay), or OOC gangbanging, or something along those lines. In about 90% of all cases it's not disruptive, and we don't mind letting friends talk to each other in their own native language. It's when it starts affecting fairness and other people's gameplay that we step in.

[Lanthum]

I don't think the whispering example or the table example really pertain to this incident.

Whispering depicts a few people trying to be secretive around a much larger group, and the table example depicts a few people trying to be withdrawn from a larger group. It's only rude in these situations if the larger group is ALL working together on something.

But on a Mud - on a global channel - ALL the people talking are RARELY all talking about the same thing. How many times have we all seen on our own muds the global channel being a collective of like 12-15 people carrying on 3-4 simultaneous separate conversations?

So if you allow separateness in English - why wouldn't you allow separateness in other languages?

[Riviat]

We got round this by creating a special public channel called ESL (English Second Language) which players can toggle on or off as needed.

People are free to talk in their native language on this channel. If we get people speaking in languages other English on public channels we direct them to this channel.

[Kastagaar]

Originally Posted by (Sidmouth @ Feb. 22 2004,18:18) Aside from the spam, if an imm doesn't know what players are saying on a public channel, they can't enforce profanity guidelines, etc... For all they know, you're telling their players to go play another mud.

That's not a problem. In my experience, I've noticed that most non-English native speakers tend to swear in English, no matter their mother tongue.

[John]

Originally Posted by (Hephos @ Feb. 22 2004,10:51) (The rule was copy-pasted from our rules it appears, so just wanted to give some feedback).

Yes, while I did copy your rule, this was by no means the first time I'd seen it. I wasn't really talkking about your mud except for the last paragraph I've never seen non-english speaking in a RP mud but I'll take your word on it.

Originally Posted by Realedazed wrote: Ever been out with a group of friends. And two or more start whispering to each other and giggling.

Actually, this rule encourages that (non-english people being allowed to speak in gsay, tells, etc).

The "it helps stop cheating" aspect only holds so much. Yeah, it does help stop cheating. But open up a chat client and there you go, can't identify cheating by people talking within the mud

I just find forcing people to not use "say"s if they don't speak English rude. I've seen muds where everyone gets along and not everyone speaks English over the public channels. I've also seen other predominantly English communities where non-English speaking is encouraged

[enigma@zebedee]

We have quite a few dutch players for some reason, and they do occasionally shout dutch out. We don't really see it as a problem though, in fact most regular players are now able to respond to 'Euj'. We also have a couple of dutch gods, so even the cheating aspect isn't a problem.

The swearing issue is a bit more tricky. For example someone recently created a character who's name basically translated as cold vagina - but much less politely.

In english the name looked totally innocent. In dutch it was anything but.

So, what should we do? Get rid of the character as we would the same name in english? But just about anything is going to be a swearword in some language somewhere!

It's an interesting problem...

[Heartsbane]

The MUD i play is completely different from one that restricts player to use only english. In fact, we have 34 unique languages coded in, that the players can learn, they are not real world languages such as spanish or english, they are for example Trollish, Underdark, and Abyssal. Players must seek out a trainer for each language and pay a fee to learn them, this makes some people made because people are using public channels in different languages, but i think it is fun, just because it adds some real lifeness to the game...

[Geras]

Yall arent talking about the real issue here... it's a public IC channel, and those don't usually make much sense d=.

Originally Posted by (Burke @ Feb. 22 2004,15:37) So I don't see any elements of american imperalism or even racism here.

That's exactly what we want you to think.  
Pay no attention to the admin behind the curtain.  
When you least expect it, all your mud are belong to us.

[shadowfyr]

Kind of ironic.. The mud I play on is hosted in Sweden, is almost 100% english in use and has Swe, Fin and 1-2 other alternate language channels, which rarely get used. It is a tad interesting when some admin screams something I see as complete gibberish, but there hasn't been a major problem.

Then again, the few of us that discussed scripting translators thats could convert english to and from a mix of Japanese and something like Navajo, for the Kitsune players, could never manage to get enough info on Navajo to make one. lol If we had, it could have made things interesting. lol

[Threshold]

It has already been mentioned, but I wanted to agree with the importance of such a rule for enforcing channel or communication rules.

If the administration cannot know what someone is saying, they cannot know if the person is cheating, advertising a different mud, violating channel rules (like not being IC via an IC mode of communication), etc.

The argument that they can just open a chat program and do any of the above is a worthless argument. Of course they can do that, but at least they are having to go through the extra step. An administrator should at least have the capacity to enforce rules on his or her own mud.

[Iluvatar]

I see no issues in naming a 'universal' language for a Mu* to base the common channels on as long as the subject is addressed immediately when a player creates. English happens to be a good choice IMHO since it appears to be required learning in quite a few schools around the world, rightly or wrongly.

There needs to be a tolerance of other languages though and I've found Swedish, Finn, Russian, Estonian and even Dutch to be wonderful players if you don't ride them about english abilities and teach them instead. It's those Aussies and Canucks who are the loo-mouths and need considerable watching, Oi!

Honestly though, I can speak/understand 5 languages to different degrees and so can most of our staff so it's not an issue if you have more than a handful of managers working with you. A world written in english tends to discourage those who don't speak the language and the few who do stick around in it I find actually want to learn to use it better.

Originally Posted by (shadowfyr @ Feb. 24 2004,13:21) Then again, the few of us that discussed scripting translators thats could convert english to and from a mix of Japanese and something like Navajo, for the Kitsune players, could never manage to get enough info on Navajo to make one. lol If we had, it could have made things interesting. lol

Interesting.  The Japanese figure it out in WWII either. ;-)

[Scrod Fungus]

I may be a little late, it seems, to jump into the conversation, but I would like to focus my attention on and reply to the starting post of this thread.

I can see where you are coming from, but I really must say that I disagree.

For all those non-USers out there, I would just like to start this off by saying that the US is -highly- multicultural. I live in a small town in a residential school, and at any given time I can walk down the hallway and hear just about anything. English, French, Cajun French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Swahili (spelling?), and various other Asian/African languages I can not even put a name too.

-------------------------------
So... Concerning Rudeness:
I am saying this as someone who can only speak English. It doesn't bother me in the slightest bit to go down the hall and hear someone talking on the phone to their family or whatever in their own language. That is there private conversation, and, besides, I have no right to be listening in on it in the first place. This can be an example of the rule that says it's fine to speak whatever you want on -private- channels.

However, I DO find it rude, uncomfortable, or (in a few particular cases) embarrasing when I find that I am the odd (wo)man out of everything, or that the topic of these people's conversations are of a more hostile or inappropriate nature. You seem to have a very good hold on English, so why not use it? It's far more convient for you to show off your cultural skills than it is for someone else to go and just learn a whole new language they did not even grow up with.

------------------------------
Concerning Creator/Imm-Player Relations

Not all qualified creators/imms can speak every language brought to their MUD from the outside world by its players. Yet, instead of banning these people or attempting to keep them out, they put in a rule that prohibits anything but English on public channels (those channels which, I would assume, need the most patrolling). I am also going to assume that since your playing the game, you can also speak and read English decently enough to adhere to these rules quite easily.

Scanning through several various posts, I've seen other people state the obvious to you concerning the administrative reasons for such a regulation.



So, where am I going with this?

I am sorry that seeing such rules tick you off, but they are there for a very good reason and are very easy to follow for most people competant in English enough to be playing the MUD in the first place.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by I see no issues in naming a 'universal' language for a Mu* to base the common channels on as long as the subject is addressed immediately when a player creates. English happens to be a good choice IMHO since it appears to be required learning in quite a few schools around the world, rightly or wrongly.

Having said that, there are also muds in other languages - and if I were to play to such a mud, I wouldn't have a problem with the "speak language X" rule.

What I'd really be interested in seeing some time though is a bilingual mud - not just where players are allowed to speak two different languages, but where every aspect of the game would be available in both languages (room descriptions, score layout, commands, etc). Obviously it would require a huge amount of additional effort, which is the major downside, but I still think it would be an interesting experiment - particularly if the RL languages were used to represent different in-game languages, with a character's skill in a language defined by the player's skill.

Originally Posted by Honestly though, I can speak/understand 5 languages to different degrees

English, American, Canadian, Australian, and...?

[Iluvatar]

*chuckles* That's not exactly what I had in mind, but after considering the extensive differences between them I'm sure they could possibly be added to a 'thorough' resume. It would probably cause a bit of head scratching to those that read it though.

I've been formally educated in Korean, French and I think English, resided 3 years in Germany for an informal version and resided 10 years in Los Angeles and Merced where English was the second language and Spanish ruled. The other members of the staff range from Dutch speaking to Estonian and Russian as well as a good smattering of the romance languages.