Comments that are not in English

Question

What should we do with comments in languages other than English? This isn't about referencing specific non-English terms. It's about comments that are completely written in a language or languages other than English. For example (user names suppressed here; UPDATE: the referenced comments have since been deleted):

• Hmm... meinst du nicht, der Krug hat wiedermal eine kleine Entkalkung verdient?

• ja, aber es ist eine WG und der Krug gehört mir nicht

• Krug, oder Bild?

• das Bild hat eine Entkalkung verdient?

• ah, ja, kenn ich.

Should we:

• recognise that we live in a multicultural society, so anyone can use any language we like (there's always google translate); or
• note that Stack Exchange communication is typically conducted in the English language, so everyone should use English as the 'trade language'?

(I suppose it's something of a non-sequitur to point to the E in EL&U and require discussions to be in English since the topic being English doesn't necessarily require the discussion about that topic to also be in English.)

Answer 1

Dan Bron’s comment on the question is very practical:

Comments aren’t meant to be private conversations between individual participants, but a public conversation about the post they’re attached to, which anyone can contribute to. Given, yes, the “E” in “EL&U”, the only language we can rely on all participants here sharing is English, so comments should be in English.

We needn’t be martinets about this, an occasional comment here or there in a non-English can be tolerated (e.g. for two users to quickly signal they have a common linguistic background, Latin jokes, etc), and certainly no need for reprimands, but extended conversations should be verboten.

This is why the help pages specifically recommend English “to the best of your ability” for questions. The only language you can assume that all site experts will know is English.

That being said, other languages in comments sometimes come in very handy when trying to clarify a question with someone who is not a native English speaker. There is not and should not be a hard and fast rule about this, particularly in comments.

Answer 2

Per the Help Center,

When should I comment?

You should submit a comment if you want to:

• Request clarification from the author;
• Leave constructive criticism that guides the author in improving the post;
• Add relevant but minor or transient information to a post (e.g. a link to a related question, or an alert to the author that the question has been updated).

Virtually all other uses of comments are either specifically forbidden, discouraged, or at least not recommended, and thus flaggable (as "no longer needed" if nothing else).

Based on these criteria, I would think that comments in languages other than English would make sense when they facilitate either of the two first recommended uses for comments. That is, if it seems likely that the author of the question or answer will better understand either a request for clarification or an offered constructive criticism if it is in some language other than English, then go for it. Of course, if it turns out that the OP does not speak the language of the comments, then they aren't going to serve any useful purpose and should go away.

On the other hand, since the lingua franca of EL&U is English, it makes sense to use English for the third use of comments (adding info to the post), since that info ought to be available to all users of the site.

Any other uses of comments are inherently deprecated here, regardless of whether they're in a specific language or not. So, for example, having a back-and-forth in some language other than English might make it more obvious that users are having a "Secondary discussion or debating a controversial point", which ought to happen in chat instead of in comments, but it's the nature of the comments that is the main issue, rather than the language in which they're occurring. Users should feel free to flag such conversations or not, using the same judgment as if the comments were in English.

Answer 3

No restrictions on language choice whatsoever please, so long as the content of the language is appropriate. United States and UK are the exception as far as it being unusual for people to mix languages in their discussions, and I see no a priori reason to treat a peculiarity of these two societies as a default rule of conduct for this website. In fact, it would enrich the website greatly if we had more contributors from Anglophone, multicultural countries like Nigeria or India, presenting questions and discussion on World Englishes.

If someone is commenting in German, you should probably know German.