A SHALL NOT on registering, under any circumstances, is probably a bad idea. I'd tend to just go with the official language thing instead.
-Aris On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 11:54 AM, Gaelan Steele <g...@canishe.com> wrote: > How about this: “Public messages must be communicated using a form of > communication that can be interpreted by all players without unreasonable > effort. People SHALL NOT register if they are not capable in communicating in > such a fashion, or understanding communications understood by other players.” > > Could use some ironing out, but I think it’s a good start. > > Gaelan > >> On Oct 12, 2017, at 11:22 AM, Kerim Aydin <ke...@u.washington.edu> wrote: >> >> >> >> Well, the interesting thing to me is that we don't codify (in the Rules) >> that English is our official language. We used to say that a person was >> someone who was generally "capable of communicating by email in English >> (including via a translation service)", but that's as close as we got. >> In fact, IIRC we, at least once, specifically voted down an attempt to >> make English the official language. >> >> Now we're governed by the precedents of "if most/all of the players >> understand a communication with reasonable effort, it works" while >> acknowledging that, because of history, that pretty much limits us to >> English. But if we suddenly realized we all have a second language in >> common, we could use that. >> >> So if we "codify" Spivak, it's two different things to say "we're calling >> Spivak a language and codifying it, thereby codifying English with Spivak >> pronouns as our official language" versus codifying "if you happen to be >> using English, as we mostly do, please use the Spivak version." >> >> This becomes the difference between saying "That Japanese had a perfectly >> clear and unambiguous translation using Google, therefore we allow it by >> precedent" and saying "sorry, that wasn't in English, and (Spivak) English >> is the official language, it doesn't matter how clear the translation is". >> >> >> On Thu, 12 Oct 2017, Gaelan Steele wrote: >>> If we do this all (doesn’t seem terribly necessary) I’d say something like >>> “understandable to an average English speaker.” This lets us avoid >>> grammar-nazi >>> arguments about if something counts as English(TM). (grammar issues, >>> funner, deja vu) >>> >>> Gaelan >>> >>>> On Oct 12, 2017, at 10:14 AM, Alex Smith <ais...@alumni.bham.ac.uk> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On Thu, 2017-10-12 at 07:39 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote: >>>>> Don't mind codifying spivak, but it's not it's own language rather >>>>> (by Wikipedia definition) "a set of gender-neutral pronouns in >>>>> English". >>>> >>>> I'd argue that an English-like language which uses Spivak pronouns (and >>>> a few other changes) is indeed a language which we habitually use at >>>> Agora. Whether is actually has a name is less certain, but Spivak is as >>>> good a name as any. >>>> >>>> If we're codifying this in the rules, I'd recommend defining the >>>> language itself (whatever we call it), stating that players should not >>>> perform actions that would cause rules to be created or amended to be >>>> written in other languages, and recommending (in a non-binding way) >>>> that the language is used for other communication. (I can see a good >>>> argument for using a consistent language for the ruleset; messing >>>> around with language in other contexts is probably not something we >>>> should ban though.) >>>> >>>> -- >>>> ais523 >>> >
