topic Re: Polish section in Community Site Feedback

Polish section

Dusty — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 12:26:33 GMT

Why ?
We have a large amount of immigrants from India, Pakistan, Italy, as well as polish. Whats the point ? No one has contributed to it except the mod for that section. Is it just to humour a polish employee?
I don't care if it stays or go, but i did think whats that all about, considering its a British company based in Britain

Re: Polish section

Be3G — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:15:31 GMT

Great minds think alike.

Re: Polish section

Dusty — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:57:33 GMT

I just had a quick read, so it is because they have polish workers.
Personally if your going to cater for one ethnic group you will have to cater for all ethnic groups, or cater for them on more of a reason than that. You cant pick and choose things like this based on who works for you and because they are proud of their country and want to see their language brandished around on plus net sites.
There are over 500,000 polish in the UK, how many of them are plusnet customers, 10, 20 maybe 30 perhaps? Done in their spare time or not, plusnet should not really be going down this road.

Re: Polish section

jelv — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 20:59:39 GMT

How many other ISP's cater specifically for Polish users? Isn't it the case the for some ISPs, people from India are going to have an advantage communicating with their support desk? If Plusnet have set their stall out to be the ISP of choice for Poles by offering http://www.plus.net/pl/, it is highly appropriate that there should be a Polish forum.
After all the rules of the forums in general are that English is the language and for good reason, I don't think people would want posts in another language in say the Community Support forum.

Re: Polish section

Dusty — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 21:05:04 GMT

Isn't setting one selves up as the isp catering for one type of ethnic minority a form of discrimination of others ? As for Indian call centers, are they set up to save money and the staff have to talk in English, regardless of how bad their english is. Its hardly the same thing as what we are talking about here.
I see what you mean about other languages etc. We cant read or understand who and what they are talking about and if it happened to be any of us being referred to in posts, surely we have the right to understand whats been said, be it good or bad. The same can be applied to a section in this forum. I can write a little in Italian, is it acceptable for me do start conversations in Italian on these forums?

Re: Polish section

chillypenguin — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 07:30:17 GMT

Quote from: Dusty
Isn't setting one selves up as the isp catering for one type of ethnic minority a form of discrimination of others ?

No, or at least IMHO
As to other languages on these forums, the Forum Rules are very clear that posts should be in English. And any Polish language posts confined to the dedicated Polish language forum. And the moderation team will move any Polish posts to the correct place.
Note; The Polish language forum is moderated by PlusNet, not by the forum moderation team.

It will be interesting to see what happen long term on this.
Chilly

Re: Polish section

Dusty — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 08:36:01 GMT

Quote
As to other languages on these forums, the Forum Rules are very clear that posts should be in English. And any Polish language posts confined to the dedicated Polish language forum. And the moderation team will move any Polish posts to the correct place.

Polish being the exception, because like you said that gets moved to the polish section and other posts in other languages will get deleted.
When i said I'm not really bothered either way, i have now changed my mind and see this as very unfair. Once you start going down the road of accommodating one group of people, you inadvertently discriminate against others.
This is all so wrong

Re: Polish section

James — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:22:28 GMT

Hi Dusty,
I think you're reading into this the wrong way. We have a number of people here that are from Poland and they undertook to rewrite the website in their native language.
I don't feel that you should view this as racial discrimination and I believe that there are also future plans for it to be done in other languages also.

Re: Polish section

Dusty — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:00:56 GMT

Hi James, how you doing mate
Its more of where do you draw the line, as for my comments on other languages in this forum and how they would be dealt with, it is clearly discrimination. Due to the fact that they will be deleted but the polish language threads would just get moved. I personally don't think its a good move and i bet someone could if wanting to pick holes in the legality of singling out one ethnic group that have absolutely no value to your core business whilst deleting other languages from your forum and not letting them have a say.

Re: Polish section

James — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:13:39 GMT

I'm sure that if there were to be enough demand for other langauges in this forum then I can't see us having any major issue with additional an additional forum.
They key point is that we have Polish Staff here and as such can support them in our own forums.

Re: Polish section

Dusty — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:27:50 GMT

Looking at the section for polish speakers, there does not seem to be much of a demand there

Re: Polish section

chillypenguin — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 12:00:57 GMT

Quote from: Dusty
other posts in other languages will get deleted.

We don't tend to have much of a problem with people posting in other languages, but it has not escaped my attention, that when it does happen its normally the forum moderators! "quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
Chilly

Re: Polish section

Dusty — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 12:34:28 GMT

You know your roman poets i see.

Re: Polish section

chillypenguin — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 14:00:39 GMT

I am not quite that educated, Dan Brown, Digital Fortress. Was my source.
Chilly

Re: Polish section

metman — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 14:50:17 GMT

If there are people who wish to enrich this forum with Polish then good luck to them. Plus Net has in my opinion, been magnanimous to their Polish workers allowing them this opportunity to trial this venture.
Only time will judge its success but full marks for trying.

Re: Polish section

Dusty — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 15:22:00 GMT

How does it enrich this forum if non polish people who make up 99.9% of the people here cant read it

Re: Polish section

Tamlyn — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 16:11:32 GMT

Quote from: Dusty
i bet someone could if wanting to pick holes in the legality of singling out one ethnic group that have absolutely no value to your core business

We're not talking about ethnicities here, it's just about languages. The polish section is an 'added value' service which, like most services, is more useful to some people than others (in this case polish speakers).

Re: Polish section

Dusty — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 16:24:15 GMT

So there is no need for a polish section, as we can all talk in any language we choose with out fear of deletion or telling off.
I doubt very much that a customer forum will be used by polish developers to discus plusnet's technical matters. I think they have msn and email for that, or even the phone.

Re: Polish section

spraxyt — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 23:43:23 GMT

Had you been on here when the Polish section was set up you would have seen that it was regarded as a trial with the possibility of adding sections in other languages if staff sufficiently fluent in the language became available.
I don't see the Polish section presence as a problem.
If sections in other languages are to be introduced I imagine the mods will change the rules to accommodate them.

Re: Polish section

Dusty — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 05:13:57 GMT

That's the trouble with this country instead of people being expected to blend in and learn our language, we do everything to accommodate foreigners. That's why we have such a problem with Muslim extremists, because they do not feel part of the UK. We are told we are a cultural melting pot, but its a pots of segregated nations, living in their own communities . This is no different, just internet based.
Having forum sections on an isp board based on nationality does nothing for integration and in my opinion breeds resentment on both sides .