Why are all posts in English?

D

Douglas J. Steele

Because this is an English language newsgroup.

There are lots of Microsoft-sponsored newsgroups in other languages, though.
For what language are you looking? For example, microsoft.public.fr.access
is the French-language newsgroup devoted to Access,
microsoft.public.de.access is the German-language one,
microsoft.public.pt.access is the Portugese one, and so on.
 
6

'69 Camaro

Hi, Ursula.

If you are referring to the derogatory comments made earlier about this News
Group being exclusionary to non-English speakers, please be advised that
there are probably tens of thousands of groups on UseNet dealing with just
about every subject one can think of, often in many different languages.
Microsoft provides moderated News Groups for Microsoft's products to the
general public in English and many other languages, including Arabic,
French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian,
Spanish, et cetera. Unpaid volunteers the world over answer questions
posted by people who need help in these public News Groups.

This News Group that you are posting your question to,
Microsoft.Public.Access, is only one of those News Groups, and it is
dedicated to the issues of Microsoft Access, the database application from
Microsoft Office, the office productivity suite of software. The volunteers
who answer questions in the Microsoft.Public.Access News Group are mostly
English-speaking, but a few speak other languages, as well.

To insist that these unpaid volunteers learn other languages in order to
help people who are unwilling to pay for their technical expertise and
assistance is presumptuous. If English is not your language of choice, then
feel free to post a question in a News Group for another language. And if
you feel that your native language is not represented in any of these News
Groups, then feel free become an unpaid volunteer yourself to help people in
your own language.

HTH.

Gunny

See http://www.QBuilt.com for all your database needs.
See http://www.Access.QBuilt.com for Microsoft Access tips.

(Please remove ZERO_SPAM from my reply E-mail address, so that a message
will be forwarded to me.)
 
D

Damien McBain

'69 Camaro wrote:
snip
Microsoft provides moderated News Groups for
Microsoft's products to the general public in English and many other
languages, including Arabic, French, German, Greek, Italian,
Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, et cetera.
snip

This ng is moderated? It would be nice if all the OT stuff was deleted by
the moderators!
 
6

'69 Camaro

This ng is moderated?

Of course, John is correct. It's not "really" moderated in that posts are
either approved or censored by some authority prior to being posted. No one
has an official "I am the moderator" title here. But after posts are made,
you'll see some of them deleted within minutes, hours, or days, especially
ones containing foul language or viruses, or OT messages with a posted date
months or years ahead. AFAIK, deletions can be made on the news server
itself or elsewhere along the chain before the public's consumption of these
messages. Depending upon your news server, you may get the "clean"
version -- or not.

Perhaps you missed the foul-mouthed tirade that one poster made this morning
because the Access experts here didn't post an answer to his question about
Windows Explorer not displaying information properly, but instead suggested
that he post his question in another News Group. Some of that trash was
deleted from Microsoft's news server, but not enough of it! (Other news
servers are carrying his tirade, though.) I would call their action to
censor these messages a conscious decision to "moderate" the material on
Microsoft's news server, but other agencies are certainly not required to
take these same actions on their own news servers.

So if you use the MSNews.Microsoft.com news server, you could see the
"clean" version of the News Group messages. There's still a lot of OT and
foreign language messages, though. However, I don't see any of the porn in
this News Group that you'll find in other "officially" unmoderated News
Groups. I make a distinction between "somewhat governed" and anarchy, but
no one else has to!

Gunny
 
M

Mabden

'69 Camaro said:
Of course, John is correct. It's not "really" moderated in that posts are
either approved or censored by some authority prior to being posted. No one
has an official "I am the moderator" title here. But after posts are made,
you'll see some of them deleted within minutes, hours, or days, especially
ones containing foul language or viruses, or OT messages with a posted date
months or years ahead. AFAIK, deletions can be made on the news server
itself or elsewhere along the chain before the public's consumption of these
messages. Depending upon your news server, you may get the "clean"
version -- or not.

Perhaps you missed the foul-mouthed tirade that one poster made this morning
because the Access experts here didn't post an answer to his question about
Windows Explorer not displaying information properly, but instead suggested
that he post his question in another News Group. Some of that trash was
deleted from Microsoft's news server, but not enough of it! (Other news
servers are carrying his tirade, though.) I would call their action to
censor these messages a conscious decision to "moderate" the material on
Microsoft's news server, but other agencies are certainly not required to
take these same actions on their own news servers.

So if you use the MSNews.Microsoft.com news server, you could see the
"clean" version of the News Group messages. There's still a lot of OT and
foreign language messages, though. However, I don't see any of the porn in
this News Group that you'll find in other "officially" unmoderated News
Groups. I make a distinction between "somewhat governed" and anarchy, but
no one else has to!

The lack of spam - whether it is for legal drugs for headaches or
erections or porn pics - is Good.

But I have a problem with deleting posts simply for using "foul-mouthed"
or "adult" language on a newsgroup. Your concept of "bad" language may
be (probably is) different than mine, since I have heard most of the
words and I'm only offended when I can't find one in the dictionary. ;-)

Does "H - E - double hockey-sticks" offend you? Well, none of the other
words bother me, so why are you preventing me from finding out about
someone's problem or post.

Are you offended if I say, "Fenetres est merde?"

Just asking...
 
T

tina

this is a public forum that is intended for problem-solving, focused on a
specific subject. it's reasonable to expect that the people who post here
will conduct themselves in a reasonably courteous and business-like fashion,
and profane or abusive language has no more place here than it does in a
business meeting. public conduct is measured against the prevailing social
standard, not against any individual's personal standard, and the average
person who interacts with society is aware of that standard even if s/he
doesn't embrace it personally.
this forum isn't a chat room, where comments and responses are spontaneous
and immediate. there is plenty of time to think before you type, and
practice reasonable restraint. people who feel the need to "let it all hang
out", and really vent their anger or frustration, can find plenty of other
and more appropriate places to do it.
 
M

Mabden

tina said:
this is a public forum that is intended for problem-solving, focused on a
specific subject. it's reasonable to expect that the people who post here
will conduct themselves in a reasonably courteous and business-like
fashion,


So why are you top-posting?
 
6

'69 Camaro

To Tina: Very well said. Thank you.

To Mabden:

I haven't censored anyone's post, nor have I requested that anyone else do
so. If you are curious, you may read all about the tirade I was referring
to, since it's recorded on this Web page:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&th=8c5dabc5986150d5&rnum=1

Bill Gates might be. I come from a world where "mission critical" means
computer failure results in lives lost and equipment worth multi-millions or
even billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars destroyed. Those computer systems
have been running reliably on Unix and VMS for decades, because we don't get
pop-up messages saying, "This application has encountered an error in
Kernel.dll and will be shut down," so you can guess what my reaction is to
your statement.

Gunny

See http://www.QBuilt.com for all your database needs.
See http://www.Access.QBuilt.com for Microsoft Access tips.

(Please remove ZERO_SPAM from my reply E-mail address, so that a message
will be forwarded to me.)


tina said:
this is a public forum that is intended for problem-solving, focused on a
specific subject. it's reasonable to expect that the people who post here
will conduct themselves in a reasonably courteous and business-like fashion,
and profane or abusive language has no more place here than it does in a
business meeting. public conduct is measured against the prevailing social
standard, not against any individual's personal standard, and the average
person who interacts with society is aware of that standard even if s/he
doesn't embrace it personally.
this forum isn't a chat room, where comments and responses are spontaneous
and immediate. there is plenty of time to think before you type, and
practice reasonable restraint. people who feel the need to "let it all hang
out", and really vent their anger or frustration, can find plenty of other
and more appropriate places to do it.
 
T

tina

So why are you top-posting?

by that i'm guessing you mean typing an entry at the top of the message
thread in a responding post. a great many responding posts are entered that
way here in these newsgroups. in sixteen months of daily reading here, i've
never seen anyone complain about that practice, or take offense, or even
comment on it one way or the other. i personally find it inconvenient to
scroll down to the bottom of a long series of posts to read the current
reply, but that's just me - i don't expect anyone else to do it one way or
the other, i just read replies where i find them, and move on.
 
T

tina

you're welcome! :)


'69 Camaro said:
To Tina: Very well said. Thank you.

To Mabden:

I haven't censored anyone's post, nor have I requested that anyone else do
so. If you are curious, you may read all about the tirade I was referring
to, since it's recorded on this Web page:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&th=8c5dabc5986150d5&rnum=1
Bill Gates might be. I come from a world where "mission critical" means
computer failure results in lives lost and equipment worth multi-millions or
even billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars destroyed. Those computer systems
have been running reliably on Unix and VMS for decades, because we don't get
pop-up messages saying, "This application has encountered an error in
Kernel.dll and will be shut down," so you can guess what my reaction is to
your statement.

Gunny

See http://www.QBuilt.com for all your database needs.
See http://www.Access.QBuilt.com for Microsoft Access tips.

(Please remove ZERO_SPAM from my reply E-mail address, so that a message
will be forwarded to me.)
 
M

Mabden

I only see it on Microsoft newsgroups, because (I guess) Outlook Express
pops you on top of the message, and no one here has bothered to see what
the rest of the world is doing. There are many newsgroups "out there"
and almost all of them that don't start with "Microsoft.public" post to
the bottom. Also, the "rule" is to interleave comments with the text you
are commenting on. Have you ever read a FAQ of a newsgroup, many have
one the specifically says that posts should be done this way. Ignoring
the newsgroup rules is rude (note, I'm not saying this newsgroup has
such a rule, just 90% of the rest of the world).

It is only inconvenient to you because you are unfamiliar with it. Once
you try it, you might find yourself preferring it...

Also try missing a few responses and then picking it back up. You have
to jump to the bottom and scroll your way upward, which is unnatural in
the way we read (for instance a newspaper).


A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?
 
B

Brendan Reynolds

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion about top-posting. My opinion
is that to equate top posting with foul language, in the context of this
thread, is inappropriate. Top posting is frowned upon by a relatively small,
self-appointed 'elite' of long-time usenet users. The use of foul language
in public is frowned upon by most people. That's a fundamental distinction.

If you feel strongly about the issue of top posting, I suggest you start a
new thread on the subject. By dragging it into this thread, you run the risk
of appearing to be argumentative for the sake of being argumentative, which
is seldom a good way to get one's views heard.

--
Brendan Reynolds (MVP)
http://brenreyn.blogspot.com

The spammers and script-kiddies have succeeded in making it impossible for
me to use a real e-mail address in public newsgroups. E-mail replies to
this post will be deleted without being read. Any e-mail claiming to be
from brenreyn at indigo dot ie that is not digitally signed by me with a
GlobalSign digital certificate is a forgery and should be deleted without
being read. Follow-up questions should in general be posted to the
newsgroup, but if you have a good reason to send me e-mail, you'll find
a useable e-mail address at the URL above.
 
B

Brendan Reynolds

I think that you are completely wrong to suggest that there was anything
argumentative in Tina's post. But I have to concede that my own comment
about "a self-appointed 'elite'" was indeed somewhat argumentative. It
would, therefore, be somewhat hypocritical of me to criticise the response
that I provoked. Have a nice day.

--
Brendan Reynolds (MVP)
http://brenreyn.blogspot.com

The spammers and script-kiddies have succeeded in making it impossible for
me to use a real e-mail address in public newsgroups. E-mail replies to
this post will be deleted without being read. Any e-mail claiming to be
from brenreyn at indigo dot ie that is not digitally signed by me with a
GlobalSign digital certificate is a forgery and should be deleted without
being read. Follow-up questions should in general be posted to the
newsgroup, but if you have a good reason to send me e-mail, you'll find
a useable e-mail address at the URL above.
 
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