Blizzard blog language policy (English only) questioned

[Harold Schiffman]

Blizzard's forum policy against foreign languages

Posted Aug 28th 2007 2:12PM by Mike
Schramm<http://www.wowinsider.com/bloggers/mike-schramm>
Filed under: Analysis /
Opinion<http://www.wowinsider.com/category/analysis-opinion/>,
Fan stuff <http://www.wowinsider.com/category/fan-stuff/>, Virtual
selves<http://www.wowinsider.com/category/virtual-selves/>,
Blizzard <http://www.wowinsider.com/category/blizzard/>
This post on the official
forums<http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1272280557&pageNo=1&sid=1#0>,
like many others in languages that aren't English, got closed down. Why?
Because it's a policy of Blizzard that they do not "offer foreign language
support" on the forums (although, in looking through the Forums
Guidelines<http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/forum-coc.html?sid=1>,
I can't see anything that officially says that). At any rate, the rule is no
language but English<http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1272280596&pageNo=1&sid=1#0>on
the official forums, and Timbal is sticking by that policy.

And it's not just Spanish-- I've seen this come up on the EU forums as well,
when someone posts in French or German. Why is Blizzard so opposed to
players posting in their native language? Of course, as Timbal says, not
everyone can know every language, but Timbal knew enough Spanish to realize
the original thread (called "server latino") was asking for new realms. And
this is 2007-- is it too much to ask for one Blizzard forums employee that
speaks Spanish, or in the EU, French or German? They may not know enough to
actually answer the questions in that language, but they should know enough
to police players who are speaking in that language, maybe in a special
foreign language section of the forum.

Now, also according to forums policy (but also not listed in the
"guidelines"), you're also not supposed to request new realms, so even if
the thread was in English, it would have been closed anyway. And if someone
speaking a foreign language is somehow being obscene, that doesn't belong on
the forums either. But it's unfair for people who have legitimate questions
or requests and want to posit them in their native language to be shut down
by Blizzard automatically. Nine million people play this game, and it's very
likely a large number of them don't speak English as their native language--
for Blizzard to completely ignore them on the forums is a poor decision.

*Update:* Our terrific commenters point out that there are
French<http://forums.wow-europe.com/index.html?sid=2>,
Spanish <http://forums.wow-europe.com/index.html?sid=4>, and
German<http://forums.wow-europe.com/index.html?sid=3>forums for the EU
servers. But the fact remains that Blizzard closes,
without second thought, any thread started in a foreign language on the US
servers.



http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/08/28/blizzards-forum-policy-against-foreign-languages/
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