I don't wish to appear ignorant, but does anyone know whether foreign language questions and answers are allowed? Or do they have to remain in the sites native English language?
4 Answers
SF authors' view of the issue:
My thoughts on this are that the majority of this sites users will speak English, one way or another. So if you want to get the maximum amount of answers to your question, then English is probably the way to go.
When answering, if you know the asker speaks another language, then you could use that, however your then going to prevent others who don't speak that language from using your answer.
So I wouldn't say no, you should never use anything other than English, but to maximise the effectiveness of your question and answers, English is probably the best way to go.
Jeff's argument is that English is the lingua franca of programming as most programming languages have keywords with English meaning.
It has less validity when it comes to this site, the realm of technical support is too vast. If Joel wins out, which I think eventually he will, the site will be modified to support multilingual questions and answers. (Perhaps language filters)
I wouldn't hold my breath though.