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We know that certain people, especially the ones with English as their second language, are struggling to get answers at SO. I happened to notice a fitting example moments ago, here.

All of us could agree that language doesn't have to be a barrier for asking help here. I was just wondering, with all the great minds at Stack Exchange, couldn't we have a solution to this, rather than simply ignoring the fact & moving on?

As said here:

Users whose first language is not English are already at a sharp disadvantage, which is why their close ratio is higher...

By any means, is Stack Exchange waiting for browsers to address this as well?

If not, why can't we begin with :

enter image description here

And maybe stretch goals, like language help/correction as per the user's region in their profile.

For example, Indian people tend to make different sort of errors than the Chinese.

PS: It took me three edits to get this post to be this correct & I still doubt it is.

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    As long as it's optional. And auto-activates on the word 'plz'.
    – doppelgreener
    Feb 10, 2014 at 7:09
  • I don't want to argue that language is not a problem for some of our users but looking at the initial post at least a few tips and hints given on how to ask were not followed by that OP. The unclear what your asking is also an invitation to the user to read up on how to ask.
    – rene
    Feb 10, 2014 at 8:56
  • possible duplicate of Translation help review queue?
    – user1228
    Feb 10, 2014 at 14:47
  • +1 for "couldn't we have a solution to this, rather than simply ignoring the fact & moving on". This happens all to often in SE.
    – Lance Roberts
    Feb 10, 2014 at 16:09

1 Answer 1

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The best thing for SE to do is to provide correct metadata to activate the language spell checking for browser auto-correction. The spell checking in browsers gets constantly better.

While it could be implemented in SO, it would require either matching against dictionary on client (JavaScript) site, which is absolutely unvialable as it would kill most older computers, or do a validation query for each word you type (which would dramatically increase the load of SO servers, and slow older computers as well).

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  • Agree. But solutions need not be created all at once. 'Correct as you Go' can be the future, 'Click to Correct' can be the present...
    – loxxy
    Feb 10, 2014 at 8:51

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