Is it allowed to have non-English text in the "About" section of the user profile page?

Question

Are profile pages (about section) required to be written in English?

For example, this Stack Overflow profile that I found is entirely in Italian.

Stack Overflow is an English-only site, and that content needs to be in English has been discussed many times.

The most active meta question about this states:

tl;dr: Unless you're posting on a language-related site (e.g. French Language) or a site where all questions are expected to be in a different language (e.g. Stack Overflow in Spanish), yes, all posts are expected to be in English.

_{Some more questions that back this: A - B - C - D - E.}

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All the meta posts talk about questions, answers and/or comments. - They don't seem to discuss profiles, and whether it is alright to have a profile that is partially or entirely in other languages

Unfortunately, I'm unable to find any guideline if this is accepted or not.

As such, is it alright to have non-English profiles, and if not, do I need to do anything about it?

Answer 1

Are profile pages (about section) required to be written in English?

Short and simple answer: no.

Slightly longer answer: "Your user page belongs to you, so fill it with information about your interests, links to stuff you’ve worked on, or whatever else you like!" from the help center.

If 'whatever else you like' happens to be spam or in a language that isn't English, that's fair game. A moderator may at times get bored and nuke whole pages of spam profiles, but we generally don't really police spam in profiles anyways.

There is a lot of leeway for profiles. There are a few things that just are not okay, but non-English language isn't one of them. If you have a feeling someone is using a language other than English to obfuscate this kind of behavior, a simple tool called Google Translate can help you figure that out. If so, flag appropriately.

Answer 2

A profile reflects the user — and as long as it's safe for work it should reflect the user.

While it is true most of the stack is primarily English language there are portions of it that are non English language primarily — including various language specific SO offshoots and a handful of language sites. Other sites may — while having English as the 'main' language of use — require other languages to discuss their content, such as religious sites discussing scripture.

The intent of the rules isn't that no languages other than English should exist on the network, but rather, for the sake of accessibility and the need to communicate in a common language, that English is the primary language of the network when it comes to content.

All the meta posts talk about questions, answers and/or comments.

Well yes they do.

I think old posts, back from the good old days are better reflections of what we have always expected for profiles. George's answer is excellent.

Jeff's answer is is more succinct and covers the essentials

The user page is a reflection of that user and it is their page to do with what they will.
(Within reason, of course.)
We also allow explicit self-promotion on the user page, which is not allowed in posts, either.

I would also draw the distinction in another way. Posts belong to the commons and community — while you're the owner, you're writing them for other people to read and use them. Your profile is your own space and reflect you. No one's going to benefit, or not benefit from a profile fully in say Quenya, but it would be considered bad form to write a SO or MSE answer fully in it.

Answer 3

Questions, answers, and comments, are all part of a specific site.

The user profile is shared on all sites. Of course they can customize it per-site, but it requires work to maintain and not trivial to do, or something that should be required.

If a user having non-English native language wants to express themselves in their native language on their profile, I think it's their right to do so.

If you suspect offensive/spam contents, you can always use online Translator.