Don’t Let Support Get Lost in Translation

I was lurking in the #wordpress support channel on IRC last night and noticed somebody getting the shrug off for a support issue because he wasn’t a native English speaker.

Now, the advice I initially gave him was ridiculed by others in the channel as stupid, but without really knowing the guy’s issue I was doing the best I could with what I could decipher from his broken English. And its not like anybody else was giving it a go, so I invited him into a private chat to get a better feeling for his problem.

We went round and round, him explaining in broken English and me trying to be as clear and concise as possible. Finally, I offered to use Google Translate so he could explain in Portuguese. He was floored that I would do this, but we tried it anyway. Turns out, it made all the difference in the world.

We went back and forth like that, me doing hyperspeed copy pasta with Translate, him doling out the Portuguese and after a few minutes we managed to get his issue resolved.

The problem as I see it is this: WordPress is all about contribution, whether it’s code, knowledge or time. Turning new WordPress users off by turning them away doesn’t really garner much support for the community, especially with the non-English-speaking crowd (who by the way make up about 2/3 of the worldwide community!).

Many users who seek support in IRC support are novice-level and they’re just trying to figure things out. It really doesn’t take all that much extra effort to meet them half way.

Published by

Drew Jaynes

Drew is a former Core Developer for the WordPress open source project, and he works on cool plugins like AffiliateWP, Easy Digital Downloads, and Restrict Content Pro.

5 thoughts on “Don’t Let Support Get Lost in Translation”

  1. I think turning new WordPress users off by spinning them away doesn’t really acquire much support for the community.

  2. They can use the Google translate tools. There are lots of non-English blogs I have encountered and I use Google translate for me to understand them.

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