Obvious those posts do exist, even MODs do that. I also see profiles and sigatures containing foreigh characters.

Example 1: from JDiver
Example 2: One More: JDiver's bilingual post

ps. OP is not an English native in the above quoted example.

First thing first. English is not my native language. I happened to have one degree in the States, so I have been able to learn a lot from our larger FT community. Thank god for that!

IMHO, English has become "the" global language. If one wants to reach out his/her own locality/nationality, one must know another language. Among the world of (frequent) travellers, English seems to be the dominant choice for non-English speakers (I may be biased since I haven't found time to learn French, Japanese, or Spanish). I see nothing wrong with English being the "offcial" FT language. Afterall, Randy is an American.

Even though I contribute less often than I would like to our community, I can see the points kanebear raised.

I would think non-English informative posts/threads only serve those OP/posters with very limited English command and in great need of help. If answering in OP's mother language will get the points cross easier, I see no points of objecting to it. Meanwhile, I don't want to feel being leftout either. In my above example 2, JDiver even composed a bilingual respose so the FT community in large can follow it.

However, I sincerely doubt those who can't use English at a functioning level would come to FT for advices in the first place. They would turn to their own resources and websites in their languages. If they do need assistance in English, there are free transalation programs/softwares on the web. (The translation could be horrible though. )

We are here as a community to share and communicate information/passion about miles & points. English has been the common language to achieve this goal. If the information is crucial and relevant, it should be conveyed in the common language. Along the line of thread discussion, if we do sense the need to use the local language to illustrate the points or make in-sider jokes, so be it. FT shouldn't have a policy against non-English expressions under such circumstances.

Furthermore, if our TB decide to "escalate" our current FT to include foreign language versions, that will be nice also. Think about that! You can pick your preferrable languages to load/browse FT! @:-)