What about answerers with English as second or third language?

Question

It seems there are people from all over the world with English as their second or third language, the grammars are all different! How are we going to tackle this issue? for instance, I asked what should be the criteria for making a decision in life? anyone whose first language is English would automatically know what that means since it has the word criteria in the sentence. But since the word 'decision' was included it meant something else to people in other parts of the world.

Answer 1

We have this problem all over the SE network. It may be more pronounced here, since a higher proportion of participants may speak English as a second language, but the fundamental problem is no different.

Specific actions that can be taken:

• Edit others' posts to improve their grammar and spelling then they make mistakes.
• When a meaning is ambiguous, ask the OP to clarify what they mean.
• Approach the problem respectfully, and assume the best of the OP when they do make mistakes. They're struggling with the language. They're far more frustrated than you are, when you see their mistakes!