I think SE, as a network, tends to be structurally unwelcoming to peripheral cultures. Not because we, users, don't welcome them here, but because we have a bunch of arbitrary social rules and not many of us deal with deviant behavior kindly.
First of all, since English skills are required for us to understand each other and organize content, there is an inevitable cultural barrier for them to join us.
Secondly, to the few who decide to cross the bridge, there's an implied message that poor English skills are frowned upon. I see it all across the SE network: several edits to fix grammar mistakes, one or other comment about bad English, but it is a common topic whenever a site is considered under attack. It eventually led to this blog post:
The truth is, by requiring fluency in English, we're shutting out of a lot of developers who may know enough English to read it but not enough to feel comfortable participating.
Replace "developers" with "veg*ns" and here we are. Of course, we can't stop editing, After all, good grammar promotes an easier read and clearer meanings. But, still, it is a hard message to convey to new users. Most of them feel they are being "corrected".
Speaking of which, there is a generally snarky attitude towards users who don't "fit in" from the very beginning. I don't see it particularly often here, but I see it everywhere else, and it is quite a divisive behavior, building walls between "them" and "us". Quoting another blog post:
Every community starts out needing to recruit members, so they tend to be very friendly to newcomers.
After a few years, an insider group of old-timers forms. They get to know each other. They know the rules. They know the history and the legends of the community. And it's only natural to get little bit irritated when newbies show up who don't know the rules.
Newbies will show up, make a newbie mistake, like wearing shoes indoors or forgetting to close the toilet lid, and the old-timers will look at each other, roll their eyes, and snort, "Typical!"
At this point, if it's a normal human community, it will start to feel a little bit unfriendly to outsiders. Insular.
And the newbies will say, "well, gosh, that's not a very friendly place."
Not just the newbies who got scolded. Also the 100 passers-by who saw the newbies get scolded. Who might have been great members of the community, and who did nothing wrong, but who are not really interested in joining a community that appears to be full of smug jerks.
Of course, we still need to be able to downvote, comment, edit, whenever it's needed. But we also need to understand that a new user - particularly one who's not used to the Western etiquette - needs time to realize it's not personal. Our rules are meant to protect our community from abuse, but not from new users.
Maybe it would be a good idea if we got into the habit of:
leaving a comment welcoming them and telling we left a "suggestion" as an edit, instead of just fixing their grammar mistakes;
leaving a comment with suggestions instead of downvoting;
pointing users to our resources while still keeping it friendly;
politely rejecting social discrimination of any kind, even if it wasn't the author's intention to be insensitive (mea culpa).
In other words, it would be nice if being nice was truly part of our policy. We just went public, so I believe the time is right to make it to our guidelines.
