I'm kind of baffled at the concept of assigning beta readers to fics in languages they don't speak? Like yes, machine translation exists, but it's often imperfect and I know from experience that it's not capable of translating my fics into comprehensible English. Which makes betaing without speaking the language impossible, especially since betaing can often involve helping out with writing style and such.
Sorry if this comes off harsh? but I just don't understand this rule at all
Yeah no worries, I totally understand the confusion!
Essentially, when writer sign ups go out, we will be asking writers if they only want a beta that can understand the language they will be writing in, if they are ok with their betas not being able to understand the language they will be writing in, or if they would prefer not having a beta on their team if one that understands their language is not available.
If they choose the second option, those betas would only helping out with the content of the fic (stuff like character voice, worldbuilding, basically specific sentences or paragraphs that the writer might want more help with instead of reading through the entire fic with a translator) and not any grammar, spelling, sentences structure, or anything that would explicitly require fluency in the language.
The reason for this rule is because, in the initial interest survey, there was interest in writing fics in 27 unique languages, throughout 44 responses. We’re anticipating a similar number of unique languages when sign ups open, along with a decent number of people who don’t speak a second language but still want to participate!
So basically, yes, it will be complicated, but we will not assign one of those betas to a writer who needs someone who can read their fic without a translator.