We would dearly love to be able to support non-English fansites better than we are able to but we are not in a position to do so at this time. Changes in staff as well as roles and responsibilities have meant a number of the language resources available to us previously are no longer. This has meant we have had to look carefully at what provisions we can make and unfortunately it is not the case that we will be able to engage with those fansites as comprehensively as we would like.
For that reason we would currently place those non-English fansites we are confident in relation to in the Recognised Fansite category. Until such a point as we are able to offer in language support and auditing for those sites we will not be able to issue Approved status to those sites, though it is our hope that we will be able to in the future. We are also hopeful that the Recognised status will not mean we will refuse opportunities to support non-English fansites where they have exciting ideas or community activities that we would want to help with.
That is really a good step forward Matthe. I am curious to know is Jagex unable to use Google Translator as a way to understand a foreign Fansite?
Most foreign such as francoscape.net offers a English translation to their guides and using Google Translator is useful when trying to understand their site.
Google translator is vastly inadequate as a tool when assessing, auditing or investigating a foreign language site - I have seen google translate or similar products utilised to attempt such support and it has caused far more issues then it resolves for a business. While it may be useful for personal use it is not a resource that can be relied on for professional response.
Our in house translation/localization teams are at full capacity with current projects - we cannot realistically provide support on that basis therefore.