The type of fics that prompt this suggestion are annoying, because they are such an insult to the many folks who write ESL and do really well. I know quite a few, and many of them have better grammar skills than I do as a native speaker. Then there are the people that completely come across as ESL that are just really pathetic native speakers. All of it seems to go back to the excuse list "I'm only 15 and I fail my English classes!" (I saw this on the other day on the pit.)

It might make an interesting bit of trouble for the agents to try to decide if they should send a fic to the Babelfish folks, or just charge as a totally incompetent native speaker. Maybe if it really seemed like the author had some chance of being brought to the goodfic side of things, it could be written sort of like the author correspondence stuff used to be. Not that there would have to be any actual correspondence, just that the agents could claim there was. If any of that babbling made sense.

1) I think--not very experienced, so I don't know for certain--that unintentional comedy is probably a common trait of many or even most badfics that would still be another department's purview. I'm not certain this needs to be its own department, although I'm not especially opposed to the idea.

2) I like this, but I don't think it needs to be its own department either. My proposal would be to have the Department of WTF offer Interpreter courses to any interested agents, and when an especially incoherent badfic is assigned to a department it is passed on to the department's qualified Interpreters, or to another department if there are none available.

The first one could be good for laughs, but I think it's one of those things that needn't officially exist until people actually use it as a joke in the course of actual mission-writing. There's LOTS of stuff it would be fun to have/do, but we don't want a Hogfather situation, with theoretical constructs popping into existence just because someone once suggested it somewhere. ... Well, okay, it kind of does actually work like that at times. But I'd personally rather have it be something suggested in-universe than ex-universe. Probably because I want to see people writing missions. {= )

I don't really understand where you're going with the second one at all. The badfic is badfic no matter the language, and a poor translation is pretty easily spotted by anyone; so, badly-translated fics can be handled by anyone, and badfic in other languages can only be handled by people who speak it anyway. Not to mention that in-universe, the agents are all equipped with Universal Translators. So, what would such a department actually DO that isn't being done already?

~Neshomeh

I like both ideas.

For 2) we need to play it by ear like you said. There needs to be a distinction between someone who is actually trying, and someone who is simply completely out of their depth. I'd bet there's quite bit of people who try to learn English by way of their fandom, or maybe even *because* of their fandom. Learning a language can be a tender process and while publishing your work online exposes you automatically to all kinds of crazies like us, it's not cricket to make fun of them for trying to learn.

Could consider a department for foreign language fics if there isn't one yet. Though the traffic there might be low.

Many a time I've been reading a dramatic part of a fic, to find that bad spelling has caused outright hilarity! I'm reminded of a Star Wars fic I read a few years ago, I forget its name. However, in a particularly tense part of the otherwise good plot, the lead character 'realised that the orgasms in the water were actually fish!' (Should have been organisms, obviously...) I lold and the tension was ruined!