As per the meta discussion [How do I deal with non-English questions?](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/297673/how-do-i-deal-with-non-english-content), the correct flag to raise when a question is in another language other than English is "Unclear what you are asking." The reasoning behind that is sound and works great. 

However, the flag dialog doesn't actually say anything about that circumstance:

> 
> Please clarify your specific problem or add additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it’s hard to tell exactly what you're asking. See the How to Ask page for help clarifying this question.
> 
> 
> 

My feature request is for the wording on the Unclear what you are asking flag to be modified so that it's obvious that this is the flag that should be used for non-english questions too. Something like:

> 
> As your question is currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you are asking. Please clarify your specific problem in clear English or add additional details to highlight exactly what you need. See the How to Ask page for help clarifying this question. 
> 
> 
> 

I don't quite like this version I've written because it sounds like I'm saying it's still fine if you didn't write the question in English as long as you add additional details in the incorrect language, so I welcome any word-smithing attempts to help make this better. The goal is to find a way to write the flag that helps community members know that this is the correct flag to use for other language questions.

Alternatively or additionally, that meta post could be linked to or the content explained in the [FAQ Guide to flagging](https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/flag-posts) so that it is easier to find, that way if someone looks at the flagging guidance, they can find out that non-English questions should be flagged "Unclear what you are asking."

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Why I believe this change would be useful:

As it stands, a user wanting to flag a question posted in another language has to have been able to find that meta post in order to know that it is the correct flag. Let's take for example a user who clicks on the new questions list and sees the following question posted in Spanish. Since I'm making up a hypothetical situation, let's also say that this user can read Spanish, and that the question in Spanish is well asked (clear, concise, useful... but in Spanish).

The user sees the question, then, recognizing that Stack Overflow is for English only, opens the flag dialog to mark the question, and starting from the top, thinks:

Well, this question isn't spam.

It's not rude or abusive either.

It should be closed as off topic, let's see what options are here...

Nope, not a duplicate.

Off topic because...

Well, it's not a problem about general computing hardware or software, nor professional server administration, nor a recommendation question, an incomplete debugging question, an irreproducible issue... no none of these fit. And it definitely has to do with programming.

Belongs on another site in the network? Maybe, but [Stack Overflow en Español](https://es.stackoverflow.com/) isn't a migration option. So let's go back to the previous menu.

Unclear what you are asking? Well, it seems pretty clear to me, it's just not in English. (**This is the kind of thought I want to be cleared up by changing the flag text. I want users to be able to read right there in the text that this is the flag to use for non-English questions**)

Too broad? No, it's definitely specific enough. 

It's not opinion based either, so let's go back to the previous menu.

Still not a duplicate.

Maybe it's very low quality? Being in another language is a severe content problem, but I'm not sure.

The user gets to this point in the flags, still not knowing which to use. At this point he or she might make one of several decisions. The user might flag as very low quality (which we don't want happening), the user might flag for moderator attention explaining that the question is in another language and thus should be closed (which will rightly be declined with the *"Using standard flags helps us prioritize problems and resolve them faster. Please familiarize yourself with the list of standard flags: see What is Flagging?"* message), the user might read What is Flagging only to discover that there's no mention of what to do for non-English questions and be stuck with this same decision, the user might just give up on flagging and post a comment for the user suggesting they delete and repost on the Spanish Stack Overflow site, or, if we're really lucky, the user will search until they find the meta post telling them that they should use the Unclear what you are Asking flag after all.

A different case could be a user who understands the language and sees that it is a bad question for a specific reason because the question if written the same in English would be subject to flagging, such as too broad, or asking for a recommendation, and raises that flag. This isn't exactly bad since they will lead to the question being closed, but these aren't the correct flag to use. Again, editing the flag dialog to let users know that "Unclear what you are asking" is the flag to use would be helpful.

Other circumstances where the user might be confused as to which flag to use for a non-English question is a user who does not understand the language written, but when reading the text on the "Unclear what you are asking" flag, doesn't know if it should be used or not because of the following reasoning (similar to that of the first two): I don't know if this question is written unclearly in the other language. It's unclear to me because I don't know this language, but it could be clear to someone who does, just like if there's a question about Ruby on Rails and it's unclear to me because I don't know Ruby on Rails, but it would be clear to someone who does, so maybe "Unclear what you are asking" isn't the right flag.

These are three cases where users might be confused and thus raise the wrong flags (in the best cases, they raise different recommended closure flags, in the worst cases they raise VLQ or moderator flags or just don't flag at all). Updating the text on the "Unclear what you are asking" flag to make it a clear catch-all for other language questions would help remove any of this potential confusion.

Some evidence that people need this to be explicit, even after the FAQ was posted in June 2015:

[How should I report question or answer posted using different language?](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/311637/how-should-i-report-question-or-answer-posted-using-different-language?noredirect=1&lq=1), a question from December 2015.

[Is downvoting question purely written in foreign language acceptable?](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/314231/is-downvoting-question-purely-written-in-foreign-language-acceptable?noredirect=1&lq=1), a question confused about what to do for non-English questions in January 2016.

[“Requires editing” wrong for a foreign language?](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/318193/requires-editing-wrong-for-a-foreign-language?noredirect=1&lq=1), March 2016.

[The posts which are not in English?](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/359107/the-posts-which-are-not-in-english), November 2017. (This person also raised a moderator flag, just like the situation I mentioned above).

[When should I flag as “in need of moderator intervention”?](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/362386/when-should-i-flag-as-in-need-of-moderator-intervention), January 2018. (Actually closed as a duplicate of this very question).

[Does Stack Overflow follow multiple languages?](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/366560/does-stack-overflow-follow-multiple-languages?noredirect=1&lq=1), April 2018

[Should non-English questions be marked for deletion or editing?](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/370297/should-non-english-questions-be-marked-for-deletion-or-editing), June 2018

All of these preceding questions step from the simple issue that it is not obvious that using the "Unclear what you are Asking" flag is the proper course of action when a question is not in English.

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Even now, August 7th 2018, somebody posted a question out of confusion after having raised a moderator flag because the definition on Unclear what you are asking wasn't obvious enough for them: [What is the correct flag for a non-English answer?](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/372127/what-is-the-correct-flag-for-a-non-english-answer)