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#1 2011-08-16 14:16:47

colak
Admin
From: Cyprus
Registered: 2004-11-20
Posts: 9,090
Website GitHub Mastodon Twitter

international forums

I was wondering if we should keep all the current international forums…

These are empty and we also have no one to moderate them (except from google translate I guess)

whereas these have a max of 2 threads

The only reason I can think of keeping them is because of political correctness but I am also wondering if it also works against us. That is if people from those countries visit our forum, see that there are no users using their own language and decide to move on…

Just a thought

Edit. Changed link locations a bit, removed something that shouldn’t be there ;-)

Last edited by Gocom (2011-08-17 11:11:53)


Yiannis
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NeMe | hblack.art | EMAP | A Sea change | Toolkit of Care
I do my best editing after I click on the submit button.

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#2 2011-08-17 06:40:26

Destry
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From: Haut-Rhin
Registered: 2004-08-04
Posts: 4,909
Website

Re: international forums

This has been on my mind a while now.

Those were created in, what, 2006? And done so under a good intention, certainly. But after all this time they’ve only been used that much? Pffft! That’s long enough and clear proof they’re not needed. I say axe ‘em. Nobody can complain. If you don’t use it, you lose it. One of life’s simple laws.

Plus, maybe this will spur people to focus more on the doc translations (though I doubt it).

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#3 2011-08-17 07:55:02

colak
Admin
From: Cyprus
Registered: 2004-11-20
Posts: 9,090
Website GitHub Mastodon Twitter

Re: international forums

Hi Destry, I’m glad you agree. I wonder what the rest of the community thinks.


Yiannis
——————————
NeMe | hblack.art | EMAP | A Sea change | Toolkit of Care
I do my best editing after I click on the submit button.

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#4 2011-08-17 08:03:48

ruud
Developer Emeritus
From: a galaxy far far away
Registered: 2006-06-04
Posts: 5,068
Website

Re: international forums

I think we have those forums for every language that TXP supports.

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#5 2011-08-17 09:07:40

wet
Developer Emeritus
From: Schoerfling, Austria
Registered: 2005-06-06
Posts: 3,330
Website Mastodon

Re: international forums

Ironically, as of today there’s one post in the Romanian forum.

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#6 2011-08-17 11:20:46

Destry
Member
From: Haut-Rhin
Registered: 2004-08-04
Posts: 4,909
Website

Re: international forums

The real problem is the volume of forums (and that I have to always manually collapse that category every time I log in). As mentioned, most aren’t even used (1 or 2 posts in 6 years does’t count).

What about creating a single “international” forum (putting it underneath the user docs forum, for example, and killing the extraneous languages category) where people simply start threads in the language they want (except English)—maybe using a prefix like , [it], [de] etc. before the title, or just the title. Anyone who reads that language will see from the title of the thread. Considering the low numbers, this is entirely justifiable assuming there’s no technical barriers.

We could also add a sticky post to the new forum that points people to the translation docs in the wiki, wich is probably a better place for such a link (in context). The same sticky post could also briefly explain (two or three sentences), in each supported language, if necessary, that the forum was merged, maybe use the language code prefixes, whatever.

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#7 2011-08-17 11:23:24

Gocom
Developer Emeritus
From: Helsinki, Finland
Registered: 2006-07-14
Posts: 4,533
Website

Re: international forums

True, most of the international forums are pretty dead silent, and the rare questions asked do not really get answers. Some of those could get answers if the questions was posted in English.

But, I’m not sure if we should remove those areas even when the activity state is what it is. Some genuinely don’t write English, not without the help of Translator, at all and if there wasn’t international area for the language, then there wouldn’t be a place to ask questions at all. I think there should be a place for every language Textpattern ships with, even that some of the localizations are not really up-to-date, and there might not be even users for that localization, right now, but things can change.

Look at the Romanian post Robert highlighted, and see Ruud’s clever reply using Translator.

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#8 2011-08-17 11:31:19

Destry
Member
From: Haut-Rhin
Registered: 2004-08-04
Posts: 4,909
Website

Re: international forums

Like with English content, the ideal goal would be to have self-sufficiency (as much as possible) in any language. I.e., better user docs in other languages. If we figured out how to promote translation of docs more, we reduce the importance of the language forums (theoretically speaking); at least to not need a unique forum for each language.

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#9 2011-08-17 11:38:31

ruud
Developer Emeritus
From: a galaxy far far away
Registered: 2006-06-04
Posts: 5,068
Website

Re: international forums

Destry wrote:

The real problem is the volume of forums (and that I have to always manually collapse that category every time I log in). As mentioned, most aren’t even used (1 or 2 posts in 6 years does’t count).

Since the language forums are at the bottom, why bother collapsing them? I never scroll that far. In fact, I rarely view the forum index. Instead I just click “show new posts since last visit”. Auto-collapse could be done with a Greasemonkey script if you’re using Firefox.

What about creating a single “international” forum (putting it underneath the user docs forum, for example, and killing the extraneous languages category) where people simply start threads in the language they want (except English)—maybe using a prefix like , [it], [de] etc. before the title, or just the title. Anyone who reads that language will see from the title of the thread. Considering the low numbers, this is entirely justifiable assuming there’s no technical barriers.

If the language isn’t explicitly specified (as is currently done by using separate forums), then someone who doesn’t recognize the language, cannot answer it. Take the Romanian post for example. If you’d told me that was Italian, I would’ve believed it, but I think Google translate would have given me a very strange translation ;)

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#10 2011-08-17 11:43:43

uli
Moderator
From: Cologne
Registered: 2006-08-15
Posts: 4,306

Re: international forums

Remove the Turkish forum and leave the Greek? Erm …
Any other potential conflicts we know about?

I’d leave them all.


In bad weather I never leave home without wet_plugout, smd_where_used and adi_form_links

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#11 2011-08-17 11:54:35

ruud
Developer Emeritus
From: a galaxy far far away
Registered: 2006-06-04
Posts: 5,068
Website

Re: international forums

uli wrote:

Remove the Turkish forum and leave the Greek? Erm …
Any other potential conflicts we know about?

LOL… if the decision is to remove some language forums, remove them all and let international users post in the regular forums. That would result in the use of multiple languages in a single topic (especially plugin support), but other than the difficulty of recognizing the language used, I don’t have a problem with that.

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#12 2011-08-17 11:57:43

Destry
Member
From: Haut-Rhin
Registered: 2004-08-04
Posts: 4,909
Website

Re: international forums

ruud wrote:

If the language isn’t explicitly specified (as is currently done by using separate forums), then someone who doesn’t recognize the language, cannot answer it.

Good point. I overlooked that. Well, then, short of having an entirely separate forum site for international use (I’m not suggesting that), I guess there’s no justifiable alternative if they’re to not be removed outright.

Since the language forums are at the bottom, why bother collapsing them? I never scroll that far. In fact, I rarely view the forum index. Instead I just click “show new posts since last visit”. Auto-collapse could be done with a Greasemonkey script if you’re using Firefox.

Ha! Now this is an ironic example of how a developer thinks. :)
(My habits/tools don’t match yours.)

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