Local forums?

[EvilDragon]

Well, the German forum is dying, so I am thinking of merging it with this one, as most users already have an account here anyways.

This gave me another idea though:
Are you interested in a local area here?
I know we've got some French users, we definitely have quite a few german ones, so I could add local forums here as well.

I've already added a new feature to keep the forums readable for everyone:
There are two new configurations in your user menu:
One where you can choose which forums you want to see on these boards and one where you can choose which forums should be ignored for the "New Posts" function.

So everyone could simply ignore the local forums and they won't appear anywhere when he browses the boards.

What do you think?
Is that a good idea?
Is anyone interested in a place where he can speak using his native language?

 

[levi]

If the German board is dying, doesn't that suggest most Germans with language skills would rather speak english in a wider community than be limited to a german language one? But from my recollection we've had at least one thread mostly conducted in German, and if there were a place for that it could have been moved there I suppose. On the other hand, threads have gone french for a dozen posts or so max, and nobody really blinked.

In my experience of Scandi and Nordic countries, almost all professionals have very good english. And I think the same it true in relatively young countries like those in Eastern Europe. If I had to vote, I'd say Spanish and Italian users perhaps have the most need for a place they can converse in their native tongues, but maybe my understanding of those cultures is outdated also.

 

[elw3]

This will not work.
User who speak english do not care about such section and user who do not speak english will leave this place before they find said section.
Also IF there is a post there, none will blend it out, we will just try to impress with the barely readable 2nd or 3rd languages we learned at school.
Instead of one matzesu per thread, we get a thread full of matzesus. (Sorry dude, could not resist the analogy )

 

[Wally]

I think it's best to stick with English speaking forums however it would be cool to have the wiki translatable!!

 

[ible]

local forums sound like a nice idea, but from the backlash above it seems like non-english forums should be only discoverable to people who also speak another language, and new posts should only appear in the languages you follow.

you might also get rid of your dragonbox shop support forums in favor of a support forum here on the site, i figured that would take priority?

 

[KidPaddle]

As a German native speaker and as a little technical freak, I have to be able to read and sometimes write English, so it doesn't make any difference to me. And no surprise, when someone buys a Pandora/Pyra, he is a technical nerd, more or less.

So, better make a good forum, as to please everyone.

 

[Bernd]

There is a german version of the forum?
Its to well hidden to find it on pure chance.

 

[benoitb]

There is a nice French community on all consoles (portable mainly) that are able to run emulators and homebrew: open-consoles.com. I noticed already quite a few profiles that are registered both here and on that French website.
So I think it is probably better that way (leaving the Pyra boards in English). Those who can read and write in English can participate here and those you cannot probably already found out about alternative (and good) sites.

Maybe it would be a nice thing to have a welcoming page in different languages that points to recommended alternative sites in different languages ? If we feel at some point that a recommended site is not good anymore or better ones appear we could update the index.

If there is enough audience showing interest to have a French section here, I would participate but I feel it could be frustrating to others who cannot participate. For example I would be frustrated if a big chunk of the discussion on these boards were in a language I cannot understand. I would get the feeling that I am missing out.

I agree with Wally about the Wiki. Having documentation available in local languages would be great.

 

[sebt3]

As long as ptitSeb start making his releases threads in french only, i'm all for it

 

[matzesu]

forum.gp2x.de, when i came to the board i was a noob, and now im a MOD in the German Boards .., its a bit sad after this long time, but when its just get merged to this boards, and whe can still speak german if whe want to in the German Parts, why not ??, This means it need less work because you only have 1 Domain to make service..
It dosnt mean that everybody who speaks a language nativly have to be in its own part of the boards, but if someone ditnt speak a language at all, he can just enable the languages he speaks,

 

[rygD]

I think having native language sections is a great idea, especially for new non-English speakers that are interested. Furthermore, it might be a good place for those that are selling or buying and prefer to keep the transaction local, or for meetups or help with repairs, etc., so also a section for each of US, UK, Australia and so on.

I also see no reason for people not to use their native language in the main sections, they just may not get replies if there are few/no speakers.

What I am getting at is that if someone is interested and only speaks, say, Spanish, it would be good for them to have a place to ask questions instead of their post or thread getting buried. I have family that almost only speak Spanish, so...

As an English only person I say that @Elw3 is wrong. I may not understand Spanish, but I have friends and family that do, so I can get help from them if no one else replies. For other languages I would try to use something to translate back and forth if they don't get a response. The other side of Elw3's argument may be correct, though. Newbies may not be patient enough to find the section or wait for a native tongue reply.

Also, why isn't matzesu a mod here? If the boards get merged

 

[Caine]

Personally, I do not see the need for a Dutch sub-forum, nor am I a fan of multiple language forums in general (it splits the community, we are too small for that).

That said, the ones struggling with English should have a stronger voice here.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

I agree with benoitb about open-consoles.com, this french site is well alive and already has it's modests OP and Pyra sections.
I don't feel the need for a multiple languages here, I don't feel that this feature has been requested.

 

[matzesu]

Im no Mod in this Board, because im allready a Mod on the German Boards,
but if whe merge the German whit the English Boards, i wouldnd bother to became a Moderator only for the German Part,
Whit the Permission to delete Spambots in the International Part, but as my English isnt that great, i would like to have my operations basis in the German Part..

 

[Failbert]

I also think that this is too small a community for splitting it into smaller ones. Let's perhaps stick to English. We seem to have enough German and French speakers to warrant quite lively communities of those, but I have a concern:

Let's say a German user has a problem with using the Pyra, and posts it casually on a German forum. Turns out it's some kind of bug, and they find a fix/workaround. Now they should report in on the general, English-language support forums, possibly go through translating their train of thought, posts etc. That's some work, some duty. And if they don't, when the bug resurfaces on the English forums, there is either a chance none of the German-speakers will be around to say "hey, I saw this one, we found a solution", or he will have to say "hey yeah we have a solutuion for it but it's in German, hope You make sense out of it" or explain it one by one.

The above of course is a super exaggerated situation and with our fine sense of community it quite possibly may never happen in such a setup, but still...

I don't see the Pyra as a technocratic, hermetic, unapproachable device restricted for English speaking open source freaks only- however, I think that someone interested in a linux device should have enough skill to formulate a question or report a finding or project, or at least ask for someone to PM him in a different language, which could be encouraged on a multi-lingual welcome site. Speaking of which, I like benoitb's idea of a landing page pointing to local sites- but provided they would be local-language articles of the wiki, not seperate forums, so seperate communities.

If there is a great need for local communities, they could start it themselves either from a scratch or as a subforum from some community they come from and where they have good communication with each other (like perhaps open-consoles, or any region-specific abandonware/emulation comminities that are plenty). If they have useful observations and findings and they don't come here to share them, they probably wouldn't share them either if their respective local forums were hosted here.

A different thing to consider is local language forums in general discussion. These shouldn't be limited at all, provided there is some self-policing to make sure all mistakenly placed technical inquiries get posted to the general forums so we can build up a general knowledge base

e: but as forums user Caine says, let's perhaps wait for those struggling with English assess these necessities

tl;dr Local wikis - yes, absolutely, and point to them from the starting page. Local forums - rather not, except for chit-chat.

 

[PowerGod]

Maybe it is better to keep only off-topic discussions on these language forums... and everything that could be technical or relevant for games/consoles/development should remain in english...

Personally I'll never go in the german/french sections unless the search function will find something relevant... but then I'll have to googletranslate...

EDIT: why no POLL ?!

 

[rygD]

For technical stuff I definitely don't think we should label it English. Those sections where people go to get help should be open for posts and threads in any language.

Maybe just have menu options in native language based on region, and not split the main community (North America would need English, French and Spanish). The intro info page could also be in native language of there are people to translate.
[doublepost=1517569134,1517569079][/doublepost]Oh, and buttons under post window, and the options, could be localized.

 

[pyrat]

I don't like monolingualism. I'd prefer a single forum in which everyone is welcome to post in any language and answer in any language. We ignore the messages in languages we don't understand and read the ones we understand.
And maybe we learn a little of some languages meanwhile. Maybe just add as etiquette than if you write a message M in language A and quote text T in language B, you could summarize or translate or give some hints in A about T
so that A-readers who aren't B-readers can understand (the alternative is just write M in B if you feel like).

Assuming everyone speaks English is both misleading and discriminatory. Misleading because many people get some level of English comprehension without the ability to express easily. And the fact that
they need more time or energy to use English may make them contribute less or contribute worse. When arguing about something they may lose the argument because of their English, not because
of their idea. I often read (not particularly here, in the web) people who are struggling to write English and I would have understood more easily in some other language they would have more easily used.
I think reading is always easier than writing, so people should be encouraged to write in the language they feel they can write better.

Discriminatory because as long as you assume all techies speak English, people who don't won't be able to become techies. It's like you can only use one language to build tech,others are relegated to user interface localization. We won't know what we're losing until we multilingualize technology. But since the current group of people doing technology already know (or had to learn) English, they never accept other languages, or build technical content in other languages, etc.

At most some functionality could be added to manually tag message with language codes (with a default per user) and a user option to filter messages outside a set of languages (and/or fancier, integrate apertium or some free automatic translation). But I wouldn't really activate that unless I'm really overwhelmed by messages I don't understand. I think it's good to see languages you don't understand, even if only as a reminder of the cultural wealth of the world.I'd like forums organized by subject, not language.

 

[Terran]

I would say, that the german board was already dead 4-5 years ago. I tried translating so many posts but it had no impact at all, at most it was just a failed try to give the board a new life. Because of that I don't think that it would hurt to integrate the german forum here in order to archive it and maybe a small section for questions for those who can't write english at all. And don't worry, there is no "splitting" at all, because news posts, discussions and release post are all in english anyway. So there is nothing you lose out on there.

 

[matzesu]

Yepp, i remember Times, where the German Board got lot more visitors, whe even had some crazy Threads like ("Das oder Die oder Der Pandora (some off us decide that in Germany, the Pandora should be "Düt Pandora", ))
Whe arend Dead yet, but not that big like the English Boards..