Thread: New try-out: international subforums

Originally Posted by JimR

As it is, this is an American Forum, that other people happen to participate in. Might be nice for those people to have a place they can talk about Footie or something.

Just look at all the Obama threads--don't see any Hatoyama threads, do you? Or Merkel?

I was thinking about this myself, and I recognize the problem. Ah, if only anything were as objective and simple as we'd like it to be. *sigh*
I think if used well, this could be a useful new set of forums. I only fear losing valuable discourse from members who might go to their 'mother tongue' forum and never come back...


Hence, I propose all SRP dialogue take place in Esperanto!

Originally Posted by JimR

Or Merkel?

You don't see any about her in German forums, either.

political discussions or such about religion and other controversal topics are forbidden there

Have to admit, I don't quite see the point, but it is an interesting idea. Flea markets (for example) do differ from place to place, region to region, and what's available similarly differs. This is a thorny one. Well done for addressing it, guys.

Originally Posted by 0livia

political discussions or such about religion and other controversal topics are forbidden there

That's a bit sad, but what the hey.

Originally Posted by 0livia

I'm not interested in a german sub forum.

The closest experience I've had in other wet-shaving forums was the creation and moderation of a Portuguese Social Group, since a significant number of members are either Portuguese or speak Portuguese. This way the group was meant to exchange ideas of local products, local shops, possible get-togethers, etc.
Are there Social Groups here?

Originally Posted by AlanII

That's a bit sad, but what the hey.

Not if you consider the history of politics in Germany...Or if you've ever seen Mayday in Berlin.

I'd just like to add to the mix that its a double edged sword. With regards to non-English speakers, its a massive blessing and we should do whatever we can to help them. However, the main problem I see is if they get going TOO well, especially in common languages (Spanish, German) lots of important info could be discussed, but only between (and accessible to) say, 200 people vs. the entire SRP community.

My point:
Lets say I ask about say, Z.T. Engels in the German Forum. (I just made this up- that way no hidden meanings). Olivia happens to know something about it and replies. Myself and abcd1234 get very interested, research it, and post our findings. Olivia takes that and tracks it even further. Eventually we find out that ZTE is actually a Pakistani knock off. The discussion ends, and any German speaker now knows ZTE is Pakistani. However, a non-german speaker, upon searching the forums may not know this. Okay, so if they search ZTE it'll show up and they can translate it. But what if they search for wet shaving, and there is a German thread on "nass rasur"? Same topic, very different words...

So while it includes more members, and we should make that effort, there are reasons that common languages were developed- to promote understanding and communication. Imagine how a country would function if not all it's citizens could understand eachother...

The information workflow should work differently, though. If it's important, it goes into the Wiki. Problem solved. If and when i18n of the Wiki should be required, we'll implement that.

Oh yeah. Tags. Nobody uses them. Bit of a shame, really.

Originally Posted by BeBerlin

The information workflow should work differently, though. If it's important, it goes into the Wiki. Problem solved. If and when i18n of the Wiki should be required, we'll implement that.

Oh yeah. Tags. Nobody uses them. Bit of a shame, really.

But that is not how people interact. Conversations make them aware of new interesting pieces of information, then they go to wiki/forums/web to search for more data.

I am not aware of anyone who runs regular searches for tags, keywords or regular expressions to learn what is new either on forums or on wiki. People are not machines.