I think it’d be a good idea to add regional subforums, for example German, French, Spanish or Italian forums. OpenSUSE has very strong communities, especially the German and Finnish one. I am German and I always prefer writing in German than in English.
That’s an excellent idea and one we’re giving good consideration to. We would prefer for other existing forums for languages other than English to contact us and join our merge process. There are a lot of issues to consider with language specific forums like who will moderate them. Anyway, I’m sure it’s in our future…we’ve just been so focused on getting the English forums out the door that we’ve put a lower priority on discussing multiple language forums. Thanks for poking us though. 
Any news on this? As you may know, another German forum was founded. You can find it at SUSEusers.de.
Maybe we can collaborate with them.
Maturion,
> Any news on this?
Not really…the staff here discussed it and we haven’t really come to any
definitive conclusions. Here are some of the questions we threw around:
Would we duplicate our forum structure for each language or have a single
forum for each language? What would be the benefit of either choice? What
is the goal of having non-English language forums as part of our structure?
Who would benefit from that and why? Doesn’t having language specific
forums undermine the goal of having a single knowledge pool?
I think the staff here is still open to the option of language forums if
we can pin down how to do it and if we can pin down the benefit to the
community of doing so. How would you answer the above questions?
Is it really so important to use you’re native language.
We have all have one common interest computers
Second it is just a matter what you are used to
I am used to the English language in the computer world , even my home PC is in English
If I used the Dutch language for my PC, than my reaction to most things is my goodness what does it mean.
Beside that than you can build one database , and it does not matter where you live , you can use it.
dobby9
On 10/01/2008 dobby9 wrote:
> Is it really so important to use you’re native language.
Yes. Ask your less tech savvy friends and relatives.
Uwe
Once I try one of the older opensuse version in the Dutch language , can not remember with one the translation was so bad , that reinstall it using the English language
Why I can not remember because I use opensuse from opensuse 7.3 on
dobby9
dobby9 wrote:
> Is it really so important to use you’re native language.
Måske engelsk er godt nok for dig, men ikke for alle!
–
Ghost of Guest Past
- dobby9 wrote, On 10/02/2008 07:16 AM:
> Once I try one of the older opensuse version in the Dutch language , can
> not remember with one the translation was so bad , that reinstall it
> using the English language
Well, the user base in Dutch is probably rather small, so a lower quality in the localization of a Linux distro is expected. But what about French, Spanish, and last but not least, German?
Uwe
Well that is quit easy , I am retired now but as long as I was working in Computer department my company always use IBM mainframes
And those machines only understand English or maybe jet better Americans.
SO I am used to the English language in the computer
world and if I change it than it will maybe with my native langauge and that is Dutch
dobby9
- dobby9,
yeah, true for IT professionals. But IMHO the average Opensuse user shouldn’t be necessarily an IT pro.
Uwe
I think I can express myself well in English. But this will never be as good as I can do in German. Plus, I really like my language and want to support its use where possible. SUSE was originally a German enterprise, so there is a large German userbase.
Many Spanish and French speaking people are afraid of registering in an English forum.
There does exist a German openSUSE forum at LINUX-Club.de (Don’t worry about the name, it’s 100% SuSE). There are quite 40.000 users, so this forum is bigger than this one here. There’s also SUSEusers.de.
Maybe we should do it like Ubuntu: There does exist one central English support forum and several smaller local and official forums in many languages.
As I understand English is quickly becoming the main communication language as it seems country’s like China, India and Russia are developing and learning in this language (again technically/IT related like Uwe already said).
Alongside this my own experience is that if I try to search for a solution using the Dutch language… I’ll be a happy puppy to find the right answer as quickly as when using English.
So in this way I can relate to the thought that if everybody uses one language it’s better for all in more ways.
On the other hand, I wish I could also focus more on those people seeking help/relations and also those giving valuable additions in my own language (being Dutch as well).
Only communicating in English means you will be missing a great potential as not everyone is able or willing to learn English just to join in here with us.
Just to throw in my chips, to the Admins & Mods here: If you ever want to start up a Dutch subform, I’d love to step in and help as I’ve never really found a Dutch forum I felt as home as as here. 
Cheers,
Wj
dobby9 wrote:
> Is it really so important to use you’re native language.
Yes. Absolutely. The perfect translation and the easy and native support was one of the main reasons for me (and others) to choose S.u.S.E. in the past.
Just supporting english is IMO not a good idea - many people I personally know just speak german and russian. If you like to support just english in the near future, don’t cry about people switching to other distributions as they can get support in their native language there…
Just my 2 cents,
Lars
I think we really need to answer the questions posed by kgroneman above, which are:
- Would we duplicate our forum structure for each language or have a single
forum for each language? - What would be the benefit of either choice?
- What is the goal of having non-English language forums as part of our structure?
- Who would benefit from that and why?
- Doesn’t having language specific forums undermine the goal of having a single knowledge pool?
How have Ubuntu implemented this? Did they duplicate the forum structure for each language? Or do they have a sub-forum for each language?
My own suspicion is if an existing (and established) foreign language forum wanted to merge, they likely would want to retain a large % of their existing structure, and may even want to retain some of their previous/older “post/base” in their language. Hence that might technically reduce the options?
At least for the german subcommunity I don’t see a need for a “copy” of forums.opensuse.org. Unfortunately SUSEusers.de seems to be quite dead, but the linux-club, which has been mentioned here, indeed is a very active board with superfantastic mods who seem to know just about anything (cough) and a very informative Wiki, also some packmans and other packagers often cruise the forum and can give first-hand-advice, so I really recommend taking a look, even though it’s not a official Novell-board (though Novell seems to sympathise with us, they shared a booth with the Linux-Club at the LinuxTag 2008).
forums.opensuse.org should concentrate on being an international board.
Personally I’d say go for the duplicate forum structure. Navigating and ‘workflow’ will then be the same… the difference being the content & language.
If I understand the meaning of single forum correctly it would get very messy! single forum = all questions in one category?
- What would be the benefit of either choice?
The benefit of duplicate structure is that each sub-language form has the potential to grow just as strongly as the English one.
The benefit of a single forum is it keeps things simple as long as post volume stays small…
- What is the goal of having non-English language forums as part of our structure?
Creating an even bigger home base for those looking for support (and more). For instance, finding openSUSE support in my language is very fragmented and harder to find.
- Who would benefit from that and why?
Ideally all of us. The openSUSE community will grow further to it’s potential and those posting in different subforms will be able to bring support, ideas and information across.
- Doesn’t having language specific forums undermine the goal of having a single knowledge pool?
Yes & no. As expressed by others, the single pool of knowledge is not available to all. That’s a loss.
Also missing out on participation due to not feeling comfortable (or not able) to communicate in a given language is also a loss.
Those posting in two or more language forums can act as proxy keeping the knowledge flowing from one to another.
How have Ubuntu implemented this? Did they duplicate the forum structure for each language? Or do they have a sub-forum for each language?
I’m not sure if this is too relevant to focus on. It’s good to learn from what others have done, but also important to follow your own thoughts on setting this up.
My own suspicion is if an existing (and established) foreign language forum wanted to merge, they likely would want to retain a large % of their existing structure, and may even want to retain some of their previous/older “post/base” in their language. Hence that might technically reduce the options?
True… one way around that could be starting afresh and letting the forums grow on it’s own. Where a merger is possible and supported by the merging party then more power to that.
Ubuntu has several official regional sites, like ubuntuusers.de, ubuntu-nl.org and many more. They are officially supported by Ubuntu. Maybe we should try to find a partner for many languages which we should officially support. Linux-Club.de would benefit greatly from being official. They have a well established community and as mentioned above, they even have some developers on their forums. We should support the existing local communities and make them offical.
Just check out how many local communites there are: DistroWatch.com: openSUSE
Magic31,
> Just to throw in my chips, to the Admins & Mods here: If you ever want
> to start up a Dutch subform, I’d love to step in and help as I’ve never
> really found a Dutch forum I felt as home as as here.
We’ll keep that in mind if we ever get to that point. Thanks.
Maturion wrote:
> Ubuntu has several official regional sites, like ubuntuusers.de,
> ubuntu-nl.org and many more. They are officially supported by Ubuntu.
> Maybe we should try to find a partner for many languages which we should
> officially support. Linux-Club.de would benefit greatly from being
> official. They have a well established community and as mentioned
> above, they even have some developers on their forums. We should support
> the existing local communities and make them offical.
>
> Just check out how many local communites there are: ‘DistroWatch.com:
> openSUSE’ (http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=suse)
>
>
An issue that will come up there would be what “rules” would they follow
there own or the ones for this board? Would there administration staff
roll up under the staff here or be separate? There are many huge
procedural questions like that which would need to be worked out but
first and formost, what are their thoughts on merging/joining with the
official forums?
Having gone through the merge, we don’t want to force things on forums
that don’t want it involved. We also don’t want to inadvertently split
the community more by starting up regional forum when there is a viable
alternative elsewhere. There was a point in time where people said to
create a “official” forum and not ask or care what the existing forums
thought. That brought about many mixed feelings and some distrust which
I think helped cause the merge of the forums to happen much later then
it could have.
Personally, as staff I think most of us are willing to listen and try
and work through the issues to get a regional set of forums going, we
just don’t want to jump into it without looking at the different options
and getting everyones thoughts and concerns first.