# Foreign Language Forums?



## Morrus (Dec 24, 2012)

I'm throwing this idea out there for both mods/admins and everyone else as a potential idea.

The idea is that we gradually add forums for different languages.  Each modded by a native speaker who also speaks fluent English.

Pros -- there are a LOT of people who don't visit [notranslate]EN World[/notranslate] because they don't speak English.  We'd love to have them here!

Cons -- there would be people on the boards saying things that others can't understand.  We do have a limited inbuilt translation capability, though (see the flags at the bottom of the page).

Thoughts?  I don't imagine English speakers will care particularly about a bunch of people speaking, say, Chinese; they won't interact.  But are there any potential pitfalls you see?


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## Dice4Hire (Dec 24, 2012)

I would certainly support this idea, but I think it would end up in a lot of dead or nearly dead forums. I think some of the major languages would be a good idea, but which ones?


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## Nikosandros (Dec 24, 2012)

The idea is certainly interesting. How do you plan to "lure" non-English speaking posters here once the corresponding board has been set up?


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## Umbran (Dec 25, 2012)

In general, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the idea, if you have some indication there's sufficient market for such places.

I note that moderation of such forums would be sketchy, at best, until such time as speakers of foreign tongues of appropriate dedication and character were identified - and identifying them may also prove difficult, since it is hard for us to tell which of them really is hitting the right tone.


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## Lwaxy (Dec 25, 2012)

I know for the Germans, this might likely be a wasted effort. Germans have at least one forum that's as well known as [notranslate]EN World[/notranslate] (well, not quite but almost, for German speakers) and the people there usually don't want to venture elsewhere. Either they speak English and just don't like what [notranslate]EN World[/notranslate] has to offer, or they don't and don't want to go where there is predominantly English language. 

And what Umbran says. Could lead to all sorts of misunderstandings and misfortunes.


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## Neurotic (Dec 25, 2012)

I'm Croatian. I know one more playing here, but as I see it, most of literature and game books are in English and most players speak passable to good English. Most of native speakers probably would cringe at my heavy slavic accent, but here, they don't have to hear me speak 

As such, and given lack of DMs even now, I think there would be initial furor, opening of national forums for a group of people and then they would see more adventures in English forums and rejoin, leaving dead threads all over the place. What national forums would accomplish (I think) is that separate groups who played together in real life could gather online and play. They would probably need forum dice back for it to be practical.


Exception to this would be IMO Indians and Chinese. The reason is that they are most numerous and English may not be as widespread as in European countries.


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## El Mahdi (Dec 25, 2012)

deleted


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## Morrus (Dec 27, 2012)

I think we might trial this with a single forum for one language.  Give it 3 months and see what happens.  If it doesn't work, no harm done.  If it does - great!

So we need to decide two things: which language; and who would be willing to moderate it (it would need to be a native speaker of that language who also speaks fluent English so that they can report to the rest of the mods/admins).  That'll need to be an existing EN World member.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Dec 27, 2012)

I don't know, I only glanced at German forum alternatives, but it seemed they had active membership. I don't know how much overlap there is, but it could very well be it may not be relevant.

I think the challenge might be getting to communicate its existence to non-visitors of the board. Anyone already here probably doesn't really need a foreign language board anymore, and anyone not yet here - well, he would need something to drag him here. 

Maybe word of mouth can do some of it, but I believe you would also need some kind of "killer app". 3E got big as _the_ resource on D&D 3E. [notranslate]EN World[/notranslate] may need to offer at least more than just a foreign language form - it may also need to offer foreign language news with that.

I know [MENTION=90399]TheClone[/MENTION] is relatively active in the blogging and news area on RPGs in Germany. I don't know if he or people like him would be interested in helping [notranslate]EN World[/notranslate] out on that front. 
Imagine a few a key articles translated to German with a degree of quality beyond that Google Translate or Babelfish has to offer?


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## Morrus (Dec 27, 2012)

German is clearly out; we have a 100% "we Germans don't need your dirty stinkin' forum" consensus from the Germans in this thread. (I kid...)

I'm thinking maybe Portugese (thinking Brazil here).  Or a really big country like India or China.


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## Neurotic (Dec 28, 2012)

There are few chileans and argentinians I know of and, except for Brazil, south america speaks spanish. Same forum would support european spanish and mexicans too.
NOTE: apologies to any people I got wrong national name for then, english is not my first language either


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## LightPhoenix (Dec 28, 2012)

My suggestion would be to look at the data on who is coming to the site and choose the language based on that.  This fairly recent post provides some starting points.  It looks like, despite what posters in this thread have said, German would be the appropriate language to trial.  If you're dead-set against it, Italian and Portuguese would be appropriate choices as well.


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## Morrus (Dec 28, 2012)

Neurotic said:


> There are few chileans and argentinians I know of and, except for Brazil, south america speaks spanish. Same forum would support european spanish and mexicans too.
> NOTE: apologies to any people I got wrong national name for then, english is not my first language either




Spanish does seem like a good candidate - most of a continent plus a European country.  Isn't it one of the most spoken languages in the word? (I would guess at the most being Chinese, but I don't know for sure).


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## Neurotic (Dec 28, 2012)

39. Zagreb 2,365 
26. Croatia 2,816 

This is a surprise. I know we have active gaming community and I realize this doesn't represent number of people, but visits, but even assuming 2 visits a day (which is probably too much for most) it's over 1000 players. I'll have to ask around


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## Morrus (Dec 28, 2012)

Neurotic said:


> 39. Zagreb 2,365
> 26. Croatia 2,816
> 
> This is a surprise. I know we have active gaming community and I realize this doesn't represent number of people, but visits, but even assuming 2 visits a day (which is probably too much for most) it's over 1000 players. I'll have to ask around




That was over a month. 2800/30 days = 93 visit a day.  At 2 visits a day, that's 45 people, not 1000.


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## Neurotic (Dec 29, 2012)

I knew there had to be something I was overlooking


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## PowerWordDumb (Jan 3, 2013)

Soon as some find their moon-language is officially welcomed in any corner of the site you'll have them posting in crazy moon-language in the middle of threads anywhere on the site.  Mark my words.


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## Morrus (Jan 3, 2013)

PowerWordDumb said:


> Soon as some find their moon-language is officially welcomed in any corner of the site you'll have them posting in crazy moon-language in the middle of threads anywhere on the site.  Mark my words.




We'll make it clear what the rules are. And we have moderators.


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## Greylock (Jan 3, 2013)

I'm hoping to bring two-Spanish speaking players into our game, to actually participate and not just wander around the edge [one is a fiance, the other is a girlfriend]. Most of us already have memberships here, so that familiarity and comfort is already there. Both women would benefit from this idea.


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## PowerWordDumb (Jan 4, 2013)

Morrus said:


> And we have moderators.




Answers itself, now doesn't it?


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