(sub)forums for non English speaking players

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Inte
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(sub)forums for non English speaking players

Post by Inte »

Hi altogether!

As you might noticed TMW isn't just played by native English speakers and there are efforts (other forums) to support people in their native language.

Why don't we use synergy effects and set the focus of all players (also not English speaking people) to this great forum?

It's so easy to setup a subsection International TMW Community and establish French, German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese ... forums. There's a bunch of long time playing TMW contributors, which are willing to do a moderator job, in case global moderators aren't able to talk/write in a specific language.

At the moment it's very disappointing to visit several forums, because the national communities are split up in various forums. For example the German TMW community ... it's spread over min. of two forums and really don't get connected to each other.

Have a look at http://forums.gentoo.org/ They've done it in a very good way. Just get inspired!

What do you think about this?

PS: If you think this post fits more to Website development, please move it. Thanks!
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Bine
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Post by Bine »

Hi Inte,

its a very good idea!

I think, that there are enough people on TMW who havent got the brave to post here, because their english is not so good!

Oh, i looked at gentoo-forums. A very good site, i think!

Cya!
Greets Bine
See you in TMW!!!
(Sorry for my bad english, i´m from Germany!)
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Post by Len »

Rule #5 Speak English.

Frankly, I wouldn’t play a game that uses a language I couldn’t understand nor would I expect them to accommodate me…

If anyone wishes to create their own server nothing is stopping them as long as they follow the GPL guidelines
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Inte
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Post by Inte »

Bine wrote:I think, that there are enough people on TMW who havent got the brave to post here, because their english is not so good!
That's the point! Some people can't contribute, although they would like to, just because it's not allowed to talk in their native language. It's so weird. :?

At some point they'll start threads in English. To get into TMW and to build up their confident to read/write in English, there's a need for native language forums so they don't get freaked out and lost.
Len wrote:Rule #5 Speak English.
Come on ... try to ask yourself what this rule is good for. :roll:
Len wrote:Frankly, I wouldn’t play a game that uses a language I couldn’t understand nor would I expect them to accommodate me…
I know at least two parents, whose children (seven and ten years old) are playing TMW. The ten year old is going to have his first English class after summer holidays. What are you going to say to him? Maybe "STFU! Talk English or setup your own server!"? No you won't. At least I hope you won't.

They're all prospective developers and willing to join the community. Why don't we give them a chance to contribute in their own language, until they're able to do this in English?

And of course ... organizing real life meetings is much easier in forums focused to a specific language/region. ;)
Last edited by Inte on 15 Feb 2008, 08:03, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Dave »

Len wrote:Rule #5 Speak English.

Frankly, I wouldn’t play a game that uses a language I couldn’t understand nor would I expect them to accommodate me…

If anyone wishes to create their own server nothing is stopping them as long as they follow the GPL guidelines
I doubt any of us could have put that much better. ..and there is a particular part of his comment that should be emphasized. "..nor would I expect them to accommodate me" ..think about it from an administrator / moderator / designer perspective. How can you possibly cater to the flood of languages that will undoubtedly be encountered? The way I see it, running a TMW server in your native language is an opportunity to help the project's development. ..and it's great that people want to help and it's cool if that desire helps to motivate their learning of the English language, but I don't see why anyone should be dancing around any stiff language barriers. Placing a forum for non-English speakers on an English speaking board will only encourage non-English speakers to continue to hang out there. Why not start an entire message board for non-English TMW players and have a forum for each language that is requested? Then those players would have a better portal to meet up with like-minded, fellow-language-speakers to start their own server.

Just about anyone that has helped to develop part of this game has had some sort of experience dealing with people that speak less-than-perfect English. Some people are just down-right cryptic, but most are usually able to at least get their point across. If a person can try to speak some broken English, everyone on this board seems to have moderately decent interpreting skills.. but beyond that level of effort, this place would turn in to an English-tutoring program.
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Post by ElvenProgrammer »

Actually I won't exclude the possibility of having localized subforums one day, but atm the required effort would be too much in respect to the expected audit.

In the meanwhile I'd prefer the creation of localized communities, as I did for the italian one: http://www.themanaworld.it or as Matt did for germans: http://themanaworld.de.

This approach has proved to be useful also for other projects such as wordpress or phpbb.

Usually someone in localized communities is in contact with the development team, so that everything's produced there doesn't remain isolated or gets lost.

And as you can read I'm one of those with broken english :wink:
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Post by Inte »

dabe wrote:..and there is a particular part of his comment that should be emphasized. "..nor would I expect them to accommodate me" ..think about it from an administrator / moderator / designer perspective. How can you possibly cater to the flood of languages that will undoubtedly be encountered?
I would not expect any support by a native English speaker, when I could not speak his language. No one forces them/you to do this. But I'm (other players too) willing to give support in my native language, as I've done this a lot ingame over the last two weeks I play TMW and obviously there's a need for this kind of support. Even we could help a brazillian player by using babelfish, although we don't speak Portuguese. ;)
dabe wrote:The way I see it, running a TMW server in your native language is an opportunity to help the project's development.
Those who are able to setup a TMW server in their native language are also able to contribute in English. That's not the point ...

We all want to play a MassiveMultiplayerORPG ... why should we be interested in setting up a server, where only a fistful of players is online? :lol:
dabe wrote:Placing a forum for non-English speakers on an English speaking board will only encourage non-English speakers to continue to hang out there. Why not start an entire message board for non-English TMW players and have a forum for each language that is requested? Then those players would have a better portal to meet up with like-minded, fellow-language-speakers to start their own server.
I don't get it. Why are you afraid of non-English speaking players, who are hanging out in their native forum. At least they are here and not widespread. Why should we setup an additional forum for non-English speakers and split up the community instead of pooling everyone here? That's the way we do it at the moment and we are very distressed about it.
dabe wrote:Just about anyone that has helped to develop part of this game has had some sort of experience dealing with people that speak less-than-perfect English. Some people are just down-right cryptic, but most are usually able to at least get their point across. If a person can try to speak some broken English, everyone on this board seems to have moderately decent interpreting skills.. but beyond that level of effort, this place would turn in to an English-tutoring program.
I'm also not willing to teach people English, but I'm willing to give everyone the chance to ask questions in their native language. And believe me ... sometimes it's even hard to understand some people when they're talking in their native language. :lol:
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Post by Inte »

ElvenProgrammer wrote:Actually I won't exclude the possibility of having localized subforums one day, but atm the required effort would be too much in respect to the expected audit.
I'm happy to hear that (the first part of this quote). What effort are you talking about? Doing some clicks for adding a forum and some additional ones to give someone moderator permissions? Maybe I missed something. Can you please get more into detail?
ElvenProgrammer wrote:In the meanwhile I'd prefer the creation of localized communities, as I did for the italian one: http://www.themanaworld.it or as Matt did for germans: http://themanaworld.de.
Maybe it needs some time, until one native message board is established in the community. As you might noticed I'm just a bit upset of the divided local communities. Some forums vanished over time and players got lost, just because the admin wasn't willing to let someone else do his job after he quit.

That is one of the main reasons I'm talking here to you. As long as TMW exists forums.tmw.org gets administrated.
ElvenProgrammer wrote:And as you can read I'm one of those with broken english :wink:
Hehe ... you're one of the few Italians (who live in Italy) I know, who speaks English. The last time I was in Italy communication was only possible because I had my Italian<->German-Dictionary with me. ;)
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Post by Len »

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We all want to play a MassiveMultiplayerORPG ... why should we be interested in setting up a server, where only a fistful of players is online? :lol:
I expect TMW to grow substantially in popularity (hopefully enough to support multiple servers).

I remember playing Runescape when it was one or two servers struggling to stay afloat, they even forced you to click on the advertising to keep on playing. And now they are huge! (although the game has lost its charm)
Inte wrote:Actually I won't exclude the possibility of having localized subforums one day, but atm the required effort would be too much in respect to the expected audit.I'm happy to hear that (the first part of this quote). What effort are you talking about? Doing some clicks for adding a forum and some additional ones to give someone moderator permissions? Maybe I missed something. Can you please get more into detail?
The game's development depends heavily on constructive criticism, and most developers here are specialized. The person who knows most about a certain subject might need someone to translate for him/her.
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Post by Crush »

Same answer as always:

Themanaworld.org stays in english. When you want to talk about TMW in your local language then create your own forum. But we don't want any boards here we don't understand.
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Post by Matt »

Well creating subforums shouldn't be that big task. And why shouldn't we create localized subforums for languages we do (or some trusted community member like me ;) ) understand? Just give mod rights to some who understand the language. Some will whine cause they wont have a subforum in their language but thats life ;)
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Post by ElvenProgrammer »

Matt wrote:Well creating subforums shouldn't be that big task. And why shouldn't we create localized subforums for languages we do (or some trusted community member like me ;) ) understand? Just give mod rights to some who understand the language. Some will whine cause they wont have a subforum in their language but thats life ;)
You got the point. It is not a matter of a few clicks as someone says, the problem is trying to find the right person for the job. I can think of 4 moderators for their respective languages (and no matt you're not one of them) that I trust, no more. I won't think about this possibility until we have a bigger community/trusted supporters.
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Post by Matt »

ElvenProgrammer wrote:
Matt wrote:Well creating subforums shouldn't be that big task. And why shouldn't we create localized subforums for languages we do (or some trusted community member like me ;) ) understand? Just give mod rights to some who understand the language. Some will whine cause they wont have a subforum in their language but thats life ;)
You got the point. It is not a matter of a few clicks as someone says, the problem is trying to find the right person for the job. I can think of 4 moderators for their respective languages (and no matt you're not one of them) that I trust, no more. I won't think about this possibility until we have a bigger community/trusted supporters.
You have a lot of nerve to say that, after all that I didn't do for you!
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Re: (sub)forums for non English speaking players

Post by Keni »

English Version

I speak some English but in fact my native language is Spanish.

Spanish Version
Yo hablo algo de Ingles pero en realidad mi lenguaje nativo es el Español.
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i
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Re: (sub)forums for non English speaking players

Post by i »

Keni wrote:English Version

I speak some English but in fact my native language is Spanish.

Spanish Version
Yo hablo algo de Ingles pero en realidad mi lenguaje nativo es el Español.
Oh well. In fact mine L1 is Polish, but that doesn't means I have to post in Polish. Try to understand that making many local-oriented subforums will split discussion between them, making then unreadable for others. The way we develop TMW determine that we have to understand each other. So the best solution in this case is to create own forum in Spanish, German, Polish, etc. If need this for some reasons I think It wouldn't be a problem to provide link to forum on main TWM site.

And of course there is another reason why we don't implement multi-lingual forums. That reason is limited bandwidth. As you noticed TMW is non commercial project. We can not afford to pay for super-hiper-extra-turbo hosting which will handle such traffic.

My answer for multi-lingual support on forums is NO.
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