Forum language localizations

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ilkant
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Forum language localizations

Post by ilkant »

In user profile there is only English board language available. The phpbb supports finnish and other language translations to phpbb at page http://www.phpbb.com/downloads.php. Message to admin: please install some most common of them to this EBT forum.
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lmviterbo
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Post by lmviterbo »

I had no idea this was possible. I've always thought it to be phpBB's fault, never our beloved webmasters'.

Hey guys, what are waiting for? ;) Let's have the forum in languages. If you need any further translations, there's Babel, right? :D
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Post by Ralf »

I think there is no(not much) need to do it in all languages because there is not many in engelish.
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Post by Rufes »

lmviterbo wrote:I had no idea this was possible. I've always thought it to be phpBB's fault, never our beloved webmasters'.

Hey guys, what are waiting for? ;) Let's have the forum in languages. If you need any further translations, there's Babel, right? :D
With PHPBB is so much possible:
birthday mod
age mod
who was online mod
other style (this is a standart style)

and much and much more
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Post by Craco »

True, we have for the moment stayed very close to the standard board with few mods. Basically I like it that way to avoid any risks on problems with the upgrades provided by Phpbb.
Now having said that, there are a few mods/changes applied on the test-forum, which haven't made it to this board yet, mainly because of the turbulence in my private life.. :? Hopefully dust settles down and i can get something in before the end of the year.. :)

Language packs, to be honest, i didn't bother about having any other language installed than english, simply because i thought it wasn't necessary. As i can read now there are at least 2 people in favour of this, maybe there are some more people who like the language packs and i might try it out...

Greetzz,
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Post by Dakkus »

Craco wrote:True, we have for the moment stayed very close to the standard board with few mods. Basically I like it that way to avoid any risks on problems with the upgrades provided by Phpbb.
Now having said that, there are a few mods/changes applied on the test-forum, which haven't made it to this board yet, mainly because of the turbulence in my private life.. :? Hopefully dust settles down and i can get something in before the end of the year.. :)

Language packs, to be honest, i didn't bother about having any other language installed than english, simply because i thought it wasn't necessary. As i can read now there are at least 2 people in favour of this, maybe there are some more people who like the language packs and i might try it out...

Greetzz,
Craco
I think whatever is the actual reason why EBT is multilingual, it applies also to the forum, because at least in theory the forum has the same users with the main site.
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Post by Gauss »

Well, then, here's someone to speak against it.

The main EBT site (hereafter "MEBT") and the forum (EBTF) serve different purposes, and hence what is right for one need not be right for the other.

The fact that MEBT is multi-lingual has been a key to its success; I'm convinced of that. The function of MEBT is to accept data (note entries) and to deliver data (hits, statistics) from and to the single users. So it is a dialogue between two parties, the server and the user. The user may understand only one language and/or be more comfortable using a site where he understands every word. Also, the information delivered is generally rather complex: The site explains what EBT is about, how to enter notes, what's new, etc. New languages there could increase the number of users, or at least they serve as a gimmick for publicity. ("Look, they even translated it into Esperanto which nobody speaks.") And I would like to point out that the addition of new languages is not as easy as it may seem, both from the administrative and from the political point of view.

EBTF is entirely different. It is a community platform. The truly European community of EBT discusses, chats, meets, etc. Any community requires one common means of communication, a language, and as a matter of fact, this must be english (even though the Republic of Ireland with about 4 million inhabitants and about 1000 users is the only country in the Eurozone where english is official language). Hence english is the natural only choice for EBTF. Given that there are very few native speakers among us, the inhibition should be very low. ("My english aren't well enouf" doesn't count as excuse, as long as we understand each other.)

My biggest concern about the future of EBT is that it loses its European character and fragments into a loose assembly of national communities. The signs are there: The posting rate in the english forum has hardly increased over the recent months which saw some national forums sky-rocketing.

Get me right, I'm not speaking against the formation of national communities here. But I have reason to believe that a localisation of the forum languages will strengthen only the language-other-than-english subforums, and this at the expense of the "international" forums, and that this would not attract many more new forum users.

Experience so far shows that the problem that the forum requires a separate registration, in english, has not deterred a large number of potential forum users. I acknowledge here also the activities on the spanish forum to include spanish users without knowledge of english better. But these efforts have also proved sufficient.
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Post by helloggs »

I don't care if the forum administration becomes multilingual or not, but I don't think that keeping it in English will help to prevent the formation of national communities as described by Gauss. If a user does not speak English he will not learn it just because the forum menue is in English.
On the other hand, I don't really see this nationalisation happen anyway, Dutch and Finnish users read & post for example in the German forum, so there is a certain interest in each other. I read into the French and Dutch forum occasionally, but of course that depends on your language skills, there is not much fun for me in Spain, Portugal, Finnland or Greece! And the same applies to users from other countries that don't speak English, but there is not much you can do about it.
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Post by Thompson »

helloggs wrote:If a user does not speak English he will not learn it just because the forum menue is in English.
I agree that, user must have had some english-education.

If this board becomes multilingual, I will use finnish in language menus - not english. I think that multilangual option isn't a trouble to anyone 8)
Those who want use their own language, will then use it - rest uses english menus.
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FORUM FOR ENGLISH SPEAKING VISITORS

Post by LITO »

:idea: I suggest there should be a forum for English speaking visitors in each langage discution site , just like Slovenian and Maltese end French discution sites do . This particular forum would have to remain sticky .
:arrow: It would be a nice way for many of us to visit and ask questions all over the forums to our mates who do not speak same languages but speak English too (more less) . :flag-eu: :D
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Post by the.unknown »

Maybe, in that case, it would be interesting to allow the visitors only to see "their" language topic, as a teaser, and so that non-members cannot read inside stuff like the Christmas crisis?
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Post by Dakkus »

groefke wrote:Maybe, in that case, it would be interesting to allow the visitors only to see "their" language topic, as a teaser, and so that non-members cannot read inside stuff like the Christmas crisis?
Nah. History has happened, no matter how you'd want to fight it. Trying to hide your past only causes negative things to happen.
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Post by Säbb »

I know that this topic is quite old, but there's still a chance that the EBT-Forum gets multilingual.

The european thought is to form a community of different countries, where even every little minority is accepted, for example the maltese language.

Gauss, have you ever been to Poland or any other country of the former CIS? These countries will be the next who will introduce the Euro as their official currency. Well, one part of the polish people is able to speak english and the other part speaks german - so you can never be sure in what language you need to communicate.

And Gauss I know that you are a fan of the english language, but as a EBT-member you need to think a bit different. We are not in the United States and we are not any colonie of them. So, why should we communicate in English - even if it is just a "conversation" between the forum software and us?

As you wrote in your statement in 2004. The tracking project EBT is successfull, because of its big variety of languages. There's enough spanish, italian or what ever users in Europe who are not able to understand English. Maybe you also know the "spelling problem" in France about EuroBillTracker.

The Eurozone is a community of like 11 languages, so why shouldn't we support every single one of them? Well, there might be some technical problems - that's all guys? I won't imagine what problems they have in the European Union.

The aim of the Forum is not only to communicate international. I got in touch with some users who are not able to use the EBT-Tool, because of their language knowledge, there's plenty of users who are not able to use the english parts of the forum, because of the same problem. I won't imagine all those french, spanish or even german users who are not going to register, because of the english user interface. But I care about their information and opinion.

Unfortunately there will be no statement of an affected user, because this discussion is in English.
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Post by De-Ker »

Säbb wrote:I know that this topic is quite old, but there's still a chance that the EBT-Forum gets multilingual.

The european thought is to form a community of different countries, where even every little minority is accepted, for example the maltese language.

Gauss, have you ever been to Poland or any other country of the former CIS? These countries will be the next who will introduce the Euro as their official currency. Well, one part of the polish people is able to speak english and the other part speaks german - so you can never be sure in what language you need to communicate.

And Gauss I know that you are a fan of the english language, but as a EBT-member you need to think a bit different. We are not in the United States and we are not any colonie of them. So, why should we communicate in English - even if it is just a "conversation" between the forum software and us?

As you wrote in your statement in 2004. The tracking project EBT is successfull, because of its big variety of languages. There's enough spanish, italian or what ever users in Europe who are not able to understand English. Maybe you also know the "spelling problem" in France about EuroBillTracker.

The Eurozone is a community of like 11 languages, so why shouldn't we support every single one of them? Well, there might be some technical problems - that's all guys? I won't imagine what problems they have in the European Union.

The aim of the Forum is not only to communicate international. I got in touch with some users who are not able to use the EBT-Tool, because of their language knowledge, there's plenty of users who are not able to use the english parts of the forum, because of the same problem. I won't imagine all those french, spanish or even german users who are not going to register, because of the english user interface. But I care about their information and opinion.

Unfortunately there will be no statement of an affected user, because this discussion is in English.
i agree with you, as a matter of fact, German is the most spoken mother tongue in Europe, so i should even make more sense that that was the official language :P

of course English is being understand by more people so that should be the main language..

anyway lot's of language packs are there to download. and if they are not you can easily make them yourself (in notepad) i once did this for Limburgs (a Dutch dialect/area language)

so i would say just implant them (if possible) or at least German and French or so..
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Re: Forum language localizations

Post by tabbs »

Just switched from "British English" to German ("Deutsch/Du") to try that out, and the result is a pretty odd mix. The interface elements now are in German (guess that is what phpBB provides), but the descriptions for those forums that are not language specific are in English (see Announcements, Feedback, Int'l Meetings, Statistics, Notes and Coins, etc.). Guess I'll change my prefs back to English, though what I speak is American or Germerican rather than British, hehe.

Sure, German may be the language that is the mother tongue of most people in Euroland and the European Union. (Außerdem ist Deutsch kinderleicht - ich jedenfalls spreche es seit dem Kleinkind-Alter. :mrgreen: ) But let's be honest; English is by far the most important bridge language in both the EU as a whole and in the currency union. If I am in a country where I don't speak the "local" language, German would in general not be the language I would pick to communicate with the "locals". And I am pretty darn sure I'm not the only one who does that.

Now if somebody is new to EBT and goes to the eurobilltracker.eu website, s/he can easily choose from a variety of languages. That multilingual interface works fine, and quite a few people may never or hardly ever visit the eurobilltrackerforum.com site. Those who do will of course notice English first. So what? After a few seconds, they will notice a forum in the language they speak best.

The only improvement which IMO would make sense: Put the forum language options in a row somewhere at the top. This way somebody who is not a member yet can still click on, say, "nl" and get the Dutch version. Would that be (technically) possible without requiring a visitor to sign on first?

Christian
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