Language specific boards?

[logical123]

I've noticed in recent history that we have had a fair amount of non-English speakers joining the site. In my perusing of other forums, I have seen that some have 'Language Specific Forums', so that you can chat in your native language with others who also speak it, to make it feel more 'homely'. Naturally, they'd have to stick to their language, but could we see the addition of this ever, seeing as we have had a large number of, well, Finnish and German speakers joining or have had join in the past few months?

Thanks, and I'm sure this is just fluff, but it could make these people feel more at home, chatting in their native tongue.

[Izret101]

I'm for and against it at the same time.
I'm for it because it opens the site to more members who do not speak english at all. Also it could offer some people to learn other languages should they show interest in it.

I am against it because it might end up requiring more divisions in the site and more micromanagement that would have to be taken up by someone who speaks both languages.
Notice i said might. I don't know exactly how it would work but it would be a possibility especially when concerning submissions systems and the database assuming these people will also want to do submissions for their region.

[logical123]

I'm for and against it at the same time.
I'm for it because it opens the site to more members who do not speak english at all. Also it could offer some people to learn other languages should they show interest in it.

I am against it because it might end up requiring more divisions in the site and more micromanagement that would have to be taken up by someone who speaks both languages.
Notice i said might. I don't know exactly how it would work but it would be a possibility especially when concerning submissions systems and the database assuming these people will also want to do submissions for their region.

I'm not really talking about the submission systems. I'm just talking about a sub-board that has topics in it for each language, as needed. I could see the site getting large enough one day to need translations of that kind of stuff done, though.

[TraderJake]

Nothing prevents others from using additional languages. The primary reach of this site at this time is... English. It is the language of this site, and for now it is the only language that the main site will be in. Our site simply does not have the readership necessary to have language specific forums. While we appreciate our new expanded audience, at this time we shall focus on providing the best product that we can provide in English.

[Sirgin]

Even though I'm Dutch, I'm against this.

And here's why:

1. There simply aren't enough members on RFG. Half of the time we don't even get 100 English posts per day, so why make a language-specific subforum? For the 10 posts it might get a year? That hardly seems worth it.
2. Learning languages can be done elsewhere that's more aimed towards that goal. This is a gaming site, not an educational language site.
3. Once you start adding subforums for languages, people might demand that you add one for their language, too. So before you know it you'll end up with 15+ subforums with little or no posts in them.
4. And even if you would have those subforums, you need specific moderation for all of them. 99% of the staff only speaks English, so people could be breaking site policies, without you even knowing. That would cause harm to RFG's good reputation and that should be avoided at all cost.


But most of all there simply aren't enough non-English speakers here. I mean, how many active Dutch, German or Finnish members are there? I'm sure not a lot. (With "active" I mean log in atleast once a week and post something)

That's just my $0.02.

[Deafens Proner]

Exatamente.