Standard Language?

[Ciprian]

Hello everyone!

Is it just me, or maybe somebody else would find to be a good idea to stick to English as much as possible?
I see a lot of German posts (not only German, but all of the rest of non-English posts are less than those in German), that seems to be very interesting posts/ subjects, but since I don't know German (almost) at all I can't get a sense of them.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am aware of the fact that this forum present localization options, also I am aware that, as much as we, English-only speakers, have the disadvantage that we can't get a sense of the German part of the forum, so the German posters can't get a chance of participation of non-German speakers... But this is exactly my point: OPNsense community is, anyhow, not quite a numerous one... and if we further limit ourselves, and each other, on language barriers etc, I find that to be in exact opposite purpose of that community.

Thank you, and apologies if I am not appropriate with these lines.
Ciprian

[elektroinside]

I see things a bit differently.

The English community is bigger, therefore more information is shared (not necessarily of a better quality), nonetheless probably has more professionals and filled with more issues to learn about. I might be wrong, but in the IT world, most people will turn to international communities anyway, only a few will use localized forums, especially when it comes to such a niche product as opensource firewalls.

My point is, I'm thinking that the ones who turn to localized forums really are not feeling comfortable enough to use English forums unless they have no choice. I also consider that it is better to promote the English forum and populate it by encouraging people to use it instead of localized ones, rather to force anything. And as such, I think things are fine just as they are For the rest of us, we can google translate if need be

[Ciprian]

I also consider that it is better to promote the English forum and populate it by encouraging people to use it instead of localized ones, rather to force anything.

My point exactly (not mandatory, no forcing of any kind), only expressed in other words :

...a good idea to stick to English as much as possible?

It was just an idea, anyway; as far as I know every multinational corp has a ”default” language, an official one. I know a user community is not an employee community, but anyways, I would like to see general/ universal applicable topics written in an ”official” language, and regional/ geo limited applicable topics in whatever language the poster sees fit. In other words, localized forum to be only for matters not concerning the entire community.

Again, I apologize if anyone feels bad/ offended about my idea.
Thanks

[fabian]

The English community is bigger, therefore more information is shared (not necessarily of a better quality), nonetheless probably has more professionals and filled with more issues to learn about.

For example Franco, Michael, Frank and me do speak german and english - so we are in both forums and for me it is not important which language the post has. In our countries, we have to learn english at school.

I might be wrong, but in the IT world, most people will turn to international communities anyway, only a few will use localized forums, especially when it comes to such a niche product as opensource firewalls.

Depends on the community - the german speaking community is quite large and the german forum is like the production series forum - just in german. Some topics refer to hardware usually used by german carriers for example. If somebody wants to write in german - why not?

[comet]

I think maybe what the OP is trying to express is that if a significant number of articles are written in another language, it require more mental effort to look through the topics and decide what you want to read.  The brain has to stop and decide, is it just poorly worded English or is it a foreign language?  It's a little like a forum where many of the topics are spam posts; it gets a little annoying after a while because you're constantly having to mentally discard the chaff.

At some point some people will find it too annoying, and simply stop reading the forum altogether except when they have a question they need answered.  That means that fewer people will be around to actually answer question.

Also, like it or not, English is kind of a universal language on planet Earth - if you are a native speaker of another language, you'll probably be taught English in school, or at least be offered the option to learn it.  If you want to work in certain industries such as commercial aviation, learning English is a necessity.  And many English speakers are never taught a second language, or if they are it's only for one or two semesters in high school (which is really much too late to start learning a second language).  I think if you only know a single language, you are inclined to find writing in another language far more annoying than people who know two or more languages do.

Personally I have found I tend to wander away from forums where a significant number of posts are in another language.  It's not that I'm mad about it or anything, it's just that I don't like making the extra mental effort to try and decode posts I can't understand.  It's the same reason a lot of people choose not to spend much time around people who speak their native language, but with such thick accents that you only get maybe 50% of what they're saying.  You may not consciously think "I'm going to avoid those people because I don't like their accents" but still the natural inclination is to gravitate toward people who speak your language like you do.

[franco]

German makes up for a large portion of OPNsense users -- at least a third, maybe almost half. Google says OPNsense interest top 5 are (in that order) Switzerland, Austria, Germany, only then Netherlands and Sweden. I'm not sure if this is by chance or due to embracing the project to a higher degree because of history, policy or attribution.

German speakers also like talking German, because despite school we are rather bad in English for reasons beyond this thread but it's slowly getting better.

We would have to see if SMF can do something in this regard, mute a forum or so. Not sure yet.


Cheers,
Franco

[franco]

PS: I would agree that English is best used, but OTOH, I'd love to see more Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese posts, but they have not reached critical mass. French seems to do quite ok. The forum has a very high pace, missing topics happens to me in any case.

[Ciprian]

Everybody gets it, but in another beam of light: it's not about "English Only" as much as possible just because it's (should be) official, nor just because other languages are harder to understand and follow. While all these are true, I only say that important and generally applicable topics, like bug reports, feature requests, best practices advice, how-tos and so on and so forth would be preferable to be in English so that any one (or at least as many people as possible, now and in the future) to be able to understand them, easily find and spot them, easily see if somebody else had/ has the same issues or feature request as that first one has... you get the point.

And, of course, since human kind in its entirety is prone to solutions of minimum resistance (we are all lazy, so to say), let's imagine for a moment what happens if I would write Romanian here (my native language), and be fortunate enough to get answers in Romanian from Franco, Michael, Frank, Fabian, Comet, Elektroinside (he is able to answer in Romanian, though ) and most of, if not every single heavy poster around here, just because they are comfortable with Romanian. Why would I ever write again in a non-native language?!?! I wouldn't!
But to what degree I would be pushing the break pedal in helping the entire community, in attracting, maintaining and being useful for people speaking any other language than Romanian?... 

Same goes for German speakers (maybe French too, soon if not already): I agree, the most spoken language in that community is probably German (and definitely German is spoken by far much more people than Romanian, not only here, but worldwide). But this is very likely to change here, considering that OPNsense/ Deciso aim to a worldwide impact. (Still, when that happens - I hope rather sooner than later - I also wouldn't be happy to adopt Mandarin, just because Mandarin is spoken by the most people in the world, hence in our community at that moment. )

I hope now it's clear I think and talk about the general usefulness of this forum (like comet had also a point), for now and for the future, being written in the "official business language" worldwide. Localization is welcome, though, but for particular cases: I was thinking of a Romanian section just yesterday, after Elektroinside posted an "How-To" about PPPoE settings for an ISP in Romania, and somebody else replied that is not working for a PPPoE of an ISP in France, if I remember correctly - that "How-To" would be better moved to the "Romanian" forum, since it was proven not being helpful for (any) other ISPs/ countries).

Final words, and conclusion: let's keep this forum neat! Let's have generally applicable topics in a generally applicable language, and isolated/ limited/ geo localized applicable topics in their corresponding language(s).

Thanking you all again, and apologizing again,
Ciprian

[elektroinside]

          

[fabian]

Everybody gets it, but in another beam of light: it's not about "English Only" as much as possible just because it's (should be) official, nor just because other languages are harder to understand and follow. While all these are true, I only say that important and generally applicable topics, like bug reports, feature requests, best practices advice, how-tos and so on and so forth would be preferable to be in English so that any one (or at least as many people as possible, now and in the future) to be able to understand them, easily find and spot them, easily see if somebody else had/ has the same issues or feature request as that first one has... you get the point.

That's already the case.
Bug reports, Issues etc. are always in english when submitted on GitHub which is the official place for them.
The docs are currently only available in english.

And, of course, since human kind in its entirety is prone to solutions of minimum resistance (we are all lazy, so to say), let's imagine for a moment what happens if I would write Romanian here (my native language), and be fortunate enough to get answers in Romanian from Franco, Michael, Frank, Fabian, Comet, Elektroinside (he is able to answer in Romanian, though ) and most of, if not every single heavy poster around here, just because they are comfortable with Romanian.

Sure you can write in Romanian if there would be a forum for it as long as there is a community for that language it is perfectly ok. If somebody types a question into a search engine, this person will be probably very happy so see some results than none.
If this person cannot read/write english, this person would probably use some unofficial forum.

Why would I ever write again in a non-native language?!?! I wouldn't!
But to what degree I would be pushing the break pedal in helping the entire community, in attracting, maintaining and being useful for people speaking any other language than Romanian?... 

You don't need to but since we may not be able speak this language, there are still users that could not  be reached without community support. BTW: You could translate the user interface to Romanian if you like.

Same goes for German speakers (maybe French too, soon if not already): I agree, the most spoken language in that community is probably German (and definitely German is spoken by far much more people than Romanian, not only here, but worldwide). But this is very likely to change here, considering that OPNsense/ Deciso aim to a worldwide impact.

Will very likely not change because the software is developed in english (with translation in mind) and the forums reflect the user base.
If there would be more people, who would post in other languages like Russian or Chinese, it would mean that OPNsense has some impact in countries where this language is spoken (even if we cannot answer questions in that language but others can).

[Ciprian]

BTW: You could translate the user interface to Romanian if you like.

Already working on it.
Or, more accurately, started about two months ago, but not active in the last several weeks or so... I'll definitely pinpoint it in the calendar starting next week, cause otherwise there will always be distractions and other things to be done and interfering or getting in the way.

Regarding the language(s) matter... OK, I rest my case: I am grateful that you, all of you, took the time to read and understand my point, and more so I'm grateful for each reply and thought you took the time and had the consideration to write.

Thank you again!

[elektroinside]

I'll be totally lost if I switch the GUI to Romanian, lol 😂
I got absolutely none/0/nada Romanian terminology regarding anything firewalls/gateways 😂

Nevertheless, it will be a big add-on to the project, so from my part: keep it up, don't give up and lots of patience :-)

[franco]

Do you guys want a Romanian forum?


Cheers,
Franco

[elektroinside]

Might be useful for others. I personally don't need one :-)

[Ciprian]

Well, if any other country here has its forum, it might be a Romanian forum too(for consistency reasons, especially?!).

Thank you, Franco, do it! It might be useful sometimes, every now and then, I guess!...