German section?

[RainerG]

Are you planing a german-section in this forum after the beta-phase?

[Mario]

Maybe, if there is sufficient demand. I can moderate German as well as English.

Boards in languages other than English and Deutsch will be more problematic due to German laws and the requirement to monitor and moderate forums like this.

[ChristopherFoto]

Are you planing a german-section in this forum after the beta-phase?

Ja, das ist mal eine gute Idee !!! 

Yes, this is even a good idea !!! 

[RainerG]

Are you planing a german-section in this forum after the beta-phase?

Ja, das ist mal eine gute Idee !!! 

Yes, this is even a good idea !!! 

Da bin ich ja froh, dass ich damit nicht alleine stehe :-).

[JoeHolzwurm]

Schließe mich sofort an. 

[dibie]

Dann will ich mich auch mal "outen".
+1


Gruss Jürgen

[Mario]

These Germans. They always want an Extrawurst. 

[awoxx]

Mmmh, Extrawurst is a "must have"... 
Me too, please!

Gruss, Andreas

[Frank]

I dont think it is a good idea having a german section because than all other cant read and understand it. Having on big english forum helps all peopel around the globe and even if our english is not as good as it should be.

A german formum will stop worlwide communication.

[JoeHolzwurm]

This is a good argument against a german section and I agree with you.

[FotoLars]

Hi,

While having knowledge in the German language, and having absolutely nothing against the language (or any other) itself, I think that the IMatch community, and its members, in general will benefit the most if we could use English as the only language in these forums. I fully agree with Frank and JoeHolzwurm in this matter.

Searching for complete information at some community based help forums for a popular European based Linux distribution (Mageia), where they support nine (9) different forum languages besides English, is not easy and does not make anyone particularly happy or very successful in some cases...

The forums here at the photools community are full of friendly and helpful people, who wouldn't bash or put someone down for not writing English in a perfect manner, aren't they? I can't remember that I have seen any bad behaviour in this sense anywhere in the present forums, and I doubt that the new and thrilling version 5 forums should be likely to suffer from such a condition.

The concentration of essential and helpful knowledge will, in one manner or another, be inversely proportional to the number of supported languages. So, please, no Swedish, or German, or Brazilian Portuguese or French or Chinese, et al, forums :-)


These are my 2 cents...


Cheers,

Lars Nilsson,
Lund, Sweden

[Richard]

Thank you Lars,

Your experience with multi-lingual forums confirms what I expected. They do not work well.

As to anyone bashing another member for language skills, or any other reason, it will not happen if I see it. Not as long as I am doing my job as a moderator. The old forum has, for the most part, been a friendly forum and I intend to do my best to see that the new forum maintains that friendly atmosphere. If someone has constructive criticism of products or ideas, fine, but I do not want forum members criticized. We are all entitled to think whatever we may but there is no need to bash members in this forum.

Richard

[meyersoft]

I dont think it is a good idea having a german section because then all othere can't read and understand it. Having one big english forum helps all people around the globe and even if our english is not as good as it should be.

A german formum will stop worlwide communication.

I fully agree! With language sections, not all information will be available to all forum users any more.

[Ferdinand]

I don't speak German and personally I wouldn't mind.  I've been on forums where there were language-specific sections.  It didn't seem to cause any problems.  The bulk of the discussion occurs in English, and only side-discussions happen in the non-English forum.  It can be a great help for people who don't have a very good command of English.  Which is better, to ignore the needs of such people, or to give them a place where they can get some assistance?

[picolo]

I do agree with Ferdinand.
Though, as long as the the program is still in beta I would not open a German section...

A Language specific section wont hurt - I did moderate a forum with some language specific sub fora and there has never been problems so far.
All beta related things had to be in English only!

[Richard]

This thread has been about a German section but what about Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, French, Italian, Spanish and a few dozen other languages?

[RainerG]

This thread has been about a German section but what about Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, French, Italian, Spanish and a few dozen other languages?

IMatch is from an german-developer --> Mario and i think most of the users are germans and english-speaking people (native language). That was my thinking approach. i can tell my problems/questions better in german (and understand the answers ;-).

... but there are the google translater ;-)

[Lord_Helmchen]

This thread has been about a German section but what about Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, French, Italian, Spanish and a few dozen other languages?

The difference is: Mario as owner (=legal responsible) of this forum does understand German. So he could judge in case of problems if he sees some legal problems. But not in the other languages (I think he stated this in photoolsweb).

I'm myself are not fully decided if I think a separate German section would be helpful or not. Maybe it cold be a solution to allow German topics in the regular section - as long as it's not too much.

[Frank]

What I saw the last two years is, that the helpful people are Ferdinand, khodadad, Richard, Carl,.... and many others (Mario of course). They can then not help us if we discuss things in german. And they will not get helpful information for themself out of our discussions. In my opinion the old forum was (and still is) the best moderated forum I have seen in the last 25 Years. Everybody tries to help everybody. We are all one big team of collegues. I will not give this up for any language issue.
Look into the world. What you see is that human fight against each other due to different opinions (I will not say the word I think of). This would not happen if we all had the same opinion.

Let us speak one common language  and stay in english. It helps all of us beeing one team one big family!

Frank

[ChristopherFoto]

What I saw the last two years is, that the helpful people are Ferdinand, khodadad, Richard, Carl,.... and many others (Mario of course). They can then not help us if we discuss things in german. And they will not get helpful information for themself out of our discussions. In my opinion the old forum was (and still is) the best moderated forum I have seen in the last 25 Years. Everybody tries to help everybody. We are all one big team of collegues. I will not give this up for any language issue.
Look into the world. What you see is that human fight against each other due to different opinions (I will not say the word I think of). This would not happen if we all had the same opinion.

Let us speak one common language  and stay in english. It helps all of us beeing one team one big family!

Frank

I would personally want a German forum, English doesn't mean knowledge availably actually there are. I partly succeed in reading a text here, I partly also employ an online translator, however. I cannot at all, letter I always employ an online translator here. This already irritates me a little, how I must say of course it is an individual destiny.
It is almost impossible for me to look for something in the forum in English since I shall me search not understood to which English wisely.

However, unfortunately, I must agree to the argumentation of Frank fully. We should therefore actually do without a German-speaking area.

[Richard]

It is possible that there could be 60 different language sections requested. Once IMatch 5 is released to the public the number of languages native to IMatch users could increase well above 60. While it is true that German is native for Mario, it is not native for most users. If Germans have a native language section, I suspect that those who do not speak German will feel left out. Even though the logic for a German section is logical.

Unfortunately it is English that has become the most common language around the world. However, be that as it may, I am with Frank on the idea of us speaking one common language and stay with English. It does help us be one big team.

Yet there can be no doubt that some IMatch users have a very hard time understanding or expressing themselves in English. What if forum members who are comfortable with English and other languages could help those who struggle with English. Maybe Christopher could PM a volunteer and that volunteer would help him express his question in English for Christopher to post. Someone who understands IMatch should, I think, be able to translate a lot better than Google.

[werry]

I prefer a forum in my native language. The former foreign minister Genscher answered to the question why he needs a professional interpreter: because i like to say what i want and not what i'm able to say.
Ok, there are reasons, why not support a forum in another language: there is no moderator, who understands the language, it's too expensive or it's not used. Apart from this i see more advantages to support a forum directory in another language than english. It avoids forum posts, which beginn with the phrase "Sorry for my bad english, but i learned it at school a long time ago" ;-) and it avoids problems like in the play called "Stille Post" in german (every transfer/translation changes the message).
And which language is the preferred can be shown easy in the forum directory overview (because there are many directories in english and only one in the other language.

[sinus]

Since I have a German forum for IMatch3

http://www.sinusfoto.ch/forum/index.php

I can tell you, that my forum, compared to the "orignal English Forum" in the past is a VERY small fraction of the IMatch users. If users wanted really help, sometimes they became it on my forum, but if you wanted some answers for sure, users had to switch to the English Forum.

Hence I can close my forum in the next couple of days! 

I know a forum, what works perfectly in several languages. As I can imagine, also here, German language would be only a small fraction. Me, as as Swiss, speaks German and well, a bit English. 
Hence, if I want have a lot of answers, I would ask in English.

If a users asks in German, I would answer in German.

I think, it is not necessary, to open a German section.
Users, who wants ask in German, they could, because there are enough people here, who can understand German, I believe, Mario can also a bit German! 

[Lord_Helmchen]

Sinus, I agree. Maybe a "policy" that users may ask a question in German (because Mario can understand) if they don't speak English good enough wold be helpful. If we can then see a high number of German posting, Mario may decide to create a German forum.

Comments?

[Mario]

That was always the policy on the old user forum, but barely used. In most cases, German users who really can't handle English just send me an email to my support address.

I occasionally also get Italian, Spanish, Greek and other languages I cannot even identify Unfortunately, I cannot help these users in these cases. Running their emails through an online translator often leads to worse results than a user trying to write simple English. Sometimes I'm lucky. But in general, we can handle all levels of English here in the community.

[hro]

That was always the policy on the old user forum, but barely used. In most cases, German users who really can't handle English just send me an email to my support address.

I occasionally also get Italian, Spanish, Greek and other languages I cannot even identify Unfortunately, I cannot help these users in these cases. Running their emails through an online translator often leads to worse results than a user trying to write simple English. Sometimes I'm lucky. But in general, we can handle all levels of English here in the community.

This was suggested by Richard in the 3.6 Forum and directed to me:
"For my own information, if a German user was having trouble expressing his question in English, could he or she send you a PM in German? And would you then reply with the question in English to be posted?"

As I said in that Forum I am more than happy to do that and re-post the question in English, perhaps reducing Mario's workload.

[sinus]

Sinus, I agree. Maybe a "policy" that users may ask a question in German (because Mario can understand) if they don't speak English good enough wold be helpful. If we can then see a high number of German posting, Mario may decide to create a German forum.

Comments?

Yes, a good idea, but as Mario pointed out, had we this also in the old forum ... I did not know it 

Finally, I guess, German-people can be lucky to have such a nice programer, like Mario, and ... that he is German  and hence writing German is not a problem. A guy from Finland could have more troubles ... but they speak also English up there in the north

[HaWo]

Mein Englisch ist sehr dürftig, da ich es nie in der Schule hatte. Volkshochschule und Inlingua-Crash-Kurs waren meine Quellen. Mühsam quäle ich mich durch die Hilfe, neben mir ein elektron. Wörterbuch. Manchmal ist es sogar schwierig einen etwas komplizierten Sachverhalt in gutem, verständlichen Deutsch zu formulieren. In Englisch ist das aussichtslos.

Meine Bitte:
Fragen in Deutsch, Anworten in Deutsch.

Warum:
In Deutsch formulierte Frage versteht fast kein Anderssprachiger. Was nützt ihm die Antwort in Englsch, wenn er die Frage nicht versteht und ich quäle mich dann aber immer noch. Ich bin zwar lernwillig, aber es bleibt ab einem gewissen Alter leider nur noch wenig hängen.
Ich will aber auch nicht der Maßstab sein, es ist halt eben so.

Ich war einige Male bei sinus unterwegs, aber da war nix mehr los. Aber anfangs war mir das Forum schon eine Hilfe. Wäre diese Seite eine Alternative? Sollte man sie wieder aufwecken?   

[Mario]

Verwende einfach GERMAN: am beginn Deines Postings, wie zum Beispiel:

GERMAN: Meine Frage lautet

dann wird Dir auch in Deutsch geantwortet. Dazu gibt es hier schon einige Beispiele.

[Gerd]

Hi,

sometimes (or very often) google-Translate helps me. I think, it is an good idea to put e.g. DE or GER at the beginning, that should be enough.

What also helps, to type the text first in a Word-document and set the Spellchecker to e.g. German, wrong words can be made visible with an colored underline and stay colored, as long as they are wrong. I have also sometimes to fight with several languages and use this as a help.

With Google-Translate also our finnish friends can then translate from German to Finnish

in German (via Google-Translate, funny, but understandable  )
manchmal (oder sehr oft) google-Translate hilft mir. Ich denke, es ist eine gute Idee, um z. B. setzen DE oder GER am Anfang, das sollte genug sein.

Was auch hilft, um den Text zuerst geben in Word-Dokument und setzen Sie die Rechtschreibprüfung, um zB Deutsch, falschen Worte sichtbar gemacht mit einem farbigen unterstreichen werden und bleiben gefärbt, solange sie falsch sind. Ich habe manchmal auch mit mehreren Sprachen kämpfen und nutzen diese als eine Hilfe.

Mit Google-Translate auch unsere finnischen Freunde können dann aus dem Deutschen ins Finnische übersetzen

Regards
Gerd

[HaWo]

Hallo Gerd,

manchmal muss man die Leute mit der Nase draufstoßen. Ich habe das soeben mal hier im Forum ausprobiert. Klappt ganz gut, auch wenn's lustig klingt. Die Hauptsache man hat den Sinn verstanden. Von D nach E haben dann die Anderen etwas zum Schmunzeln.
Danke für das Nasedraufstupsen.

[RalfC]

Mit Google-Translate auch unsere finnischen Freunde können dann aus dem Deutschen ins Finnische übersetzen

Nein, das klappt nicht wirklich.... 

Viele Grüße,
Ralf (der gut genug finnisch spricht, um zu wissen, dass Google Translate sehr schnell seine Grenzen überschreitet, falls mehr als ein Wort übersetzt werden soll.)

[Gerd]

Hallo Ralf,

... dann müssen wir wohl eher über eine Finnische Sektion nachdenken ... 

Gruß
Gerd

[sinus]

Ich war einige Male bei sinus unterwegs, aber da war nix mehr los. Aber anfangs war mir das Forum schon eine Hilfe. Wäre diese Seite eine Alternative? Sollte man sie wieder aufwecken?

Danke, immerhin hat es einigen ab und an geholfen. Sie ist noch online, aber es ist nur eine Frage der Zeit, in den nächsten Tagen werde ich echt die Zeit aufbringen können, sie zu deaktivieren. 

Es ist eben auch so, wenn man so ein Forum betreibt, und ich war ja nur ein kleiner Fisch gegen Mario, der ein Vielfaches zu tun hat/hatte, da gibt es nette, coole Leute und - sorry - Deppen. Die finden nichts dabei, einfach mitten in der Nacht anzurufen. Oder sich per mail x-mal zu beschweren, man hätte immer noch keine Antwort auf sein Problem gegeben und und und ...

Deshalb - und auch weil ich viel weniger Zeit habe - will ich das Forum nicht neu beleben. Sicher würde es, mit IM5, wieder den einen oder anderern hervorlocken und einige neue user. Aber wie gesagt, hier auf dem Forum sind solche Leute besser aufgehoben.
Wenn jemand Deutsch schreibt, dann werde ich zb. (sofern ich kann) auch auch Deutsch antworten. Mario hat das ja auch schon getan und andere auch.

Was übrigens irgendwann interessant wäre, ist ein Buch über IM5. Aber das ist ein anderes Thema 

[HaWo]

Grüezi Markus,

vielen Dank für Deine klärenden Worte. Deine Argumente sind einleuchtend und der Fokus sollte schon auf dieses Forum gerichtet sein. Da ich nun in IM3 selbständig laufen kann, werde ich auch die letzten Ausdrucke aus Deiner Seite dem Schredder zum Fraß geben.
Jetzt ist IM5 aktuell und da gibt es viele Überraschungen - macht Spaß, leider noch mit XP...

Grüße vom Bodensee.

[sinus]

Grüezi Markus,

Grüße vom Bodensee.

Danke auch und Grüsse zurück an den Bodensee, der ja wirklich sehr schön ist, auf beiden Seiten des Sees!