Proposed: expansion of foreign language threads
- Thread starter sophie
- Start date
Which is still telling us exactly nothing. Even "we haven't discussed it at all in the last 9 months" would be more informative than "Nope."
Expanded non English threads would be fine with me if there was adequate moderators coverage. I would think that at least two active moderators skill in the language would be needed. I think also they would be limited to certain subfora unless there was even more fluent moderator coverage available.
sophie
Break My Heart
How technical can you get with mod privileges? I would think if you put it into a separate subforum you could designate users to be mods for just that subforum. As I said in the OP and subsequent posts, I can't imagine a) that the work load would be all that much, and b) that the user-base would be small/tight knit enough such that (as it tends to be in, say NES) a lot of self-policing can be done. To me it's just really upsetting how long this is taking. Seems like a slam-dunk proposal, most of the concerns have been discussed through here, and it addresses a genuine and serious problem that cfc faced and still continues to face.
Oh and having read through the discussion, I agree with meta: I think the double-translation thing is really problematic and stifling to discussion.
We haven't discussed it at all in the last 9 months. As such, there has been no further development, and there is no news.
It is currently under discussion in staff, though.
'Currently' as in 'started up again during the last 12 hours after a 9-month hiatus'?
So, for nine months you had done nothing and would have continued if people hadn't started complaining? Do we have to assume the same is being done about the emailing problem?
I was thinking about stating my willingness to step up -with the non-negotiable condition that I be a local moderator, i.e. one who can only edit/delete posts and hand out infractions within one specified forum- but if I were to expect such cooperation, I should rethink what to do with my spare time…
I was thinking about stating my willingness to step up -with the non-negotiable condition that I be a local moderator, i.e. one who can only edit/delete posts and hand out infractions within one specified forum- but if I were to expect such cooperation, I should rethink what to do with my spare time…
When an idea is raised (usually in Site Feedback), if a moderator is sufficiently interested in it, a staff thread will be created and we'll likely reach some conclusion. If there's no sufficient interest from any moderator, then a staff thread probably won't be created, and so no conclusion will be reached (and if there's no sufficient interest, it's unlikely the idea would go ahead in any case, so the lack of a staff thread is no great loss). That was the case for this idea nine months ago, but now that the idea has come up again, there has been sufficient interest to kickstart a staff discussion. So yes, if we haven't come to a conclusion on an idea, it can help to remind us of the idea or argue for it again. It's not like we've been consciously deciding to ignore this idea for the last nine months; it just hasn't been something we've thought about beyond no-one being sufficiently interested in the initial proposal to start a staff discussion. And certainly, if no-one ever mentioned it again, it likely wouldn't have come up for consideration or magically popped into our heads.
It wouldn't make much sense to assume the same is the case for the emailing problem, because it's an issue which obviously the admins have expressed sufficient interest in, and have said is being worked on. Though I suppose theoretically speaking, if it were an issue no-one on staff sufficiently cared about, and no-one had mentioned it in the last nine months, it probably wouldn't be as high on the admin priority list as it is.
It's extremely unlikely that individuals would be recruited solely for the purposes of any limited number of non-English threads which we were to allow. The moderation team doesn't work in that sort of fragmented manner.
It wouldn't make much sense to assume the same is the case for the emailing problem, because it's an issue which obviously the admins have expressed sufficient interest in, and have said is being worked on. Though I suppose theoretically speaking, if it were an issue no-one on staff sufficiently cared about, and no-one had mentioned it in the last nine months, it probably wouldn't be as high on the admin priority list as it is.
It's extremely unlikely that individuals would be recruited solely for the purposes of any limited number of non-English threads which we were to allow. The moderation team doesn't work in that sort of fragmented manner.
"Sufficient interest"? Not from where a lot of us are sitting. To go this long - EIGHT MONTHS - with no email notifications is absolutely pathetic. And the fact that we've had no updates for two months is not an indication to me that anyone seems "interested."
The mods don't work in a fragmented manner?Let us not go into the deep waters of the PDMAic ocean, my good sir.
The moderation team could be described as fragmented in a few ways (e.g. the CivBE staff for the most part operates separately from the OT staff), but it doesn't work 'in that sort of fragmented manner'. i.e. moderators are not recruited for such a discrete purpose.
You're saying moderators are not recruited to serve in newly-created forums? Must be a new policy since my time...
Are the current moderators bi- or tri-lingual?
Are the current moderators bi- or tri-lingual?
No, that's not what I'm saying.
Some may be, but a more relevant question would be whether a sufficient number of current OT moderators are bi- or tri-lingual.
Then what are you saying? I have no idea about other areas of the forum, but I know that I was recruited because A&E had been newly created and needed a moderator. I didn't become an OT mod until later.
In that case, either they will need a crash-course in whatever languages end up being approved... or you could recruit from the members who are fluent in those languages and are willing to serve.
For what it's worth, I used to belong to a large gaming forum that had an entire subforum dedicated to German-speaking posters. From what I know of it, there were two moderators - one of whom was among the seniormost staff and one who had been recruited from the membership. Everything worked just fine.
Same with the graphics forum I belong to. There is a dedicated forum for French members and another for German members. The moderator who takes care of those forums is tri-lingual and manages quite well.
I'm going to repeat something I've said fairly often here: Give it a fair trial period - at least six months would be my suggestion. If it works, great. If not, it's a learning experience. This isn't anything that is hard to set up, and it won't break the forum if the members who use it insist on misbehaving (which I doubt they would do).
*lol* yeah o_O.
Unrelated: The current language threads are far from page one at the moment....
^ Just pointing out the options, in the hopes that the more practical one will be chosen. 
sophie
Break My Heart
So since it is now in discussion in the moderator forum, what is the status of the discussion? Can you give us any details about how it's going/what the primary concerns are?
I would love to see this happen in some capacity. I still don't think the moderation thing is as problematic as you guys seem to be making it out to be. I can't imagine the workload is going to be big, and I can imagine a lot of self-policing would probably happen.
I went through and quickly searched through the OT mod-list and these are mods with languages (I think) they speak:
dutchfire -Dutch, German(?)
Grisu - French
Birdjaguar - Spanish(?)
illram
peter grimes
Bootsoots
Leoreth - German
Plotinus
Lefty Scaevola
And obviously you could also just make this a subforum and then promote some of the people who have already expressed interest in the idea in a just-for-the-subforum capacity, as Takh has already suggested. I really have a hard time believing that moderation would be the major hangup.
I would love to see this happen in some capacity. I still don't think the moderation thing is as problematic as you guys seem to be making it out to be. I can't imagine the workload is going to be big, and I can imagine a lot of self-policing would probably happen.
I went through and quickly searched through the OT mod-list and these are mods with languages (I think) they speak:
dutchfire -Dutch, German(?)
Grisu - French
Birdjaguar - Spanish(?)
illram
peter grimes
Bootsoots
Leoreth - German
Plotinus
Lefty Scaevola
And obviously you could also just make this a subforum and then promote some of the people who have already expressed interest in the idea in a just-for-the-subforum capacity, as Takh has already suggested. I really have a hard time believing that moderation would be the major hangup.
Because they're impractical. We just resort to using PMs or VMs in whatever language is needed, or simply take the discussion off to another website. And thus the forum loses traffic, especially if there can't be any new members and passwords can't be reset for returnees.
new members can register (and post) just fine currently (there are still some accounts out there that are not fine) - the password resets are plagued by the email problems...
As for the topic of this thread: Moderation quite certainly is one rather huge impediment to implementing this as we do need sufficient moderators able and willing to moderate these threads - and no self-moderation is neither going to work nor going to be a good enough promise to even try. Another problem still is that the english-only policy is reasonably good at ensuring that all users here have a chance at participating in all discussion be it active of passive participation* - moving to some restriction on this based on language is actually a departure from this policy and whether this is a good thing or not is I think still debatable.
*groups already are a departure from this albeit a rather hidden one, as are private forums for mod development and such but the general point stands that the easily seen discussion in threads is open to everyone.
As for the topic of this thread: Moderation quite certainly is one rather huge impediment to implementing this as we do need sufficient moderators able and willing to moderate these threads - and no self-moderation is neither going to work nor going to be a good enough promise to even try. Another problem still is that the english-only policy is reasonably good at ensuring that all users here have a chance at participating in all discussion be it active of passive participation* - moving to some restriction on this based on language is actually a departure from this policy and whether this is a good thing or not is I think still debatable.
*groups already are a departure from this albeit a rather hidden one, as are private forums for mod development and such but the general point stands that the easily seen discussion in threads is open to everyone.
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