Proposed: expansion of foreign language threads

[Quintillus]

For what it's worth, posts in a non-English language, when translated, are allowed in general. You don't see very many of them, but over the years I've seen a few in Italian, Russian, and Chinese in the Civ3 forums (as well as a few that got locked due to lack of translation), and discussed/translated a topic from a French civ forum myself at some point in the past year. But other than correcting mistakes in translation, the discussion always goes back to English.

Is anyone familiar with how Apolyton ran their Spanish sub-forum? That's the first Civ forum example I can think of that is multi-lingual. Otherwise, for the most part, the Civ forums tend to be divided by language. We do have some members who are also member of civ forums in other languages (German, for example), and they occasionally post here about interesting topics being discussed in other forums, and vice versa. I definitely see the benefit of being able to understand everything in the forum. But I also know that the Russian and Chinese civ communities have a number of mods that are not available at CFC, and we're in effect missing out on. The same is likely true of other languages' civ forums.

For OT, I'm largely okay with whatever. For Civ forums, I think it's beneficial for discussion to have a common language, but I could see potentially having an option to post mods that are not in English (maybe a "Non-English mods/scenarios" forum?). I know one Chinese civ player who's been pretty good about posting what he works on with a rudimentary translation, but I think most non-English speakers come at most once, get their thread locked, and never come back.

One of the German civ sites also allows some English, but I don't remember what site that is. IIRC Civinator is one of the main CFC members who also posts there.

 

[Takhisis]

Hmmm. The LinuxMint.com forums have separate language sections, I could poke around a bit.
Some of the totalwar forums do that as well, and -to cite an example- threads on sports from non-English-speaking countries are de facto left to the speakers of that league/country's language.

 

[Camikaze]

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.

A&E was a rather broad forum, and the moderators recruited for it weren't serving such a specific purpose as monitoring a handful of threads amounting to a single exception to the general forum rules.

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).

I think a specified trial period is probably unlikely, because generally if we're happy enough to allow something, we're happy enough to just jump into it on a full-time basis without a trial period. A trial period for non-English threads would involve the same problems as just allowing it without a trial. Either way we would need sufficient moderator coverage.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

A&E was a rather broad forum, and the moderators recruited for it weren't serving such a specific purpose as monitoring a handful of threads amounting to a single exception to the general forum rules.

Please grant me the courtesy of recalling that I was there, and remember how things occurred. That forum was created after a long time of lobbying by some of the members, and this situation isn't really that different. A&E relaxed the general forum rules on depicting nudity, and this current situation is asking for a relaxation of the rules regarding non-English posts.

The A&E situation wasn't entirely smooth sailing right away; there were a few controversies, but the point is that we tried something new to see if it would work. If it hadn't, it (depicting nudity) would have been stopped.

 

[Camikaze]

The relevant difference to which I'm pointing is that neither you nor Atticus were recruited as moderators simply in order to moderate depictions of nudity (as I'm sure you'll recall, given you were there for the first of those recruitments). So what I am saying through, "the moderation team doesn't work in that sort of fragmented manner," and, "moderators are not recruited for such a discrete purpose," is that moderators are not recruited just in order to deal with one particular exception to the general forum rules, but are rather recruited to form part of a broader team, and deal with a broader range of problems (and I'd add that you may be reading obtuseness into my statements where none exists). Thus, for any non-English threads, we'd be using either existing moderators, or moderators recruited for a purpose broader than just looking after the couple of threads in their given language. As such, although it's always nice that individuals would like to help or find ways of reducing the strain on moderator resources that their ideas might involve, a participant in a thread or small class of threads taking on moderator responsibilities purely for that thread or small class of threads, isn't a workable solution within the current moderation framework.

 

[Mutineer]

What I like about of civfanatics is that my imperfect English does not get reduculed, topics converted to personal attacks why completely ignoring message I want to put try. That is a big problem form my point of view in many other forums.

So, if we go and create treads in other languages there will happen one of 2 thinks:
1) Tread become unmoderated and that destroy civil atmosphere we have here.
2) Only limited language options provided, discriminating other languages.

Neater I believe is good outcome.

 

[Takhisis]

Another fortnight has gone by. Any news?

 

[ori]

nothing new yet - the discussion actually went into how would we implement this territory and then we got, how shall I say, side tracked by other happenings... good to remind us though, I'll bump the staff thread and we should at least give some result of our discussion at some point soonish.

 

[Takhisis]

Is it Blizzard Games-style 'Soon'-ish?

 

[ori]

glacial speed and all that

more seriously: I think we should wrap this up in the very near future, I am just reluctant to give any time estimate as its going to be wrong.

 

[Takhisis]

Maybe, if you say it'll come in a very logn time, you manage to be so wrong that it comes in a few hours. Who knows.

 

[Takhisis]

Allow me to prod you again on this issue…

 

[ori]

We have decided to test if foreign language threads in Off-Topic would work and will try the following.

We will allow foreign language threads for those languages for which we can currently cover for through moderators. To start with we will allow German language threads and are right now finalizing others (Dutch being the most likely addition) - whether we will be able to offer more is still up in the air.

Foreign language threads are required to use the appropriate prefix (e.g. "German").
Any post will be required to provide a reasonably complete translation into English, which can be put into spoiler tags.
All threads will be moderated to RD standards.
Moderator coverage will be much lighter than usual and we will evaluate at some point whether this is a good idea or not looking at how well such threads are going and as such we will rely more than usual on flagging of problematic posts through the report post function to avoid having threads closed for leaving the RD standards en masse.

 

[Takhisis]

Why are you trying to cripple it from the very start? If you don't want to do it just say so.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

What we are trying is testing our ability to manage the threads. Experiment.

 

[Takhisis]

Lefty, we have already made it clear that the enforced translation of everything is what killed the 101 threads as a place for discussion. Nobody's interested in havign another set of 101 threads with a different name.

 

[leif erikson]

Lefty, we have already made it clear that the enforced translation of everything is what killed the 101 threads as a place for discussion. Nobody's interested in havign another set of 101 threads with a different name.

Please reread the proposal from the OP:

This is all well and good, and corrections and feedback are important for learners, but I don't feel that it helps people actually learn the language because no conversation is occurring, and certainly not in any kind of an organic manner. So what I propose to fix that is the introduction of some kind of foreign language discussion threads. So for example, say you read an article in, I don't know, "El Mundo" or something, and you wanted to discuss it. You would start a thread titled: Español: [discussion title] (maybe have icons similar to RD icons for whatever language it is, which would ensure that discussion couldn't happen in languages not pre-approved by the mods). Anyway, this would indicate to readers that this is a Spanish thread, and that discussion should happen primarily in Spanish. Obviously English translations would have to be provided in spoilers as with all non-English posted on cfc, and responses in English would certainly be allowed, as they are in the 101 threads. Ultimately though, the focus would be on practicing the non-English language in a more conversational, dialectic fashion, thus facilitating more emergent, less stiff practice of the language in question.

 

[Takhisis]

Yes, I have read it. Have you read post #11 and following iterations of the same message:

The commandment to provide a translation absolutely kills any naturally flowing conversation in the foreign language.
It's absurdely bothersome and awkward as soon as it's supposed to happen in an actual conversation.

(&#8230

having a fluent conversation with a non-native speaker in German (about food or the weather or what have you) and translating all i'm writing back into English while getting a brain cramp in the futile effort not to opt for German constructions and vocabulary that will make the translation part less bothersome?

I've tried it. It su-hu-hu-hucks! I refuse to do it.
I have not seen anybody else do it for more than one or two short posts.

Because it sucks.

?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

What we are trying is testing our ability to manage the threads. Experiment.

Then really test it. You have a moderator who is completely fluent in German. That moderator will know if any trolling, flaming, swearing, etc. is going on. Those who post in the thread are highly motivated to behave themselves. I doubt there would be that many posts a day that couldn't be read in a relatively short time, and dealt with if need be.

You and the others want members to trust the staff. How about you extending trust to the members? You have at least one German-speaking moderator, which means you have a way to confirm everything that gets said. The people who aren't interested in learning/conversing in German won't care what gets said. Those who are will have an immersive reading/conversational experience.

As you said, it's an experiment. If it works (as in conversations occur and little or no moderator intervention is required), it was a success. If participants choose to try breaking the rules, it was not a success. It's not a fair test if you impose exactly the same conditions that prompted the request for language-specific conversational threads in the first place.

 

[leif erikson]

Yes, I have read it. Have you read post #11 and following iterations of the same message:

?

Thanks. I see.