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[Michele]

We don't have to agree to this if you want, but since we're getting back our reputation (maybe), I thought this would be a great idea. Before we please make opinions, I just want to preface that yes, I know that most of the peoples talk English.

However, there may be some peoples who have a different first language. For example, as you may have already known over time from me, my first language is not English, it's actually Italian.

I do like to talk and discuss, but I was wondering if we should expand our horizon, to allow room for a subforum, for International users, as known as those who don't speak English too fluently.

I'm thinking it can be in about 8 different languages. Please let me know if there can be other languages.

Italian
Spanish
French
German
Russian
Japanese
Chinese
Korea

Again, please let me know what do you think of this. It may be a good way to socialize, but of course, there are bound to be problems, so feel free to criticize me about this.

 

[kbear]

Yeah, let’s make another 10 or 15 subforums. It won’t crater posting activity at all.

Not even trying to be a dick but come on, use some common sense.

 

[Michele]

Yeah, let’s make another 10 or 15 subforums. It won’t crater posting activity at all.

Not even trying to be a dick but come on, use some common sense.

I think you might be right, but then again, I was thinking this as socializing since I notice that there are a lot more guests than members active. I understand that it is always around the same as the member count, but it's x5 times more than members online, depending on time.

Again, we could PUT different languages subforum IN the international subforum. So like this: click on international subforum, THEN click on a language you'd like to choose, OR you can go directly to a language from the home page, so that the subforum won't be all languages in once.

But thanks for the criticizing. You're not a dick, but I was trying to suggest something helpful...

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

I think having something in place might be nice. I like the idea.

I believe the staff is adjusting NeoGAF's structure in the coming months/years to focus on OTs and communities. Making an Italian-speakers OT (for instance) under this new structure seems to match what you are asking for.

I am merely basing this on previous comments from staff, so you'll have to reach out to them directly.

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

If you create other language subforums, you'll need moderators who speak that language. This opens up the possibility of these subforums becoming their own little city-states, with their own government, regulations, and punitive measures. Someone comes to EvilLore and says, hey, this post is promoting pirated software, or something else against the terms of service, all he can do is defer to the moderator that speaks that language. That's giving a lot of power to a moderator, and the potential for abuse is very high. Like if someone was banned in the Italian subforum by that moderator, who can review his case and make sure it was a just ruling? It's not just a manpower issue. A single moderator, unchecked, can go on power trips, so how do you make sure they are moderating to the standards of the site when they are the only one who speaks the language?

In my opinion, part of what really drove down the quality of NeoGAF in the past was the community forums. They became too insulated from the rest of NeoGAF, to the point where they even had moderators all to themselves, which promoted an extremely cliquish behavior the started extending to the moderator staff once they started trying to promote users from within their preferred cliques. This resulted in the moderator staff eventually becoming a clique themselves - basically mean girls. That's why I'm in favor of community threads surrounding specific games, rather than community threads based on general shared interests.

 

[petran79]

Arent there already subthreads for other languages (GermanGAF, FrenchGAF etc)?

 

[guggnichso]

This has never resulted in anything positive on any forum ever. At best, those subforums slowly died, at worst activity in the main forums shrunk. I‘m against this, you‘ll have to live with my German ass in your main forums and you will like it.

 

[Nymphae]

Making an Italian-speakers OT (for instance) under this new structure seems to match what you are asking for.

OT's make more sense to me than entire subforums dedicated to languages. It's a predominantly english board unfortunately.

 

[Michele]

Thanks for your opinions!

If you don't think it's a good idea, that's fine. I'm not angry or anything. I was trying to be helpful, but I didn't know it could be a little problematic. I can't really defend here now, can't I?

I am a little ashamed as to even suggest it. But I think we could start very slowly, perhaps by adding just one language, for now. Again, we don't have to do that, I can discard this idea of course.

Arent there already subthreads for other languages (GermanGAF, FrenchGAF etc)?

There could be, but I heard that they fell apart along with some of the community threads, during the meltdown. If I'm not wrong at all.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Thanks for your opinions!

If you don't think it's a good idea, that's fine. I'm not angry or anything. I was trying to be helpful, but I didn't know it could be a little problematic. I can't really defend here now, can't I?

I am a little ashamed as to even suggest it. But I think we could start very slowly, perhaps by adding just one language, for now. Again, we don't have to do that, I can discard this idea of course.

There could be, but I heard that they fell apart along with some of the community threads, during the meltdown. If I'm not wrong at all.

I wouldn't give up on your idea. If you have a non-english native language that you speak, why not spin up an OT to see if it attracts attention? I'll participate by trolling and copy-pasting phrases from Google translate. It'll be a good time all around.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

Arent there already subthreads for other languages (GermanGAF, FrenchGAF etc)?

Can we get a SoyGAF?

I speak the language of LowSodiumChik’nSliders

 

[JordanN]

Neogaf is already an international forum. When gaming leaks first happen here, do you think they were limited to the U.S, or did they not spread all across the internet?

I prefer that kind of strength rather than creating little enclaves.

 

[Michele]

I wouldn't give up on your idea. If you have a non-english native language that you speak, why not spin up an OT to see if it attracts attention? I'll participate by trolling and copy-pasting phrases from Google translate. It'll be a good time all around.

That's a good idea. I will set up a Italian OT, as to see if it can attract attention. Searching brought up nothing, so I will create a OT for my language.

 

[Papa]

Nope. Really bad idea. One of the factors that fractured GAF before the split was the formation of insular identity/culture-based sub-communities. TransGAF, Black Community Thread, French Language Thread, these all spawned isolated sub-cultures that had different ideas about what the forum as a whole should be. It wasn’t obvious what would happen until it did, so I can’t point fingers and blame too much, but we need to learn from our own history. There must be one GAF and one dominant GAF culture in my view, and this requires us to communicate with a common language. If the mods were to allow the formation of such sub-cultures again, they would need to keep a very close eye on how they evolve, but that would be difficult to do if they don’t speak that particular language.

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

I don't think you need to avoid cliques - they'll happen naturally. You just need to avoid them being completely isolated from the rest of the site. It's like the people who just read OT or politics, but never go to the gaming side. They have a different NeoGAF experience. And that's fine. It's just that when gaming and OT clash - like if people advocated to ban discussion of Senran Kagura because it is harmful to women - gaming side has to win. We have to come down on the point that Senran Kagura is a game, and this is a forum about discussing games. Orson Scott Card has opinions on gay marriage, but he also wrote this game. Is it a game? This is a forum about discussing games, not gay marriage.

(This was an issue I ran into when I had my own sizable forums. The community becomes its own thing, and sometimes that thing is incompatible with the reason the forums were started in the first place. And you go, "If you don't like games, why are you in a gaming forum?" and they respond "why do you think you are the boss? it's our forum now". Ugh. Running forums sucks).

I'm mainly saying that you have to watch the moderators. When the cliques become too isolated, a moderator can gain a lot of power within that group, then use the power and influence from that group to dominate the administration of a forum. A single rogue moderator can do an ASTOUNDING amount of damage to a community, but because their little clique takes over, it doesn't become completely obvious because their group keeps the post count high and dominates all discussions.

 

[Redneckerz]

Politics is predominantly US because the majority is US.

Henceforth little European politics is discussed. That gets a little trite, sadly.

 

[kbear]

I think you might be right, but then again, I was thinking this as socializing since I notice that there are a lot more guests than members active. I understand that it is always around the same as the member count, but it's x5 times more than members online, depending on time.

Again, we could PUT different languages subforum IN the international subforum. So like this: click on international subforum, THEN click on a language you'd like to choose, OR you can go directly to a language from the home page, so that the subforum won't be all languages in once.

But thanks for the criticizing. You're not a dick, but I was trying to suggest something helpful...

Negged you in spirit, Michele.

 

[LegendOfKage]

I think of it like this. A forum can and should only allow as many languages as the forum owner can understand. Because they're the person who has to pick the forum staff, and they have to know what people on their forum are posting. They need to understand what mods are allowing, not allowing, what people are being banned for, etc.

So no. Unfortunately, there's not really a way to host conversations that you don't understand.




Ironically, if you read the you tube comments, apparently the guy they hired for this part was very hard for Italian people to understand, with some joking that the girl had a better Italian accent. And the reason for this was likely because they hired an actor who could speak both Italian and English, but no one on staff could tell that he wasn't very good at speaking Italian, because they didn't understand the language.

 

[triplestation]

A river der chi

 

[Kamina]

NEIN, NEIN, NEIN

Spoiler

I think it would be nice, but maybe we are too small currently to keep the activity up. Dont we have Language Threads in the Community sections?

 

[hariseldon]

English is the global language. Posting in English means we get views from Germans, French, Russians and whatever else. Better to keep that diversity of experience that comes from all those different cultures.