Suggestion How to become more international

Once more I want to suggest something regarding the problem how to attract new members outside of the US / not-English-speaking countries.

They probably ask themselves: "Why would I register to an online community overseas where I have to communicate in a foreign language with people I´ll never have the opportunity to meet for a run?"

I know that it would be a lot of work to create duplicates of the site in other languages. On Facebook or youtube, for example, you can switch to a different language and every menu-item appears then in the other language (not the content, though, like on Wikipedia.). This is not an option at the moment, I know that.

But here´s an easy way how we could still reduce barriers for people all over the world. We could add a drop-down menu in the main menu (right after IBRD, for example).

This menu would contain flags of all countries that have a chapter (US, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech & Slovak Republic, and so forth). Like this one:

international menu.png
(it is taken from the German Merrell site).

And when you hit a particular flag, you´re directed to the respective Chapter. There you can see that there are folks nearby who speak your own language and maybe even meet for a run.

How about that?
 
That sounds like a wonderful proposal. I just wonder if it's possible in the new site platform. Will wait to hear from Matt.
 
We have several things coming together here.

1. Your idea, Johannes, is excellent. Basically a quick-link to the chapters (or languages - see below).

2. The French requested last week to subdivide their Chapter discussion area into separate topic forums. A great idea in theory, this is difficult (expensive) to implement.* So we are considering the alternative of Language forums in the regular forum list. These would be subdivided further, like the divisions in the main forums. Important is the distinction between Chapters and languages. So the German Language forum would be open to all German speakers, the French to all French speakers, etc. Whereas the Austrians or the Québecois might want their own Chapter. Moreover, there is a growing need for multiple chapters in one country--such as with all the US states and with the east and west Canadian chapters.**

In idea 2, it will be important to have links between the Chapters and the language forums. Likewise, we'll need to decide whether Idea 1 links to the Chapter or to the language forum. The discussion area in the chapter would be reserved for organizing meetings etc.

Any other thoughts from non-english speakers?

Cheers
Paleo


* The technical reason here is that the software is set up with an area for forum activity and another area in the database for "groups". We use the "groups" feature for the Chapters. The problem is that the Groups feature has only basic forum capability. Of course, it could theoretically all be customized, but we're still waiting for that mega-donation from some billionaire barefooter.

** Of course, the above idea might get the English speakers into a conundrum. A favorite quote of mine is George Bernard Shaw's quip that "England and the United States are two countries divided by a common language."
 
I think the easiest, no-expense way to do this is to allow unauthenticated viewers to see the list of chapters we have available (without seeing the content of those chapters until they actually join the BRS) and maybe even change the link name from Chapters to International Chapters. If the international chapters would use their country's flag for their Chapter's group avatar, it would look pretty much like Joohneschuh's screen shot and give the idea that beneath that chapter lies info they can read in their language. This is not a problem, as our international members can and have been typing in their native language since the beginning here.

What would be nice to have would be a translator that would actually take (for example) articles from the home page and translate them into another language. Matt said that's not possible with this software. It wasn't possible with the old software either.
 
I have a fair amount of experience with translation. Machine translation does not work. As you have surely experienced with Google translator, you can get the gist of what someone is saying, but they are usually quite bad. So even if it did work on a technical side in Xenforo, it isn't yet feasible, since the translations are still so bad.

I have been watching the development of machine translation for about a decade. It always looks promising, but even Google translate's huge language corpus still doesn't get it very right. I think we have at least another decade to wait.

Cheers
Paleo
 
That's what Joe. D., basically told me too, that Google Translator wasn't worth the effort and not reliable. Matt said you can have Google Translator on some sites, check out Dr. Stoxen's at www.teamdoctors.org, and it works well there, but it just doesn't work in forum software.
 
Translation software doesn't work, especially with Chinese.
 
Spooner, please go to Dr. Stoxen's site at www.teamdoctors.org and select Chinese and let me know if it makes sense. I'm just curious.
 
So we are considering the alternative of Language forums in the regular forum list. These would be subdivided further, like the divisions in the main forums. Important is the distinction between Chapters and languages. So the German Language forum would be open to all German speakers, the French to all French speakers, etc. Whereas the Austrians or the Québecois might want their own Chapter. Moreover, there is a growing need for multiple chapters in one country--such as with all the US states and with the east and west Canadian chapters.**

In idea 2, it will be important to have links between the Chapters and the language forums. Likewise, we'll need to decide whether Idea 1 links to the Chapter or to the language forum. The discussion area in the chapter would be reserved for organizing meetings etc.

This is almost exactly what we had until we deleted the Chapter Forums 2 weeks ago. I rather accept that we have limited forum capability in the Chapters (and disappoint the French) than to confuse people. It was confusing indeed to search for posts of your Chapters buddies in different places (Chapter Forum and Chapter). Remember Chelsea admitting that she still had problems to understand the difference between Chapter Forum and Chapter? And she´s one of the experienced members.

Sorry, Paleo, I don´t like this idea. Please keep it as simple as possible. Make it even simpler, if possible, by adding country-flags, for example. The less one has to read and the less one has to understand, the better.
 
It seems to be ok from what I can read. I would have to ask a native speaker if it reads well for them or not. Also, most of the website has simple sentences that should not be a problem. Forums sometimes have some strange words or sentences in them. Is there any way to test this out here?
 
Matt? Can we test out Google Translator on the site? It should be a simple plug-in that can be added and removed, right?
 
Google translate will give you the gist, but it still produces garbage (see example below)

Here is an example from Dr. Stoxen's Blog page:
First the English:
Team Doctors Blogs
Welcome to Team Doctors blogs. This network of blogs feature several of top leaders, researchers and healers who share their perspectives and invite discussion on the issues you are facing today.
Team Doctors Blog offers a tremendous amount of FREE written content, speakers channels, tips channels and other video tutorials to learn from as well as opportunities for you to exchange ideas directly with our experts.

Now the German (as translated by Google):
Ärzte-Team Blogs
Willkommen bei Team Ärzte Blogs. Dieses Netzwerk von Blogs zeichnen sich mehrere Top-Führungskräfte, Forscher und Heiler, die ihre Perspektiven zu teilen und laden Diskussion über die Probleme, die Sie heute konfrontiert sind. www.teamdoctorsblog.com
Ärzte-Team Blog bietet eine enorme Menge an kostenlosen Inhalten geschrieben, Lautsprecher-Kanäle, Tipps Kanäle und andere Video-Tutorials aus, aber auch Chancen für Sie lernen Ideen auszutauschen, um direkt mit unseren Experten.

Now the German translated back into English by me:
Doctor's Team Blogs
Welcome to the Team Doctor Blogs. This network of blogs shows itself many top learders, researchers and healers, who divide their perspectives and load discussions about the problems, which you are confronted today. Doctor's Team Blogs offers written an enormous amount of free content, loudspeaker channels, tips channels, and other Video-Tutorials out, but also opportunities for you learning to exchange ideas, in order direct with our experts.

Like I said, you can get the gist, but I hope you agree that it's actually garbage. Also, several German grammar mistakes disappear in re-translation, but are quite painful to a German ear.
 
Google translate will give you the gist, but it still produces garbage (see example below)

Now the German translated back into English by me:
Doctor's Team Blogs
Welcome to the Team Doctor Blogs. This network of blogs shows itself many top learders, researchers and healers, who divide their perspectives and load discussions about the problems, which you are confronted today. Doctor's Team Blogs offers written an enormous amount of free content, loudspeaker channels, tips channels, and other Video-Tutorials out, but also opportunities for you learning to exchange ideas, in order direct with our experts.

Like I said, you can get the gist, but I hope you agree that it's actually garbage. Also, several German grammar mistakes disappear in re-translation, but are quite painful to a German ear.

I think that is very painful to read.
 
We have several things coming together here.

1. Your idea, Johannes, is excellent. Basically a quick-link to the chapters (or languages - see below).

2. The French requested last week to subdivide their Chapter discussion area into separate topic forums. A great idea in theory, this is difficult (expensive) to implement.* So we are considering the alternative of Language forums in the regular forum list. These would be subdivided further, like the divisions in the main forums. Important is the distinction between Chapters and languages. So the German Language forum would be open to all German speakers, the French to all French speakers, etc. Whereas the Austrians or the Québecois might want their own Chapter. Moreover, there is a growing need for multiple chapters in one country--such as with all the US states and with the east and west Canadian chapters.**

In idea 2, it will be important to have links between the Chapters and the language forums. Likewise, we'll need to decide whether Idea 1 links to the Chapter or to the language forum. The discussion area in the chapter would be reserved for organizing meetings etc.

On second thought and after discussing this with Paleo on the phone I came to like the idea for several reasons:

1. The language Forums would have the full range of functionality like the other Forums without any further need for expensive programming. We could do it right now. (Subdivisions possible, "sticky-threads" possible, image-upload possible, "go to first unread" button, just to name a few.)

2. The language Forums would allow to include more countries into one place. German is an example, but not the best one. Still, a German language Forum wouldn´t exclude Austria and Switzerland. But think of a Spanish language Forum! Or French! There are countries all over the world who are included here and might be attracted to join the discussions.

3. The language Forums would be visible for non-members. I´ve suggested to change this issue here. Currently the chapters are completely invisble for non-members which simply sucks. No-one even knows that we exist! Not to speak of a web-search which leads to zero results. Try: "Deutschland barfuß" or "Barfußlaufen" or even "Barefoot Runners Society Deutschland".

I could even live with the fact that there would be multiple places of discussions in German (the German language Forum and the Germany Chapter / Austria Chapter / Switzerland Chapter). (The latter don´t exist yet).

And again: I´d love to see the flags! A simple visual-menu with one flag for one language would be great.
 
We have some things working on the backend which will give us new chapters with all the options from number 1. I understand number 2 and would have to discuss more with TJ .
Number 3 TJ wanted them to be invisible from guests. So therefore since hidden they will not show on google as it is invisible.
 
1. Matt has someone creating a module for us that will treat the conversations in the Chapters as though they were in the forums. The Chapter Presidents (or just the Admins, Matt?) will be able to create topic categories where they can group their conversations. Additionally, the site will be able to send email notifications and Alerts whenever a thread is created or replied to (with an option for the members to opt out of receiving these emails if they want). He is also working on linking the Chapters' Calendar Events from the Calendar to the respective Chapters.

2. If/when we get #1 implemented, do we really even need #2? Once you all are in your own Chapters, you can type in any language you want anyway, right? And to further identify the Chapters visually, we can add Chapter Avatars representing that country.

3. The privacy issue comes up now and again, and it seems we can't satisfy everyone. I personally don't see any problems with letting the individual Chapters and the main Chapters Listing to be visible. We have the forums visible, so there shouldn't be any additional breech in security by displaying the Chapters to the public or Google. So, that's my vote, Matt. If Jamie, Kate, Sara, or you have another opinion on this, please voice it here, but I think it should be fine to have the Chapters visible.
 
2. If/when we get #1 implemented, do we really even need #2? Once you all are in your own Chapters, you can type in any language you want anyway, right? And to further identify the Chapters visually, we can add Chapter Avatars representing that country.

#2 I think: No.

To everything else that you wrote, Matt and TJ: Guys, this all sounds absolutely wonderful. I´m so glad you hear me on this suggestion.

As for the privacy issue: I absolutely agree that this will always be a dilemma: Protection of privacy and the individual personal rights on the one hand and impact, public awareness, potential to reach people and make a difference on the other hand. I, personally, try to keep my "public life" and my "private life" as separate as possible, avoiding my real name, not letting any friends, colleagues and family in my list of Facebook friends, and so forth. Whatever I write in public can be read by everyone.
 
Matt, can you go ahead and make the individual Chapter pages visible to Google, etc.?