Having a truly bilangual or multilanguage board

[DenDen60]

Is it possible to have a truly bilangual or multilanguage board? By this I mean when a person selects french for example the name and the logo of the board changes as well as sections and topics?

I have look at the mod section but I have not seen this.

If it does not exist, would it be difficult to do?

Thank you

[kat]

If the logo is an image, how would a text translator translate it? That's not gonna happen, now, is it?

[Arantor]

I never understand this argument. If the board name changes, it's going to imply the contents of that board are also in the same language as the board name.

If I see a list of board names all in English, I'm going to assume the topics inside are also in English.

[DenDen60]

Content managing software are organized this way. You can create the same page in multiple languages and the clients can access just by a click of a button. This help caters to the need of  different clients having different languages.

Here is my rational. I live in a city where some people are anglophones, others are francophones and many are bilingual.

I specialize in facilitating discussions that engage people in social and societal questions, so to be able to see what other groups of people think is important.

People that know more than one language, will often want to go and read what other people using another language are saying. At least I do, and I like this.

So I would like to have my forum work like this. Since it is the same City, I do not want people to register to two forums.

Ps.: I don't want the content to be translated. However the board name could change from one language to another. It could refer to another image when another language is chosen.

[Arantor]

It's a bit different when you're talking about content management because by definition the user isn't adding content.

If the user sees a list of board names in English, they're going to assume the boards are in English because that's how people tend to think. They're not going to expect to see topics in French in a board with an English name.

It's all about managing an expectation. And by far the simplest way to do this is to have two boards, one for English, one for French, both in their respective titles. That way there's a sense of expectation in terms of boards; one would expect to find English topics in the English boards and French topics in the French boards. People that only want to focus on one language can do so without any problem.

Let us say you have a board whose name would be General Discussion. Under what you're proposing, you'd pretty much have to make two boards, one whose name is 'General Discussion (English)' and one whose name is 'General Discussion (French)' when showing that to an English user. I don't know what the French equivalent would be for the phrase, but you'd still have to name these two boards with language qualifiers.

Or, alternatively just create two categories, one for English, one for French and leave the board names intact. None of what I'm saying here conflicts with your stated intention - both would continue to facilitate multiple languages inside a single forum with a single registration.

The only part I'm suggesting you need to stop pushing for is the need to change the board names depending on language; it's way too easy to give the wrong sense of expectation.

[DenDen60]

I understand your point Arantor and it is probably through in areas where there is only one prevalent language, but in other areas where there is more than one prevalent language people look for this being.

As for the names of the board, some boards have names that are not associate with a subject or a language per se.

I like the idea of having two categories, but they would need to appear only when the appropriate language is selected.

As for pushing the idea of changing the name of the board and or changing the image, I can't stop, because this is my need.

[margarett]

But a forum is really different from a CMS... In a forum you (expect to) have a lot of users posting and each topic has participation from a lot of different persons.

What I can't understand is this...
Imagine you create a topic in French. By the same definition of a CMS with multiple languages, YOU need to add the same content in another language. Right?
So I, when I'm viewing that topic in the language I chose (say, English), I see your English-created content. Now I want to reply to you. So I reply in English but I can't speak French so I don't add this.
A third user now joins the topic, with French selected as a language. He sees your OP in French. And what about mine?...

[DenDen60]

But a forum is really different from a CMS... In a forum you (expect to) have a lot of users posting and each topic has participation from a lot of different persons.

True

What I can't understand is this...
Imagine you create a topic in French. By the same definition of a CMS with multiple languages, YOU need to add the same content in another language. Right?

Yes and no. Yes you will usually have the same starting point, for example do you agree with this law, but the evolution of the discussion will be different and that is ok. So no, it does not have to be the same.

So I, when I'm viewing that topic in the language I chose (say, English), I see your English-created content. Now I want to reply to you. So I reply in English but I can't speak French so I don't this.
A third user now joins the topic, with French selected as a language. He sees your OP in French. And what about mine?...

The idea is that you should not see the discussions in English if you choose French, and vice versa. View this action as using a filter.

[Arantor]

In which case farting around with the board names is really not what you want to be doing but instead creating a set of boards for English, a set of boards for French and showing/hiding them on demand. Much simpler, much faster, so much more reliable and doesn't require significant overhauls of SMF's structure or code to accomplish.

[margarett]

^^ This

If you are not supposed to see topics of languages other than yours, it's really best to have multiple sets of boards, each only visible to selected language.

Some time ago I created for a user some code to force a user to choose a membergroup at registration. You can create membergroups with the languages available, have your users to select their language at registration and maybe we could even tweak that a little bit to force the language selection to be made at registration, according the chosen membergroup.

And with that, with minor tweaks, you can have your intended behavior. Maybe not really like you imagined it  

[DenDen60]

Thanks Margaret and Arantor.

I understand your points however, would this require members to register in different places? I could use the approach proposed here, but it would happen only in one language.

I have just got this idea. Can I create a registration process outside SMF, including a database, and the different forum instances would use that database for accessing member information.

To help you understand what I want, here is a small description of what I want to accomplish in the short run.

I will need 13 instances of SMF.

3 to facilitate discussions between citizens at the national level (1 for the US and 2 for Canada)
4 to facilitate discussions between citizens at the provincial/ state level (1 for the US and 4 for Canada)
5 to facilitate discussions between citizens at the local level (1 for the US and 4 for Canada)

Doing the US part is easy, since at this point I will only create 3 instances and they will all function in English. In Canada, the national and provincial communities of practices will have two instances, one in French and one in English. One of the city will also be bilingual, while the other two cities will be only in French.

If SMF had the possibility of being truly multilingual, I would only need 9 instances instead of 13, but I can live with this.

However, I do need only one member data base, because it is with this database that I will communicate with members.

As far as usability is concern, some power user will participate at one or two local communities, and one  provincial/state community and probably one or two national community.

I want these power users to be able to seamlessly go from one forum to another.

So would an outside database linking all SMF instance work?

Thanks
Denis

[Arantor]

Bridging forums like that is an unpleasant task and will lead to many complications of its own even before factoring in any of the minor changes we've outlined.

But the multi-language aspect is going to give you crap however you do it, whether you force people to change languages or you restrict what people can see. Which is why not restricting it actually tends to work better...

*shrug* I also get the feeling you're still not actually taking on board what we're saying, hope it works out for you.

[DenDen60]

Hi Arantor,

I do take on board what you are saying. I understand that the idea of having multilingual is not a good idea.

This is why I asked if creating an outside web page with a distinct database would work.

Each instances of SMF would work in only one language. 

[margarett]

I think that adequate permissions with my trick to force them to choose a group at register would work for you.

They choose a language which is also it's membergroup and with that defined you can either choose for them to see but not post different languages or not seeing those at all... 

I might need to fine tune this idea

[DenDen60]

Hi Margarett,

But would they have access to the other language when needed?

Thanks
Denis

[margarett]

It would depend whether or not you give them the permissions to do so.

[DenDen60]

Great.

So coming back to my example, using your approach, we could have just 9 instances of SMF running instead of 13.

2 to facilitate discussions between citizens at the national level (1 for the US and 1 for Canada, bilingual)
3 to facilitate discussions between citizens at the provincial/ state level (1 for one State in the US and 2 for two provinces in Canada, both bilingual)
4 to facilitate discussions between citizens at the local level (1 instance for one city in the US and 3  for 3 city in Canada including one bilingual one. )

Now this would be possible while using the same table for membership ?

If so, how do we do this?

Thanks
Denis

[margarett]

Yes, but you'll have just one instance of SMF (although this depends on what your understanding of "instance").

I'll try to make you an image example of what I'm saying. But bump me if I forget kt, as it's getting late here, and tomorrow will be a busy day...

[DenDen60]

Yes, but you'll have just one instance of SMF (although this depends on what your understanding of "instance").

One instance = one installation of SMF.

The reason I use different instances if for Marketing purposes. What I am developing are communities of practices for citizens and the name of the community is important. For example, people of Ottawa will want to see the name of their city. It facilitates engagement.

Denis