Just asking, because I think it is important.
Do we want language specific support here at elkarte.net?
I'm tempted to say "no", simply because we can't guarantee native language support. A good example for not giving native language support is the german board over at simplemachines.org ..
The board moderators have disappeared years ago and currently no one is giving proper support. There are many complaints from users because they never get an answer to their questions. That's frustrating for users and a bad reputation for the organisation.
What do you think?
I'd say not until we have enough users to warrant it. At this time, I'd say no. But who knows how it could be down the road.
I feel your temptation to hold off for now is the correct , for all the reasons you stated.
wink Here's one, voting for such a board in the future. ;)
I say yes, with my translator english I'm not far ^ ^ O:-)
I think elkarte.net can make it better. So in my opinion language specific boards are a must have. :)
Or otherwise a decentralized network of international support forums! :D
Using OpenID (or alike) we may be able to log into any of them without register every time.
That could even be an experimental platform to develop forum-to-forum interaction schemes (for example cross-forum mentions (i.e. I mention you in the it forum and you see the notification across all the forums you are registered to) and/or PMs, dunno exactly yet what I'm talking about, just throwing out ideas) to move forums to "the next level". ;)
I would only open language specific boards if you already have someone in place to moderate it. The moment the moderator is gone, so is the board(making it hidden). That would help indicate to non-english speaking user's if they have specific language support.
I would even recommend making a mod where if the moderator of that board has not logged in in the past 14 days, the board automatically get's hidden.
That's just how I would personally handle it.