On the TOPLAP forum they have a subforum for communities - might be nice for new users or people who aren’t well connected if they could come on here and look straight away if there are threads for, eg. “users in germany” “users in lisbon” “live coders in spain” etc. Or maybe there is a better way to deal with this - this is just a thought.
Cheers,
Jordan
Nice idea. It would be helpful to create subforums at least for taking into account the different languages that people are speaking here. Some people may be way too shy to post because everyone is using english as a lingua franca and because implicitely, you have to be fluent in english to discuss with other members of the community (very technical subjects, etc…).
Disclaimer: I am not an English native speaker.
Nice idea. It would be helpful to create subforums at least for taking into account the different languages that people are speaking here.
I totally see that it would make people more comfortable using their native language.
However, there is a slight danger that it would create language “silos” and content wouldn’t be available to all the other users due to the language barrier.
and because implicitely, you have to be fluent in english to discuss with other members of the community (very technical subjects, etc…).
Actually, I don’t even think that you have to be fluent in English to discuss a problem in SuperCollider. The nice thing about written communication is that you can take all the time you need. Nowadays you even have very good translation services which can help a lot. And you can make all sorts of grammar and spelling mistakes and it doesn’t matter at all as long as you somehow get your point across.
On the other hand, if you have a subforum “SC users in Germany” it certainly would be weird if they all had to write in English. It just would be good if the use of such subforums was restricted to regional topics (e.g. local meetups) and not general technical topics.
Just my 2 cent.
I’m okay with creating subforums for different regions if people are into it. However, there are already are language-specific subforums (Non-English - scsynth) that I created hoping to make some space for non-English discussion. These have not seen a single post in the history of this forum, which is too bad. One option is that we could re-purpose these to be for regional (city or country?) connections and events…
We already have a lot of dead categories, so I’m only hesitant to add even more that will lie fallow as the language ones have.
That sounds like a good idea! Per country should be fine. I don’t think we need seperate categories for SC users in Munich and Berlin 
Ah, I didn’t mean a different category for every country, more just one category for “community” with which we could tag our threads. But I take the point about too many inactive subforums etc!
I wasn’t even aware that they existed because Discourse is just showing up recent posts by default (a feature that I really like)! I suppose that it is up to the willing members of this community to start discussions in other languages if they need/want to. There is no need to do anything then… (Maybe a french section?)
I don’t think that it would be the case. If you need to forward an important announcement to the community, you would use the per-default language: english. That would be the only way to be understood by everyone and to gain visibility. That is already the case with everything else on the internet.
However, using your native language can be a really nice way to unfreeze a local scene of people that can’t find each other because they don’t know that they live nearby or that they could organize events together. I was quite surprised the first time I met an SC user living in the same time as me! I also had good experiences in other communities, finding out that people were living very close and that we could get out and meet IRL!
I slightly agree but I also think that it, in some way, a bias. There are many people that will not even think about pulling out an automatic translator to help them interact with distant others or that will have the courage / the will to do so. They will just say “meh” and move on. To be ready to interact with other people in a foreign language (1) about technical subjects (2) with everyone being able to see what you just posted (3) is a lot to ask for some people, for various different reasons. Finding a tiny hidden place where you can just post in your native language can help people to make the first step and to slowly understand that they can also speak with everyone without being too shy.
I mean, it’s hard to express an opinion in an unfamiliar language, and it’s even harder to debug something / talk about a fairly advanced topic with people when there are multiple obstacles holding you back.
I totally agree. I don’t have anything against people using their native language. I would say it’s totally natural if the topic is colloquial or regional, like organzing local meetups or promoting concerts.
However, I still think it’s better to try to keep technical questions in English just because more people will profit. (Also, you likely get more answers.) Now that the mailing list has vanished, this forum is the main knowledge base for SC and I think all the information should be as accessible as possible for everyone.
Nothing you’re saying is wrong, I’m just trying to bring in another perspective.
with everyone being able to see what you just posted
That’s why we have pseudonyms 
People can post on this forum without any trace to their real life identity if they wish so. There is really no reason to be afraid, IMO.