French forum - sub section obsolete?

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upCASE
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French forum - sub section obsolete?

Post by upCASE »

Hi!
In this thread
http://forums.wxwidgets.org/viewtopic.php?p=80634
I learned that there already is a french wxWidgets forum.
Although there are only 47 members, I suppose this make the french sub section here obsolete, seeing that this forum will grow in the future.

The question is if we should close the french section and only leave the chinese and russian sections (for now). I guess a link placed in the top nav bar and a sticky would be a good way to link to this forum. Personally I still don't like splitting the community, but I guess that the french forum will get more attention in the francophone community either way, so we might as well support this.
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Post by Auria »

Well I agree with you, a link to there would be good enough. Anyway the current french subsection here didn't get much interest ;)
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xaviou
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Post by xaviou »

Hi

To keep the french forum ...... french ;) I reply here to Jorg and Upcase. (and I'll try to do it in english :? ).
Jorg wrote:We didn't intended to compete with smaller french (or any other specific language) sites. I only responded to the demand that people wanted to have a native language forum.
I never really thought there was a "competition" between differents wxWidgets's sites. It was juste a humorous way to start my post.

I will try to explain why I started wxDev.fr, and why I didn't advised the official team of that.

A few years ago, I was contacted by a person who wanted to start a french wxWidgets dedicated site.
Here is the topic (in french) : http://cfred.free.fr/punbb/viewtopic.php?id=26
The story started, and the site was born : wxdevelop.com.
There was a forum, a place for snippets, tutorials, and for small members projects.
Julian Smart was contacted, and a link to the french site was put in the "support" page of the official site. That's why, I think, its audience has increased very quickly.
1 year later, the site was down and the author can't be contacted by any way (mail, msn, ...)
... End of the first part of this story :cry:

A few months later, I was contacted by 2 members of the dead site, and they encouraged me to start a new one (I was, I think, the most active member of wxdevelop.com).
I made it, but I wanted to go slower than it was done the first time, to be sure that people would be interested by a new french site. That's why I didn't noticed the official team of this.

And here we are : actually 47 members (the last came today) and some wx things in the tutorials and snippets sections.

Anyway, I don't know what the best is :
- Keeping this forum in place and removing mine
- Keeping mine and linking to it from here
- Keeping both

As upCase said, I don't think that splitting the community would be a good thing, so the last options can be ignored.

About the visibility of the french site. You're right : searching for "wxwidgets french" with google doesn't give any link. Did you try the same search with yahoo ? I know google is the most popular search engine, but I don't know why it doesn't index the site :cry: .
In fact, having the best visibility wasn't the priority : I first wanted to have a foncional site, without an empty list of snippets and tutorials before posting links on more popular sites. Perhaps its time to do so...

Well, I don't know what to do.
I'll ask members on my site about it.

Regards
Xav'
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Post by Jorg »

Hi there Xaviou,
Anyway, I don't know what the best is :
- Keeping this forum in place and removing mine
- Keeping mine and linking to it from here
- Keeping both

As upCase said, I don't think that splitting the community would be a good thing, so the last options can be ignored.
Please do not get me wrong, I'm in no way implying we want to annexate (overtake) your forum. As you said, the amount of people surfing it are not much, but should certainly not be ignored. Sometimes a place where you feel a bit at home (as developer) is more important then the number of users that actually visit. If you want to keep your forum, please do. I am not forcing you into any decisions.

We can make a link to the french forum if you want on the top bar, and you can see how that goes. if your user base increments it might be a nice start for more visibility. If you are on the other hand more happy to start here and me a moderator with us, you are more then welcome.

But in any case, the french forum as we have now stays empty, so we need to do something about it :-)

ps. your English is perfect ;-)

With regards,
- Jorgen
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xaviou
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Post by xaviou »

Hi

I asked their impressions to people registered on my forum and by MSN/GTalk (and that's why I waited before replying).
  • All those with whom I've talk want to continue posting on wxDev.fr.
  • For them, the question was not "Should we post on the french section on the official forum or not ?" but "How cold we make wxDev.fr more visible on the net ?"
  • Due to the small number of members actualy registered ( 48 ) they feel "At home" when posting on wxDev.fr, and some of them helped me creating this site.
  • A lot of them want to see wxDev.fr growing, and participate to this.
And my opinion is (a bit selfish, I agree) that I don't wan't to see my site disappearing because of a to small frequentation.

But if you (and other people) want to keep the french section in this forum : no matter ! I'll come regularly and will reply if I can.

Regards.
Xav'

P.S: Did you retry a "wxwidgets french" google search ? 8)
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Post by Jorg »

Hi there Xiaviou,

I respect your decision, and it is fine by me. it is also nice that people call it a 'home' that is exactlly where a community forum is for. I will remove the forum here if everybody does agree on that. We can think about a link to your forum, but I am doubting how to do that without making the top bar even more cluttered.
P.S: Did you retry a "wxwidgets french" google search ?
yes I did, and unfortunately there is still no change. This can also be region dependent, I noticed google passes me back a few dutch links first before english ones, so it might be the same for people in France. I do hate it when machines start to think for me when they shouldn't

Regards,
- Jorgen
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Post by Jorg »

What about leaving the French Forum be as "sub forum" but change the description of this forum so that it reads (in French), "please visit http://wxDev.fr for a french community forum" ?

I already locked it, but when I did, I realised we might (ab)use the title text for some moderate advertisement of the french forum. Putting it on top in the header, makes it 'misplaced' between all other wxWidgets general references.

Regards,
- Jorgen
Forensic Software Engineer
Netherlands Forensic Insitute
http://english.forensischinstituut.nl/
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upCASE
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Post by upCASE »

Hi!
I'd vote for locking the forum and leave a sticky in it, saying that the french community is located elsewhere.
Another option would be to create a direct link for the forum.
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Post by NinjaNL »

upCASE wrote:Hi!
I'd vote for locking the forum and leave a sticky in it, saying that the french community is located elsewhere.
Another option would be to create a direct link for the forum.
Wouldn't it make the most sense to have the link for the "wxWidgets Forum (French)" go directly to http://www.wxdev.fr/ instead of http://forums.wxwidgets.org/viewforum.php?f=31? Or perhaps via a dialog saying something like "Now transferring you to the 'official' French Forum" or something like that?

If this is done, then visitors to this site, would have the best of both worlds, this thriving community with it's large user base, loads of knowledge and active support, but also the friendly and family feeling of the somewhat smaller French forum when needed.

Could another option be something like "mirroring" the French site? I can imagine that there might be some sensible questions asked/answered there, and that (just like the wxdevelop site) might disappear. Is it possible to have some sort of traffic between the two sites, say for example that all members there are automatically created as members here, and that the forum "there" could be imported "here" say once a month, to provide a "backup". Or (pipe dreaming as always) would it be possible to have posts here appearing there too, and the answers there appearing here?

Am I making myself clear?
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Post by upCASE »

NinjaNL wrote:Wouldn't it make the most sense to have the link for the "wxWidgets Forum (French)" go directly to http://www.wxdev.fr/ instead of http://forums.wxwidgets.org/viewforum.php?f=31? Or perhaps via a dialog saying something like "Now transferring you to the 'official' French Forum" or something like that?
This came to my mind as well. The only negative thing about this is, that people might register here and then see that the forum they are interested in isn't located here.

Still, this would be a good way to go. But I'd consider it a must to display a separate page telling users that they will be transfered to another site instead of simply opening it.
NinjaNL wrote:Could another option be something like "mirroring" the French site? I can imagine that there might be some sensible questions asked/answered there, and that (just like the wxdevelop site) might disappear. Is it possible to have some sort of traffic between the two sites, say for example that all members there are automatically created as members here, and that the forum "there" could be imported "here" say once a month, to provide a "backup". Or (pipe dreaming as always) would it be possible to have posts here appearing there too, and the answers there appearing here?
AFAIK there was a similar discussion about something like this for http://www.wxcommunity.com/.
Back then we didn't do that and I'm still not for it. If I apply for membership on one site I don't want it create a user account on another site that I might not use.
"Backing up" might be hard to implement as well. Plus this would mean much more load to our DB, while the information stored might not even be accessed as users read and post in the french forum.
NinjaNL wrote:Am I making myself clear?
Absolutely :)
And your ideas are good. Personally I believe that having a direct link to the french forum with a redirecting page is a good way to go. I still don't like the thought of having a separate community, but I'm all for supporting it, if this is the way to go.

The reason I don't like splitting the community is not that I want to be in charge, or think that there should only be one official forum. It's that when I think back a few years when there was no forum, it was pretty hard for me to find information, as I dislike mailinglists. Since the forum has been created, it has evolved in many ways and is a great source for information, available to everybody. The main reason to start the non-english sections was to have even more availability, especially for people who are not fluent in english. At least I thought this would still bring people together.
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Post by NinjaNL »

upCASE wrote:AFAIK there was a similar discussion about something like this for http://www.wxcommunity.com/.
I'd forgotten all about that site. Obviously a reason for having some sort of local wxWidgets related site listing.
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