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Forum Structure and Internationalization


Soly

Revamp forum structure and implement translations  

90 members have voted

  1. 1. Should we change the forum structure to a more cleaner and smaller one, translating it in the process?

    • Yes.
    • No (post why not, if you want).

This poll is closed to new votes


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Hello Ultima!
I'll be doing a poll here but first I'll explain why.

Early notes:
- The results of this poll are only to see what the community thinks, it will not decide if we do (or not) the changes proposed here.
- Traducción a español al final (en un spoiler)
 

The new forum software has brought many cool features and took away others, one of this cool features which I think isn't new anyway is the ability to translate almost everything in the forum except user content (like the content I put in this topic).

This feature made me think about the layout we currently have in the forum and sub forums (see current structure spoiler at the end)

Here are some things to think about when voting in the poll:

- I think the way it is right now, is a bit messy, you see 3 sections with the same sub forums but just in different languages.
- Sometimes Spanish users complain that topics don't get made for them or that they lack translation.
- Users sometimes post in the wrong language section.
- Forum usage statistics
From the numbers is obvious that the majority of the users post in the english section, spanish section gets used just a little, and portuguese section basically not used. Keep in mind that these numbers are in (I think) the whole server lifetime.

Spoiler

Forum posts
Forum total: 151615
English section: 108499
Spanish section: 17162
Portuguese section: 1428

With the points highlighted above, I want to propose a new forum structure (see proposed structure spoiler at the end), this structure completely removes language separations, it aims to make a cleaner structure, easier to navigate but being able to select your preferred language (if available) to browse the forum on it.

Pro:
- Cleaner forum
- You will be able to select your preferred language and have all the forum translated to it except content, that's up to the person posting it. The staff is encouraged to ask other staff or users to translate their posts if necessary, which already happens.

Con
- There wont be a clear separation of topics per language, this is good since sometimes people post in the wrong language section but is bad as there wont be a "special place" for your language.
- If we do this, we won't go back (after moving and merging sections it will be pretty hard to go back to the current structure).

Things I don't consider pro neither con
- How to post multiple languages if the content is the same on all languages? Topics that want to do different languages would be using pages or spoilers in the post to separate content per language.

 

So that's it... if you have any questions or comments, dont hesitate to post on the topic.
Thank you all for your time reading and voting.
 

ESPAÑOL

Spoiler

Hola Ultima!
Haré una votación pero primero explicaré por qué.

Nota temprana: Los resultados de esta votación son solo para ver que piensa la comunidad, esto no decidirá si hacemos o no los cambios propuestos aquí.

El nuevo software del foro trajo nuevas funciones y se llevo otras, una de estas funciones que creo que no es nueva es la capacidad de traducir casi todo en el foro excepto contenido de usuarios (como el de este tema).

Esta funcion me hizo pensar sobre la estrcutura que que tenemos actualmente en el foro y subforos (ver spoiler current structure spoiler al final del post)

Aca hay algunas cosas para penasr cuando votes:

- Yo creo que a como es en este momento, es un poco desordenado, ves 3 secciones con los mismos sub foros pero en diferentes lenguajes.
- A veces usuarios de Español se quejan de que temas no son creados para ellos o que les falta traducción.
- Usuarios postean en la seccion de lenguaje equivocada.
- Estadisticas de uso del foro (ver spoiler en el post original)


Con los puntos expuestos, yo quiero proponer una nueva estructura (ver spoiler proposed structure spoiler al final del post), esta estructura remueve completamente separaciones de lenguaje, tiene como objetivo hacer una structura mas limpia, facil de navegar pero siendo capaz de seleccionar tu lenguaje preferido (si esta disponible) para navegar el foro en el.

Pro:
- Foro mas limpio
- Ser capaz de seleccionar el lenguaje preferido y tener el foro traducido en el lenguaje excepto el contenido, quien postea tendra que traducir el contenido si quiere. Se anima a los miembros del staff a pedir al staff o usuarios que traduzcan sus mensajes si es necesario, lo cual ya sucede.

Con
- No habra una separacion clara de temas por lenguaje.
- Si hacemos esto, no podremos volver atrás (a la estructura que tenemos ahora).

Cosas que no considero pro o con
- Al postear en multiples lenguages, habra que usar spoilers o paginas para separar el contenido.

 
Eso es... si tienes preguntas o comentarios, no dudes en postear en este tema.
Gracias a todos por leer y votar.

 

SPOILERS

Current Structure

Spoiler

Ultima Server
English Section
    General
    CMode
    Support
    Teams
    Bugs
    Trade
    Hello - Bye Felicia
    Off topic
Seccion Español
    General
    CMode
    Soporte
    Teams
    Bugs
    Trade
    Quest support?
    Hello
    Off topic
Misc    
Portuguese Section
    General
    Support
    Teams
    Bugs
    Trade
    Quest support?
    Hello
    Off topic
Ultima Policing
Entertainment

 

Proposed Structure

Spoiler

Note: Every title description etc will be translated to the language you have selected.

Ultima Server
Phanatsy Star Online Blue Burst
    General
    Challenge Mode
    Trade Center
    Teams
    Help and Guides
    Hellos and Goodbyes
    Technical Support
        Include dedicated language sections here
Miscellaneous
Ultima Policing

 

 

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Remember The title of the Topic and the content of the Topic will NOT be auto translate. Just the forum section and description.

vote wisely.

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I actually don't like that it's segregated in such a way. One of the things I like about this is how international it is, and communicating with people from places around the world, of course some aren't going to know my language, but damn near every browser can do a quick and dirty job of this already. I mean it may not be perfect but it is definately well enough for basic communication. I would much rather not see everyone sectioned out in such a way

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2 minutes ago, Misombre said:

Cleaner, tidier, and smaller is always the best for forums.

Now I could careless about the language thing, I only vote for the new structure.

Indeed.
Basically, the language part is directed toward ES and PT users, as I posted their sub forums are not used enough.. some of those users mainly use the english section.

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How about 1 section with english only and 1 with multiple languages, so the main content will be english

So you can combine Ultima Server and English Section into one, 2nd would be "Multiple Language"

As an example:

Trade Center
- Language 1
- Language 2
etc.

In there, you can create some "Prefix" to topic creation, if possible, so you dont need "Seal "R" us" "Buy & Sell" "Trade List", just a Prefix with "[Buy]" or "[Sell]" etc.

If you wanna support more languages, you just need to create on every subforum an subforum with the language ( but that shouldnt be every week, maybe once a year or never :P )

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1 minute ago, TripleR said:

I actually don't like that it's segregated in such a way. One of the things I like about this is how international it is, and communicating with people from places around the world, of course some aren't going to know my language, but damn near every browser can do a quick and dirty job of this already. I mean it may not be perfect but it is definately well enough for basic communication. I would much rather not see everyone sectioned out in such a way

This was one of the first things I told Larva when I came up with this idea.
As I said, some users have complained about lack of translation in posts or that posts arent made in their sub forums, even once someone told me that english users had more privileges than them (spanish).

 

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4 minutes ago, Devidra said:

How about 1 section with english only and 1 with multiple languages, so the main content will be english

So you can combine Ultima Server and English Section into one, 2nd would be "Multiple Language"

As an example:

Trade Center
- Language 1
- Language 2
etc.

In there, you can create some "Prefix" to topic creation, if possible, so you dont need "Seal "R" us" "Buy & Sell" "Trade List", just a Prefix with "[Buy]" or "[Sell]" etc.

If you wanna support more languages, you just need to create on every subforum an subforum with the language ( but that shouldnt be every week, maybe once a year or never :P )

That's the thing I am trying to avoid here.
Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and Japanese are the current languages in the game (beside English)... adding more and more subforums would get out of hand pretty fast.

Merging any language that is not english into the same section would achieve just half the thing I want to do here, I don't want to make a forum "English only"... I am trying to make it language agnostic, any user can post in the same section and posts that need to be translated, will be translated like those in the Events or certain support topics.

About merging Ultima Server and English, thats a no go, Ultima server is something 100% of ultima (like the events on the server, changes on it etc).
The proposed section "PSOBB" will be of our server too, not 100% related to it, like for example ... all the gameplay and tips and tricks are inherent of psobb regardless of the server (with some exceptions but not common).

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1 minute ago, Soly said:

That's the thing I am trying to avoid here.
Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and Japanese are the current languages in the game... adding more and more subforums would get out of hand pretty fast.

Merging any language that is not english into the same section would achieve just half the thing I want to do here, I don't want to make a forum "English only"... I am trying to make it language agnostic, any user can post in the same section and posts that need to be translated, will be translated like those in the Events or certain support topics.

But that would be a hell of work... Translate everything they post / create

1 language ( english ) would be much smaller and easier to use, if I read a thread about an event, and scroll down too far... Yeah, missed some english information :D

But it's just my opinion, like I said you probably never need to add new subforums, cause there are so less XYZ language player, if somehow in 1 year will be 500 italian players, you need / can add an italian subforum in every XYZ subforum, but currently I see only Spanish / Portugese ( can't respectively them correctly... ) few german players, and most of time english writing people :)

BTW; im sorry for my bad english :onion-head48:

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Being an 'international' myself, I had to weigh the scales based on 2 things... past experience, and my own preferences. I'll elaborate:

- From my past observations on other servers and forums, if spanish speakers don't have their own place on the forums and/or no support from spanish speaking GM's (and let me add that they do tend to ask for a LOT of babysitting), they feel like they're helpless and they leave to one of the many other games out there that have spanish staff/support/forums. Honestly, brazillians are less 'spoiled' about having everything translated to their language because that's quite new, and they never had problems before, so they know they'll manage and they'll STAY with or without translations. Never mind the actual portuguese people from Portugal like myself: we speak other languages including English and Spanish fluently so it doesn't really matter what language the forum is written on :P

- I personally like to keep things simple. If the current forum works, it works and doesn't need to be changed. If the new version brings new issues to the table and actually becomes a nuisance, just restore the 'old' version.

Thank you for this poll, Larva & Soly. It shows how you guys strive to make things better and want our opinions on major decisions :)

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5 minutes ago, Devidra said:

But that would be a hell of work... Translate everything they post / create

1 language ( english ) would be much smaller and easier to use, if I read a thread about an event, and scroll down too far... Yeah, missed some english information :D

But it's just my opinion, like I said you probably never need to add new subforums, cause there are so less XYZ language player, if somehow in 1 year will be 500 italian players, you need / can add an italian subforum in every XYZ subforum, but currently I see only Spanish / Portugese ( can't respectively them correctly... ) few german players, and most of time english writing people :)

BTW; im sorry for my bad english :onion-head48:

You don't have to translate to topics... the staff is encouraged to translate their topics when necessary (we already translate event topics etc) but that's about it...
Users don't have to translate theirs (unless they want to), some users of other languages already post in english, I guess because most users are english thus their topics get more exposure.

I'm pretty sure we wont add new "language sections", anyway, portuguese as shown is barely used, any new one will probably be less used.

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21 minutes ago, Kuchi said:

Being an 'international' myself, I had to weigh the scales based on 2 things... past experience, and my own preferences. I'll elaborate:

- From my past observations on other servers and forums, if spanish speakers don't have their own place on the forums and/or no support from spanish speaking GM's (and let me add that they do tend to ask for a LOT of babysitting), they feel like they're helpless and they leave to one of the many other games out there that have spanish staff/support/forums. Honestly, brazillians are less 'spoiled' about having everything translated to their language because that's quite new, and they never had problems before, so they know they'll manage and they'll STAY with or without translations. Never mind the actual portuguese people from Portugal like myself: we speak other languages including English and Spanish fluently so it doesn't really matter what language the forum is written on :P

- I personally like to keep things simple. If the current forum works, it works and doesn't need to be changed. If the new version brings new issues to the table and actually becomes a nuisance, just restore the 'old' version.

Thank you for this poll, Larva & Soly. It shows how you guys strive to make things better and want our opinions on major decisions :)

I understand, in fact as I said in the topic, some spanish users have complained that about the lack of spanish posts or translations, but adding new language sections (like those 2 we have) won't help since most users use english, we'll be posting anything in the english section first, and if it's to be translated, it gets translated in that same english topic.. there aren't many topics posted in their respective languages.

The lack of a "spanish section" doesn't mean the lack of "spanish", it will be all in the same area. If the user selects spanish language, he will see "Soporte Tecnico" rather than "Technical Support", that would be enough to encourage him and post there I assume.

My main language is Spanish, I'm one of the spanish GMs but I never even look at the spanish section, I do check topics when they are posted and reply in spanish but that's about it, I'm not actively browsing ES let alone PT sections.
Having the topics in single section is better because we'll browse on it and we'll see them, they get more exposure lets say trade stuff or cmode topics for gathering players, also topics don't have to be posted multiple times (ugh).

Just changed my proposal to include dedicated language sections in tech support, things like "off topic" is kinda pointless to have different languages.
What do you think?

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I totally agree with a 'simpler' forum design, don't get me wrong. Easier interface usage, quicker access to information, elegance and softness to the eye. Softer on you guys aswell, I hope. But i'll quote what Triple R said about 'segregation' - that's the exact word to describe what I fear might happen. Everything else is just minor details which I could go on about. (i.e I know a lot of English native speakers who would feel a little bit annoyed by the fact random people came in and started spamming Spanish under their thread, or under an event-related thread). More exposure calls for more tolerance. I'm also pretty sure that even with a global cmode or other group activity topic for gathering players, 95% of spanish peeps will still prefer partying up with spanish players. It avoids awkward moments when someone asks 'hey do you guys want this pd that just dropped?' and the other 3 spanish ppl in the party don't reply. Or things get hairy.

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