On Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 3:54 PM, fnu <vdr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> As good as vdrportal is as a VDR resource, the language barrier _is_ a > problem for english speakers. > > Same with this mailing list for german speakers ... and now? I don't recall any german speakers ever expressing a problem that this mailing list is primarily english. Regardless of whether germans have a problem with this mailing list or not, I think it's certainly appropriate that it is primarily english for the simple fact english is a common language spoken by many non-english native speakers. There are many users and devs here from many different countries and thankfully they have english as a common means to communicate. My understanding is that english is taught as a multi-year requirement in many foreign countries. There are school districts here that require 2 years of foreign language, while most it's optional. Of the people who take foreign language, spanish is easily the first choice considering we have such a large hispanic population. Behind that is probably french, then japanese. German isn't very popular here I assume because we don't have many large german communities. >> or feeling like a welcome visitor/member > > A little tale, if I'm in the US, I have to speak english all time. If my US > friends do visit me or colleagues are staying in Germany, I also have to > speak english all the time. They don't even try to speak my/our language > while staying in Germany. And hey, don't think they ever welcomed me in > german language ... ^^ Personally I don't think it's much to ask to learn to greet a foreign friend in their native language but I guess your friends disagree. > This is just a chicken-and-egg problem, you all don't try to use it, so no > information is collected or any kind of community will be set up. There is > an rarly used international part, but if somebody does ask in english, > she/he gets an answer in english, wherever postet. Time and patience could > solve a lot, even losing shyness of nativ german speakers to answer in > english, but this up to you all ... I hope you don't misunderstand, I wasn't complaining that vdrportal isn't english-friendly. I was simply giving a few quick reasons why it _appears_ to be unfriendly for english speakers and why (we) don't use the site. It's the same reason why english speakers don't use the russian vdr forums, the french forums, the spanish forums, etc. Unfortunately vdrportal will never be a good home for english users in the same way those russian, french, spanish, etc. forums won't either. Look at how many of the actual english posts don't even have replies, or what little replies there are that don't actually help. It shouldn't be a wonder why you see tumbleweeds in the `international` section of vdrportal. That being said, (we) still manage to get VDR running thanks to the english-friendly forums that exist. > Unfortunately the search function of vdr-portal sucks IMHO, so in all > languages, better use google w/ "site:vdr-portal.de what-you-search-for". If you speak german, I agree. If you speak english then this mailing list or one of the english forums are probably a better choice. _______________________________________________ vdr mailing list vdr@xxxxxxxxxxx http://www.linuxtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vdr
