Well, the only official information I have is that Nokia doesn't accept this (at least here in Germany). So what should I believe right now? Maybe it would be an good idea to contact Nokias main office in finland and ask again?

Thats what I thought too.

My intentions with maemosverige is all good afaik. The silence in the thread after I annonced it did feel like something was sensetive though. What is the deal?

Just came in to the debate, but from someone who in order of understanding can get by in: French (101% for Qc/Fr), English (99%), Spanish (50%), Czech (10%), Japanese (1%)...

I think the answer absolutely has to be yes! The problem as many have mentioned is fragmentation but as this community grow, if 100 _X_ speakers decide to split off, they'll be isolated away from this community.

Not to mention that most Nokia employees are probably not native English speakers to begin with and thus it would benefit them too...This question is amusing coming from a Finnish company. I guess we should really ask those who are can speak more than just English and even more those who can't speak English at all... :-)

But anyway, balancing growth, fragmentation and integration is the real issue here, not whether we should force a single language onto everyone on the Internet.

For the current size of the community i find it hard to justify a full blown area with the same sub categories for all languages, just not yet... A good idea might be to add a language field to the threads that would hash the name and color the threads accordingly/randomly(always the same for same language) so they would be easy to spot!
That would be a great start... When we grow to 10k online user at once, then we can revise how to split the forum to add languages in their own part.
Having other languages within easy reach of the "main" one will help exchange by simplifying work in every languages and since this forum is not just about support but also about sharing and coding i think it's very important to a FOSS community to be...

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P.S. could the text box also be grown to something bigger than 6 lines by half the message width?! It's impossible to concentrate in such a small area! :-o

Don't know about maemo trademark etc. so while I'm not ignoring the question, I'm not answering it either. Silence in this case for me is not so much ominous as sensible.

To get back to the topic in hand:

My concerns spring from nothing close to xenophobia (xenophobic immigrants tend to not be happy, and I'm quite happy...) but from a rather long time observing real life and how people integrate around language.

It's human nature for people to hang out with like minded others (and this is borne out by my observations, which admittedly are a sample size of not very many, and from those of others, which are a slightly larger sample size), Which is why we're here.

Language is a powerful expression of culture, and a strong pull for those who speak it to gravitate towards. I think that the sub-fora in different languages could become 'mini maemo.orgs' in specific languages with no or little crossover, the result of which diminishes us all.

However, there are positive reasons for language support. Lack of xenophobia is not one of them, neither is a need to prove we're not xenophobic, but valid others exist.

How do we manage the integration?

Yes, careful moderation would be key. And the moderator would also have to be responsible for ensuring integration of topics, with the English subforum as central anchor.

Here's an example:

The German subforum has a discussion about the N920's new hybrid screen that has some interesting, valid, technical details in it. Meanwhile, the English subforum has a similar discussion ongoing. benny1967 follows both, sees a post in the German that is relevant, and links it, with or without translation, but usefully with a context (for example: posted as useful by German subforum moderator, use Google to translate...). Works both ways of course.

Yes, we'd miss some things. Yes, it's work for the moderators. Remember, nothing worthwhile is free.

Sorry if this is longwinded. I'm trying to get my head around:
1. inclusivity and acceptability
2. information flow

Why is the English subforum the anchor? Because, with the best will in the world, English is the main language of the internet at present. It's also likely the most spoken language in the world if one takes into account second languages.

We could try Mandarin as the anchor, but... I'm not sure it would be as inclusive as English...

please post the original mail you received.

i'm quite sure there has been a misunderstanding.
you can't claim to be the official german maemo forum, but you can of course start a non-official fan forum.

the use of a trademark in that way is permitted by german law AFAIK, you just have to make sure to inform your visitors that you're not an official site.

I'm fully behind multilingual support.

I just wonder how it will be managed here.

The site is already antagonistic by default toward the devices for which we develop/test/etc... how will we fit other subfora in? Linear fashion, so that speakers of the least-used language scroll all the way to the bottom? Or do we implement tabbed pages? Both? Something else?

This is a 3-dimensional problem looking for a 2-dimensional solution.

Off Topic but...

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/boro...y09_index.html

Fun article on languages :-)

I think foreign language sub-forums can work and can be a positive thing for the maemo community. I've seen successful sites with non-english forums, as well as sub-forums specific to organizations.

The important thing here is:

• moderator(s) - who will uphold order to the forum (nothing vulgar, illegal, racial, religious, etc), without abusing their authority
• topic repetition/redirection - if a certain topic has been discussed before, members should redirect the discussion to specific english threads
• language barrier - if a member cannot express him/herself easily in english, then this is where the sub-forum shines. If members are comfortable posting in english, try to post on the main forums, and use language specific-forum to only help those who have a hard time with english.

Some things to consider:

• maybe a localized maemo organization/group can run these sub-forums. They can later on vote who moderates the sub-forum in the future.
• maybe other localized commercial sites using the 'maemo' trademark can be encouraged to not create their own forum and instead use the new language specific sub-forum here at Talk, as well as display the feed of the sub-forum on their sites (I can create a special feed script for this).
• with localized sub-forums, it becomes easier for members to get to know each other. This can maybe lead to occasional local Maemo meet-ups, etc. This can be a great tool for Nokia to target specific groups/locations later on.

jph, why this tone in your posts? You sent an email last evening, I answered you this morning with a (I believe) kind post telling that I had to ask about the ads and in general what is our policy with maemo-something websites. You didn't mention anything about previous contacts with Nokia Care and forwarding me that email would have saved you a long post here.

Actually it was me pointing you this thread.

The Maemo Devices team is the responsible of the Maemo trademark and is specifically Peter and also me who try to find its best application. Give me some time to go back to the office tomorrow and answer you. In the meantime please don't flame or blame Nokia or the Maemo team. Look how many Maemo something websites have been created lately (some contacting us, some not) and nobody has received any comment (good or bad) about this as far as I know.

Now please let's go back to the original topic of this thread.

quim, I never (!) wanted to blame you or the maemo team! i thought it was visible that I am only angry because of the german nokia care (who answered at my question this morning, your answer came last evening - i directly forwardet their mail to you at I think 9am), not because of nokia at all. it makes me angry that i didn't get any information from the german team except a very, very strict prohibition, the finish team (/ you) on the other hand cares more than your job demands. this is what i expect from a community-near team and i'm glad to see that the misbehavior from the german team was just a exclusion. and well - i would never run an illegal website, especially not if i have the possibility to contact the right persons directly through the community...

sorry that my sorrows made this thread go off topic - as an excusement i have another argument concerning new language categories:

imagine that sweet teeny girl next door buys a n900 with maemo (only because it looks tight, has a nice camera, facebook works and daddy lend her his credit card). then for example she wants to modify party pictures directly after she shot them. what do you think will she google for? "maemo 5 gimp port" or will she google for "nokia n900 bildbearbeitung"? i think she will search for the second one - and where will she possibly look for results, in a "geeky" developer board with mailing list and flooding people crying because of trademark **** or kernel hacks or whatever - or will she look at her native maemo / n900 community board with blinky blinky applications and other girls, grandmas etc. asking similar questions like "where can i get a lie detector for my n900" or "how can i change the background of my n900 to fit with the pink horses i painted on the plastic case"? in short: this here is the official maemo page, here are developers and here is tech-zone. all-day-users won't really fit into this and i don't think that the geeks in here can't explain their technical issues in english. also, if english stays the main language (or only language) no questions would be asked two times in different languages.

but all in all I don't think an own language section would be bad, I just think that no one would miss them if they weren't here and it would be better to concentrate officially on one language to make problems accessible for everyone!