Is this forum section needed?

[johan swe-1870]

This forum section was started for non swedish speaking IF-boat interested user discussions.

As it now seems, many users are reading and posting in the swedish forum sections and not that much here.. In the swedish section, the topics are divided into several categories, which makes it easier tio find interesting threads and similar topics.

Would it be a good idea to end this english spoken section and move all the topics to their relevant swedish section?

What do you think? Is it a good idea to move this section and discuss everything at the same place or should we leave it as it is?

[Nils D]

I think the English forum section should be kept as it is. At least if the maintenance costs in terms of money or time is not too large.

By also having a forum section in English we give a clear signal to a first time visitor that it is OK to ask questions even if you do not speak Swedish. So it, in a sense, lowers the threshold for non-Swedish (or non-Scandinavian) IF sailors to get in touch with the Swedish IF community.

I think it is important both as a courtesy to this group, and for Swedish IF sailors that we have an international IF community.

[maja]

Anyway, for non-Scandinavian user there is a translation facility that makes it possible to translate the Swedish entries , and thus it may be more practical to make an new entry on the spot.

[Nils D]

Anyway, for non-Scandinavian user there is a translation facility that makes it possible to translate the Swedish entries , and thus it may be more practical to make an new entry on the spot.

That might be true in most cases, though automatic translation works less good for specialized technical domains like yachting where there exist fewer parallel corpora to train the system than for more general domains.

But my point was not about which is the most efficient way for non-Swedish speaking IF sailors to communicate with us on the forum. My point was about how to make it clear to first time visitors that it is OK to contact us without having to translate the message into Swedish.

[johan swe-1870]

The translate facility only helps a little. Many technical and marine terms get lost and the result is rather confusing. It also just autotranslates already written posts. Any new post has to be created in the desired language manually.

I agree about the points in keeping this english section. It is nice to show non-Scandinavian IF owners that they are also welcome at the forum.

Shall we move the few english posts in the swedish section over here?

Shall we also create subcategories like in the swedish section (Hull, Rudder, Fittings, Rig, etc)? It will be easier to find relevant english threads.

[Nils D]

Shall we also create subcategories like in the swedish section (Hull, Rudder, Fittings, Rig, etc)? It will be easier to find relevant english threads.

Good question. And tricky to answer. Given the relatively few postings in the English section, one answer could be that it is not needed, or at least does not need as many subcategories as in the Swedish forum. But one could also argue that by having exactly the same subcategories as in the Swedish forum it would be easier for non-Swedish visitors to explore through some translation facility the specific sub-sections that they are interested in.

Since I see good reasons for both, but none of them really necessary, perhaps the best solution is to keep things as they are.

[Pancho]

Hello All,

When I was looking for an IF boat to buy I found the English section a really helpful place to start.

Now I have bought one, I find the Swedish section most useful as the detail in the technical sections is really helpful - with the help of Google translate. Yes Google struggles with technical words - but you can soon work it out.

So, to me both sections have been useful.