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Up Topic General / Announcements / Switch to English in #clonkdev (locked)
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- - By Clonk-Karl [us] Date 2009-09-30 18:39
I know that this might be hard for some, and it might not be easy to adjust, but zagabar made me think about this. We switched the official development language in the forum to English to attract non-German-speaking contributors and developers. However, as long as substantial discussions and decisions take place in the chat and non-German-speaking people don't feel comfortable there (because 95% of the time people speak German) there is still an entry barrier for contributions by non-Germans. So I suggest to at least try to entirely switch to English in the chat. Note that nobody requires you to write perfectly correct English sentences, but there are people who understand you better when you communicate in somewhat broken English than when you do in perfect German.
Parent - By Nachtfalter [de] Date 2009-10-01 01:26
More english, less Off-Topic in #clonkdev, ack!
Parent - By Ape [fi] Date 2009-10-01 06:30
I agree.
Parent - - By Atomclonk [de] Date 2009-10-01 12:27
Why don't make a new Chan especially for OC?
Parent - - By Clonkonaut [de] Date 2009-10-01 13:08
Splitting up does not solve any problems. It just leaves one abandoned channel sooner or later.
Parent - - By MrBeast [de] Date 2009-10-02 15:01
I think we really should switch to another channel because in #clonkdev are all the betatesters of Clonk Rage which have nothing to do with OpenClonk (Clonkine for example). And if we change something in #clonkdev it would also affect the people who are not envolved in OpenClonk.
Parent - By Clonk-Karl [us] Date 2009-10-02 15:36
As long as it does not result in openclonk-related discussions still taking place in #clonkdev it might be worth a try... but I'd still rather like to avoid anything that makes my channel list longer. Isn't (wasn't?) there also #clonkbeta for beta testers?
Parent - By Zapper [de] Date 2009-10-02 16:15
Well, since #clonkdev is not secret anymore there is not much point in having two public development channels (one for CR, one for OC). Also development(-discussions) for Clonk Rage will die down sooner or later - so we can as well take #clonkdev over for OpenClonk-development right now
Parent - By Newton [de] Date 2009-10-02 16:21
Thats the problem I see, too.
Parent - - By zagabar [se] Date 2009-10-02 19:24 Edited 2009-10-02 19:27
Also, is it a bad thing that CR gets more international too?

In fact, name one reason that it is good to keep it german except that lazy germans don't have to speak english? :P
Parent - - By MrBeast [de] Date 2009-10-03 11:04
All the Clonk Rage Developers and Betas speak german. So it doesn't make sense for them to speek english.
Parent - - By zagabar [se] Date 2009-10-03 11:45
So they simply cannot make sense of the fact that there might be more than german CR developers and Beta testers if they wouldn't speak german? What kind of narrow view is that? Seriosly... I myself are a living proof that they are wrong. I am a developer and have been developing clonk for like 5 years.  I have had very hard to melt into the developing community just because of the language barrier. I am sure there are more like me out there and I think the language barrier makes more damage that you realize. As an non german developer you feel kinda left out. I have even stopped releasing stuff on ccan and such because when I do, people flood the upload with german comments even when I am very clear with posting that I CANNOT SPEAK GERMAN, PLEASE COMMENT IN ENGLISH!! What fun is it in uploading stuff when you get almost none readable feedback and even more alienation thrown in your face? :S
Parent - - By MrBeast [de] Date 2009-10-03 14:53
I mean with CR-Developers the people who develop the engine. Not the people who are modding clonk.
Parent - By zagabar [se] Date 2009-10-03 15:47
Okay, I see.
Parent - By Ringwaul [ca] Date 2009-10-03 19:29
The CR developers all spoke German, but sadly I cannot. The main reason I don't take part in dev discussions is because of the language barrier; and the fact that it's about 3 o'clock in the morning for you guys when it's the evening for me. That whole seperate continent issue is a real pain at times. xD
Parent - - By Kanibal [de] Date 2009-10-01 15:12
Puh. It's much easier for me to write in german. Especially in the IRC, I don't want to think to much, before writing anything. In my opinion, the main-community of clonk is still german - so I think, we should keep the german-language in the IRC-Chat...
Parent - - By Carli [de] Date 2009-10-01 16:09
yes, of course, did we do something else?
Parent - - By Clonk-Karl [us] Date 2009-10-01 16:35
This proposal is about doing "something else".
Parent - By Carli [de] Date 2009-10-01 17:08
omg, don't do this!
Parent - By Maikel Date 2009-10-01 16:19
Well, you are right indeed. Maybe we can use the same reasoning to oblige people to write script comments in German (german is not a language), or even better we can use German named variables and functions. Let me stipulate that this will greatly benefit OC development since scripts will be understood much easier by starting German developers.
Parent - - By Ringwaul [ca] Date 2009-10-01 16:22
Not all the community is German. Those who've met me will probably know the only thing I can say in german is "ich nicht sprechen deutsch" <- Probably horrible grammar xD

There are also quite a few people on the english clonk.de that cannot speak german. If OC and it's forums are written in an international language, it is much easier for newbies to Clonk to get into the game.
Parent - By Caesar [de] Date 2009-10-01 20:54

>ich nicht sprechen deutsch


I didn't even notice the mistakes first, but it's "Ich spreche kein Deutsch." (Seriously, your way is much more convincing.)
Parent - - By Clonk-Karl [us] Date 2009-10-01 16:35

> In my opinion, the main-community of clonk is still german


And we have to ask ourselves whether this is what we want or whether it is not. As we reach much more people when not restricting the community to German we have decided for the latter.

This is a chicken-and-egg problem: Keeping (parts of) the development in German discourages international contributions, but without such contributors you don't feel the need to change anything.
Parent - - By Kanibal [de] Date 2009-10-01 17:44
Good point, but:
I like the solution we're doing at the moment; main chatting in German, but if there's an english-speaking guy there're always some developers, who talk to him in english.
And:
Chicken wins.
Parent - - By Zapper [de] Date 2009-10-01 18:00
Normally you join a discussion when you find it interesting. But if the discussion is in a language that you don't unterstand, you can never join it. So idling makes no sense for non-german developers if the main language is still german
Parent - - By Atomclonk [de] Date 2009-10-01 18:54
Does idling making any sense ?
Parent - - By Zapper [de] Date 2009-10-01 18:58
You idle until you find something interesting being talked about and join the discussion, thats the usual procedure. For me, I am also not only in IRC when I want to say something but idle in between
Parent - - By Atomclonk [de] Date 2009-10-01 19:03
Idling is for me: Let mIRC run, play something, you come back, look what they have written and if there's something funny and you post it on GBO .

PS: There was a space between the last word and the questionmark. ;)
Parent - - By B_E [de] Date 2009-10-01 21:57
That was a dot, and I think this is nearly only known in the CF, i haven't seen it on any other site yet.
Parent - By Atomclonk [de] Date 2009-10-02 06:15
I left space in my question before and I know it's nearly only known on the CF.
Parent - - By Zapper [de] Date 2009-10-02 14:54
Just for those who also have not heard of using such weird things as whitespaces before full stops: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plenken
Parent - By Atomclonk [de] Date 2009-10-02 15:21
But there is no explanation, that it is used sometimes (I don't know where else) to express irony or sarcasm. :/
Parent - By Caesar [de] Date 2009-10-01 20:53
You shouldn't care too much about correctness.
Parent - - By zagabar [se] Date 2009-10-02 09:02
I totally agree on this one. I would have been active idling in that channel if it weren't for the non english. I mean, there is no point being there if you can't participate in the discussion. Not even understand it at all. Face it, germany consists of like less than 5% of the world population and non germans like clonk too. Thus by speaking a non international language, all other developers are alienated and cannot contribute as much. A totally english channel would enhance the learning for other developers and increase the support speed in the channel as more people ends up in there.

Also, having two separate channels would not be good either. Then it would probably end up like clonk forum.  The english part of it is much less active than the german one.
Parent - - By Luchs [de] Date 2009-10-02 15:22

>Face it, germany consists of like less than 5% of the world population and non germans like clonk too.


Yes, but atm there are 37 people in #clonkdev speaking German - and nobody who can't.
Parent - By Clonk-Karl [us] Date 2009-10-02 15:28
And exactly this is what I hope will change.
Parent - - By Isilkor Date 2009-10-02 16:08

> there are 37 people in #clonkdev speaking German - and nobody who can't.
>> I would have been active idling in that channel if it weren't for the non english.


That's exactly the point: non-German-speaking users are turned away when they join a channel and don't understand a word.
Parent - By zagabar [se] Date 2009-10-02 19:25
Yeah, I often leave after I have gotten help isntead of hanging around since there is no point. :/
Parent - - By Günther [de] Date 2009-10-02 20:01

> The english part of it is much less active than the german one.


The German one is mostly Offtopic nowadays, though.

As for the topic - I was one of the people arguing for an English forum, and don't have a problem chatting in English. But I very much wish we had a means to know with which language we would alienate more potential developers, or even better, how much contributions we would loose. It's really not clear-cut: English is wildly more widespread, yes, but that also means that those knowing English have more open source projects to choose from. Has anyone an idea how we might be able to attract both groups?
Parent - - By zagabar [se] Date 2009-10-02 23:01
Woa, you actually mean that there are dedicated developers out there that actually abandons the project nad contribution just because it isn'n in english? :S Thats... odd...  It can't be that hard to chat in english. I bet 96% of the germans can at least make themselves understood in english even if it isn't always beautiful. Also tendencies like keeping to one less known language is not a good one to encourage IMO. Internet should be international.

Also, I don't think most developers think "Oh, lets see, are there any random open source project I can work on?". I think you need dedication. Especially since there are no money involved, and people seems to like money.
Parent - - By Günther [de] Date 2009-10-03 13:12
There's a difference between merely communicating and having fun doing so.

And most (I think everyone except matthes) developers working on Clonk were Clonk players in the beginning. There are lots and lots of barriers between playing Clonk and developing Clonk, language difficulties are just one of them. Already being busy doing something else is another.
Parent - - By zagabar [se] Date 2009-10-03 13:19
So what are you implying? That it should stay german? In the long term, people gain by learning english. It is always hard in the beginning, but it creates so much more possibilities for everyone. Being locked in a system is never good,  and only speaking german is much less broad than speaking english.
Parent - By Günther [de] Date 2009-10-03 13:47
No, just that we should not pretend that there isn't any downside to switching to English. It's a tradeoff.

Hey, as I'm writing this, there's a discussion in English in #clonkdev. Join before it's over! ;-)
Parent - - By Newton [de] Date 2009-10-03 20:11

>Internet should be international.


You have no idea how much other Western-Europeans stick to their language in their country and in the Internet. The English of Spaniards, French, Italians and I think Portuguese and Eastern Europeans is very bad according to my experience. Even studied people often do not speak English. Only in German speaking countries and Northern Europe (see map here), English is widespread as the first foreign language.
There is a "Spanish Internet" and a "French Internet" etc., you only don't find much of that in Google because it does only show the results in the language of your OS (they have a higher priority). As for me, Google keeps on searching for Spanish websites even though I am in Germany and I am searching for English terms because I switched the language of my OS to Spanish. The other "internets" are hidden from you. Of course, this is what you want when you search for something but that doesn't mean other languages are not used as well in the internet and English is the one and only language to be spoken internationally.

So yeah, the internet is international. About as international as the world.
Parent - By zagabar [se] Date 2009-10-03 21:52
I know about that. I didn't say internet ARE international. Just that it should be.
Parent - - By Maikel Date 2009-10-02 23:16
Well it's too late now, but one could have voted for a party that introduced better English education in Germany, or isn't that the problem. I personally do not see the problem of being obliged to speak English in an opensource development channel. It may be a problem for Germans who are not that well with foreign languages, but they should see it as an opportunity to improve their English. It's not that OC is the only place where knowledge of the English language comes to use. Even topics related to OC like C++ or 3d imaging, have mainly English documentation and toturials/books. Not to even mention the fact that English is the only way to communicate on the internet, and probably will be the language of the world, if we hadn't had these damn nationalists.

There is one thing I don't get. In my country anyone above the age of 16 could easily understand and participate in discussions on this forum. Furthermore they would have no problems writing non-proper English sentences on the go, like in chat environments. And Germany isn't a third world country, so what's the big deal here? Why is there so much opposition against using a foreign language? Are there any principal grounds. Just name them or learn English.

P.S. I even learned German to play Clonk, or no, just because it's good to being able to use multiple languages.
Parent - - By Zapper [de] Date 2009-10-03 10:33

>but one could have voted for a party that introduced better English education in Germany, or isn't that the problem.
>Just name them or learn English.


English education here is not a problem at all. For me I started learning english in about the third grade or something.
I guess the main problem is (in the last few days for example) that it feels weird when you are having a dialogue in english while knowing quite well that the other one speaks your mother tongue as well (and noone is around who doesn't understand german - that was the current situation in #clonkdev)
Parent - - By Maikel Date 2009-10-03 11:03
So if some non German would get himself a bouncer and starts idling in #clonkdev everyone would start talking English without any objections? Or what if the channel will be logged continuously for development purposes? I think at least some people have other issues.

>(and noone is around who doesn't understand german - that was the current situation in #clonkdev)


How would you know if someone doesn't understand German? Do you always whois everyone on a channel for their country code (ccTLD). I was quite often there the last weeks, no one bothered to start any discussion in English. That's why I believe it should be mandatory (in a new channel).
Parent - By Zapper [de] Date 2009-10-03 11:08

>How would you know if someone doesn't understand German? Do you always whois everyone on a channel for their country code (ccTLD). I was quite often there the last weeks, no one bothered to start any discussion in English. That's why I believe it should be mandatory (in a new channel).


Well, I did indeed check the userlist regularly for new names. And in the first weeks (or even months) of OC-development there were not many new nicks. But I am not one of those who have a problem with making english mandatory in #clonkdev - just want to point that out. :)
Parent - By Luchs [de] Date 2009-10-03 12:06

>Do you always whois everyone on a channel for their country code (ccTLD).


You can see the hostmask when somebody joins the channel.
Up Topic General / Announcements / Switch to English in #clonkdev (locked)
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