I’m convinced having a dedicated space to talk about home-assistant in our native language is a lever increase the numbers of users.
I’ve already spot some french speaking guys on this forum and I wish to speak with them in French.
Is it planned to have language sections ?
Is it allowed to open topic in other than English languages ?
Any suggestion to open a dedicated community out of the forum if not planned here ?
I think it may be good for single language users to have a section to start out their questions, but most have at least part of the likely questions already answered in English.
It may reduce the number of people that see your questions. The translators work fairly well, it may be best to type the question in your native language and also provide the translation also.
I’m sure I’ve seen entire threads on the forum in another language. I don’t think it’s a problem. I don’t speak for the devs or anyone ‘in charge’ but I think the community is all about everybody being included, so I can’t see any issues with threads in any language so long as they follow the rules of being polite and courteous.
I think most people post in English because you’re more likely to get help in English. If you post in French/Spanish/Chinese, and it’s anything more complicated than ‘Bonjour/Hola/Ni Hao’ then I won’t be able to understand it and help, and I think English is just the ‘standard’ when there’s an international following of something and everybody wants to communicate. Just because it is standard doesn’t mean you have to do it
I recently also thought it might be a good idea to bring some language- or location-based separation into the forum.
Now and then I have seen people trying to arrange meetups for people within specific areas. Which I think is a really nice idea. But those threads seem to vanish in the big amount of threads related to other topics.
Another point that I thought that might be useful was when reading the thread about the zigbee2mqtt thread, where people offered to flash the dongles for other users. That of course can be done via mail. But if there was a DACH-Section (Germany+Austria,Switzerland) in the forum, then that’s where I would ask for or provide such services. I’d rather drive for 2 hours and have a nice chat than sending a package around the globe and waiting for a week to get started with my freshly bought device. At least I’m the type of guy who has to fiddle around with new hardware as soon as possible.
I totally agree your point of views. English should be the default language to ensure help and sharing efficiency.
Native language topics could help specific local initiative or motivate newcomers no fluent in English to start. For example there are many blogs or forums in french about home automation but very none dedicated to home assistant only (Jeedom and Domticz seems more implemented).