Official international support?

[Been Told]

A discussion about international support and such has started in one of the German threads here. Now we know from Scott (vB-Germany) that he is contractually bound to IB and cannot offer official German distribution of xenForo.

So I guess my question is: what are the plans in regards to international customers?
There are several forum owners out there who are willing to pay for software, but only if they can get support for it in their language. And I think that that is a market xenForo cannot (and probably will not want to) ignore.

I know from what Kier said that crowd sourcing will be used to create translation of xenForo.
But I believe that much more needs to be done in order to really have a foot in the several international markets.
Obviously a setup like vBulletin has with vBulletin Germany is not easy to do. Otherwise it would not be the only such partnership out there.
Especially international ticket support might be a bit tricky (but not impossible).
Official international forums could be created (and controlled) by xenForo and run by international customers who can help support the software in their language. It's not as good as international ticket support, but better than nothing. However, those communities would need to be close to xenForo.
What I mean is, they should be more than just "fan forums" and such.
Once the translations are created, maybe those spin-off forums could be entrusted with maintaining those language files.

Another option would probably be international forums right here on xenForo.com. But in the long run, I don't think that would suffice. Plus, we'd still be getting complaints about non-English threads/posts popping up in "what's new". (Wow, how terrible.)

I don't think there would be any shortage of people wanting to do international support. No, it may not be the same quality of support you would get from paid staff (like at vB-Germany). But again, better than nothing.

So, to make a long story short:
What are your plans with regards to international customers and their place on xenForo?

 

[bookmark]

Yes, translation is much more difficult than most would imagine. Been Told has pointed out quite a few of the obsticles. I think the biggest issue is when translators try to be too literal or when they try to be too liberal. Too literal means, word for word translation. This usually is the worst kind. Too liberal means, making up their own way to explain what is in the other language to a point it makes no sense what so ever. Then there is the problem of the poor grammer or explanation in the original language. A good translator can find a mix of both between being literal and liberal, taking the words in one language and concisely translating the meaning to another. Crowdsourcing will have its difficulties with this in the short term. Over time, the translations will probably finally turn out quite usable, but only if there is a way for a smaller group to decide what should be filled into the "translation memory", which I would hope Kier and Mike will have in their system. This will make the translators life much, much easier and give the translations more of a standardization, which is a must for a good translation.

Oops, am I helping the competition?

Scott

You have good experience in software translation.That's excellent suggestion.