Well unfortunately, it seems like, due to how discourse works, having categories per-language is indispensible, otherwise people won’t be able to easily follow discussions only in their native language. And without an automatic translation, this is the mode that users that are not comfortable to exclusively communicate in English will want to view the forum in.
Still, this language barrier should not be allowed separate us.
My concern for segregating the forum into per-language (or per-country) categories is that it segregates the community too, just like in the old forum. Having come from the (old) German forum, I do not think this is healthy:
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Members in one subforum are generally oblivious of whatever people in another subforum do, maybe on the same topic. In the past, this has given rise to many Germany-centric (or at least European-centric) tagging guidelines that are not well applicable for other regions - or (worse) have different meanings for the same tags in different communities
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If there is a dedicated category for Germany, Germans may feel a certain obligation to participate in the space allocated to them even if they are comfortable to communicate in English. (E.g. in a world where everyone spoke the same language, we wouldn’t have this issue and from the standpoint of community cohesion, this would be ideal. Hence, I prefer to communicate in English in international projects to reach as many people as possible)
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I have not been a fan of the discussion culture in the (old) German forum and I see this new forum as an oppurtunity to change this. There are two things that could change this from my point of view:
- Merging the community into a larger (international) one, i.e. removing the segregation
- Help steer the topic of conversation by creating categories/tags that promote collaboration (rather than dissent and open-ended discussion)
So, these are my concerns and this is because I brought it up in the first place. However, without the ability to easily translate topics / posts in other languages (or filter them away), I am not sure if throwing all topics in all languages together into one category is going to work.