An integrated translation plugin would be a good step forward at least, so thanks for the hint and starting the topic! 
And yes, DeepL is for sure one of the best translators but using it to manually translate one post of a topic after the other one is an awkward job ⊠an integrated solution would do much better.
Yes, see the current proposal about languages and locations, which includes a point about enabling multilingual collaboration
My experenice with it depends very much on language. If you want to go from X to Y where X and Y arenât common languages and arenât German, you end up in some cases with something that sounds like its gone through German to get from X to Y. In my case one language was English and the other ones included Arabic, Persian and Chinese. It may well be excellent for other X and Y.
itâs great for German 
Yeah itâs not perfect. But is it good enough for folks to communicate between languages on this forum? Weâll only know if we try
In the current proposal, that something we want to try, but we want to avoid increasing the scope of work in this first phase because there are other major work involved in transitioning Help OSM and the old forums.
If we end up approving the proposal, weâll also check with the Operation team in terms of resources and time to see when we can accommodate this testing.
From what I can tell from @TomHâs (OWG) messages in the other topic re: Translation Plugin:
The admins approval is whatâs holding back this proposal; to install a plugin on Discourse is trivial at best. @TomHâs concern about budgeting is valid but not necessary to solve at this stage as there are ways to try translation services for free to see if t works for our community.
I donât advocate any major decisions on the future of this community platform to be made with haste, but in the case of the translation plugin I consider it a precursor for the community to be best informed what forum category structure we desire, which makes it a priority along with transitioning the old forums.
I see lots of gibberish â<!ââ for example. I need to classify before I post? could someone please explain in simple terms how this place is supposed to work and not just âitâs new and exciting.â
Thanks John
Hi @Johnwhelan
There are currently no plans to replace mailing lists at this point, the current goals and scope are described on this introductory topic where Iâve just moved your message to.
Are there specific questions you have about this post?
Sharing with you all the summary of some conversations and decisions from last Fridayâs meeting:
Dedicated moderators per category and sub-category. Etiquette guidelines template should be provided, and content could be adapted by category moderators to fits their own community needs.
What is your roadmap/timeline? When is the first community migration to community.openstreetmap.org ideally planned?
the whole point of moving to community.openstreetmap.org is to use a modern platform to make it easier for the WHOLE community to discuss, vote, and make decisions.
By not migrating the mailing list, you are essentially keeping the community divided between the âexpertsâ/decision-makers and the rest of the community.
I have wanted to participate more in tagging discussions, but the ancient mailing list technology is a complete turn-off and I will never subscribe.
I believe the âwhole pointâ is to move away from software that is no longer supported/developed/maintained, not to force everyone to use a form of communication they may or may not want against their will.
I have not seen anyone talk about forcing OSM-US to give up their slack instance or stop OSM-UK from choosing their quarterly projects over on loomio. Discussions will continue to exist in multiple places just by nature of the size of the project.
Completely understand your position. Just want to say there is a big difference between an extra country-specific Slack channel and a global mailing list where important decisions may be discussed/taken.
Sorry for not clarifying, but no current plans âright nowâ as far as I know. Communities and groups are welcomed if they want to move from mailing list to here.
I donât know what people will request in the future, just whatâs the current efforts are right now (helping Help OSM and forums.osm.org move over).
I think fot the main communication there should be only one platform. Of course, this then also affects US Slack and others. Why? Otherwise, as an external third party, I will be forced to use proprietary software that clearly does not comply with the corresponding data protection standards.
Well, how could we possibly enforce that? People are free to discuss OpenStreetMap wherever we like - we canât prowl round physical and virtual places and put a physical or virtual bag over someoneâs head if they start talking about OSM in an âunauthorised locationâ. That said, itâs a shame when a group chooses a platform that isnât open to everyone (such as one of the US corporate giants that may be on the wrong side of a firewall in other parts of the world).
The OSMF has a Commitment to Open Communication Channels, which means that when the board or a working group say anything publicly it canât only be said on e.g. Slack/Loomio/etc. - it needs to be said where everyone can see it. It might also be said on Slack (if I was saying something that primarily was aimed at the US community itâd be daft to ignore the place that most of them congregate).
However, no-one is forcing any OSM user to use a non-free channel. Although itâs probably the most popular channel, plenty of US-based mappers donât use Slack. In the UK the Loomio group that OSMUK use seems to be relatively inactive compared with e.g. the mailing list. That doesnât mean that Loomio isnât good for what the OSMUK people want to use it for; just that there are all sorts of mappers in all sorts of places and one size does not fit all.