Multi-Language Websites Poll

tyman00 · **Posted:** Thu Dec 01, 2011 8:33 pm

calguy1000 \calguy1000:

\$1:

A very important point and I am very glad calguy is looking into the issue of Multi-Language websites

I am not. We are merely gathering a statistic because well.. one was needed. This is absolutely no indication that there will be any work done on CMSMS wrt multi-lang websites.

Once you have had a chance to interpret the data, can you please at least post (in this thread) where and how you will be proceeding based on the collected data?

I fear that if you don't it could discredit any Polls like this in the future. I could likely be guilty of not voting because "Why vote if they don't listen or even respond to the data". I hope that the data will persuade you to pursue MLE to a certain extent, but if you don't it would be nice to at least have a formal explanation from the dev team as to why you won't.

I have only recently had a request for a multi-lang site and worked with them in the past (outside of CMSMS) but GeekMoot.com touts a high EU usership. As diverse as the EU is, I am guessing the poll data will show a need for better MLE integration. I hope you consider a common need from your majority group.

arnoud · **Joined:** Sun Apr 19, 2009 9:33 am **Posts:** 1398

As a dutch webdeveloper I sometimes do multi-langual projects. The existing solutions and workarounds are easy to implement and do their job. I like the idea of native ML support in CMSMS, although for me it's not top priority.

In my opinion the dev team can better focus on the overall CMSMS experience instead of spending all time on a ML implementation.

14m3r · **Posted:** Thu Dec 08, 2011 8:40 pm

The poll shows the majority opinion of people that for many it's very necessary function. I know that there are some different ways to make a multilingual site, but I (as a many people in this topic) would like to see this feature existed in the core of the engine.

Simply put, it would be really great! ::)

gocreative · **Posted:** Thu Dec 08, 2011 11:33 pm

14m3r \14m3r:

The poll shows the majority opinion of people that for many it's very necessary function.

That's not really true. At the time of writing, less than half (49%) of users need it often. Those that only need it occasionally can certainly make do with any of the various workarounds or modules that can perform this task.

I agree that it's important for many but I also feel that this survey's results would be at least slightly skewed towards users who create multi-language sites. Those who don't are far less likely to respond to the survey to begin with because it makes no difference to them whether such functionality exists or not.

The other factor is that CMS Made Simple, for one reason or another, seems to have a large European community. In time, there will be more English-speaking users (e.g. USA, Australia) and thus the need for multi-languages is likely to decrease as well.

I personally would prefer to see the team improve CMS Made Simple's core functionality, particularly image and file management, than spend time on functionality that most users don't require very often.

tyman00 · **Posted:** Fri Dec 09, 2011 12:46 am

gocreative \gocreative:

The other factor is that CMS Made Simple, for one reason or another, seems to have a large European community. In time, there will be more English-speaking users (e.g. USA, Australia) and thus the need for multi-languages is likely to decrease as well.

I don't disagree with the rest of your statements, but I do disagree with this. I'm going to base my assumption on your "Joined date". Since you are "newish" you may not realize that the EU community has continually grown over the last 6 years I have used CMSMS, which is wonderful. In my opinion it has grown much faster than the usership from natively English speaking countries has.

gocreative · **Posted:** Fri Dec 09, 2011 1:08 am

tyman00 \tyman00:

I'm going to base my assumption on your "Joined date".

Actually, I've been using the software a few years now, but only joined the forum this year.

tyman00 \tyman00:

Since you are "newish" you may not realize that the EU community has continually grew over the last 6 years I have used CMSMS, which is wonderful. In my opinion it has grown much faster than the usership from natively English speaking countries has.

That statement doesn't necessarily disagree with mine. Regardless of which has grown faster so far, the reality is that there are a hell of a lot of people in the USA and other English-speaking countries, and from what I've seen not a great deal of them use CMS Made Simple. That means the potential for growth there is quite high.

At any rate, those are just my thoughts. We're all just guessing, really.

tyman00 · **Posted:** Fri Dec 09, 2011 1:12 am

gocreative \gocreative:

We're all just guessing, really.

Couldn't agree more!

uniqu3 · **Joined:** Tue Aug 12, 2008 9:30 pm **Posts:** 2071

Can't we just vote and stop discussing about which community is large or not and if it should be part of core?
This poll does not indicate that ML will be included in core, but should give DEV-Team a direction of what is needed, so DEV-Team can make reasonable decisions.

As my remark to "English only" speaking community and sites, even if US or other English speaking community will or would grow, there is still good possibility that even those user need ML solution.
With internationalization of Companies, "english" only sites aren't worth much, except if it is some small local SB company or store.
Look at growth of Chinese power and technology, so let's say a Company want's to be successful not only in US, then it is obvious that that Company should or could offer Chinese too.

14m3r · **Posted:** Fri Dec 09, 2011 8:05 am

uniqu3 \uniqu3:

Look at growth of Chinese power and technology, so let's say a Company want's to be succesful not only in US, then it is obvious that that Company should or could offer Chinese to.

Yes, it's absolutely true. Right now I'm working on an international project (Germany-Russia-China-France) on this, i found it necessary to add its voice in support of multi-language.

totophe · **Posted:** Fri Dec 09, 2011 11:04 am

Hey guys,

I know I'm late on the debate/poll, but I never go to the forums...

So, here is my two cents:

Our company, based in Europe, is developing 50+ cmsms based websites a year. and more than 50% of those websites are multilingual. We are not talking about 2 languages but at least 5 or 6.

Ex:
http://www.exceptionalenergy.com/
http://www.europeunconventionalgas.org/
http://www.eufoa.org/
http://www.east-invest.eu/

So, doing multilanguages websites are a requirement for us.

To those who says that more and more people are speaking english, this comment is non-sense. Professional businesses want to reach the largest audience possible, for one, and I don't think we can say to all the european countries: Learn English and go F. yourself. Just look at the Belgian problem about languages...

About the technical point of view, based on our experience:

1. We never used the MLE system. Why ? Because most of the time, our websites are asymmetrically translated. So our first level are the language and then sub-websites. The only lack of that is that when you switch from one language to another one, you go back to the homepage. But let's be honest: Once you have chosen your language for navigation, why would you like to switch?

2. We never used the Google translate. That's maybe good for personal websites or very small business ones, but for professional websites, we cannot do that. It would be ridiculous (imoo).

3. For templates translations, we use our module "I18n" which allows us to centralise all the small translations (didn't check other solutions, there weren't there when we've developed I18n...). It might be nice to have an integrated solution or for us to spend more time on the development of I18n with help of other developers.

Conclusion:

Even if many people need multilingual websites, there are so many incompatible ways of doing it that I would first create a working group to decide how it should be implemented and if it should be implemented at all rather than advertising on good existing solutions.

As I'm deep inside the language/localisation/internationalisation/translation problem, I would be happy to participate in such group.

Best regards,

JCC

calguy1000 · **Posted:** Tue Jan 03, 2012 9:13 pm

Hello All.

As you know the voting for this poll ended December 27 2011. And as you can see from the responses to this forum this is still a highly debatable topic with lots of opinions and no clear answer as to what should be done.

The dev team has reviewed the posts in this poll, and considered everything at length. We are in fact, still considering this issue. Additionally more input from some of the community is still coming in via some in-person meetings. Therefore we will hold off on announcing a decision for a while.

We hope to have a healthy discussion about this issue at the Northampton GeekMoot in March. Will you be there to help us make a decision?

Thank you for your time.

Multi-Language Websites Poll

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