The other is to find some way to get the two groups communicating, and ask them to work out their differences.
....
But perhaps there's a user who is fluent in Russian and English who ... provide a translation of each message. I don't know if this is an option in SMF, but it might be the type of forum where nothing is posted until it is "approved" by the moderator (in this case, in order to add the translation).... A moderator could easily be overwhelmed with this sort of arrangement. But it might work if there were limits placed on topics discussed, and perhaps on the number of posts (although requiring moderator approval would put a damper on that).
While this approach maybe adaptable to a Wiki where posts are mostly of high value, it is contrary to the requirements of an online forum. IMO an online forum thrives on people asking dumb questions, if asked once there is usually someone more experienced who offers a helpful response, if repeatedly asked it highlights an interface issue which the more experienced have become blind to.
As such most posts on the forum are not worth translating but everyone having a feel for the issues being discussed across the entire PVD community, and feeling free to ask stupid questions is extremely valuable.
In the mean time, I just found a new support forum for PVD.
Trying to read and understand such a translation seems to demonstrate...
all posts need to be automatically translated
...is not feasible. Unless your goal is to start WWIII.
On this we disagree.
I agree reading the translated forum feels foreign, but that is only to be expected given I just walked into a forum with
Members: 1864 • Posts: 5218 • Topics: 331
Rather than the one I was familiar with
Members: 1116 • Posts: 3727 • Topics: 588
Clearly it would be expected to take some time to recognise the contributors knowledge / personality and the issues addressed by the community.
However looking through the posts I do get a fairly good impression of the issues being discussed and who writes constructive post.
is going to take significant input from nostra to achieve
...which is completely counter-productive. This is something for the user community to resolve—with a primary objective being to relieve an over-worked and under-paid developer of the responsibility so he can focus on... development.
On this we partly agree. nostra can delegate to the degree he is comfortable with but should still be in control. Unfortunately management takes time even when well set up and your workers are keen.
The interface I would like to see is a multilingual forum and Wiki. I should be able to specify my language and all posts and Wiki pages should be displayed in my native language (with the option to view the untranslated post at the click of a button).
Within the forum environment that would mean an untranslated thread could have posts in many languages, but all would be machine translated to each users native language.
With in the Wiki environment a combination of machine and human translation is appropriate as the posts are inherently of higher value. I would like to see a human translation of the current version of each wiki page when available.If not a machine translated version of the most recent issue of the page or the last human translated English version of the page (toggle between).
The reason I chose TikWiki is because of it's feature-set and tight functional integration. With the flip of one configuration option, I can turn on Forums, Articles, Blogs, File Galleries, Photo Galleries, etc. -- and each feature set is complete and fully integrated with every other feature set. Right now, the only requirement is the need for a Wiki...so that is all that is turned on (and file gallery). But as the community evolved I wanted to be prepared to support it.
cwdean could TikWiki support the type of interface I have described. Alternatively are you or someone else aware of software that could. If software was available which would assist in bringing the communities together, then perhaps nostra may choose to delegate the upgrade to the PVD forum (& Wiki).