Still no supervision in the French and Spanish forums?

[Claudio_González1]

I forgot that threads are extremely short lived in this forum, and the discussion that really began within an unrelated thread, here

Pierre Courtejoie, "Shouldn't these links be removed as soon as possible?" #8, 27 Feb 2005 1:21 pm

has already gone to the Archives, where it is in danger of going to the limbus in the near future.

I still think that this is an important issue, and still wait to see any improvement in those forums showing that the messages by Pierre and myself on the subject have not fallen in a void. Although we both value and thank Neil Keller for his attempts to get some reaction in higher quarters, his attempts have unfortunately been a failure.

It is pathetic to see pages in the forums in Spanish with templates that are written in a mixture of English and a very bad Spanish. It is even more pathetic that JC stopped more than a year ago feeling authorized to introduce any non trivial change to improve this situation. The worst part is however to feel that there is no one listening, or at least willing to admit that there might be problems in those forums.

I feel very disappointed.

[Claudio_González1]

I clearly understand why you are not in a position to promise anything at this stage.

For what it may be worth, my personal experience is that separate localized forums is by far a much better solution than changing the interface language, as this affects all forums and not only localized ones. Not less important, one gets the impression of "belonging" there, not just being appended.

However, if language selection leads to sharing the advantages of the other forums, such as having host/moderators, and properly written fixed texts, I could easily and gratifyingly survive with it.

[_Nigel_Moore_]

Apologies, yes I meant Mandarin Chinese.

[Claudio_González1]

So did I, by the way.

[Jacob Bugge]

>The current trend in forum software appears to be letting the user select the language they want for the interface.

As I have understood it, the advantage of having a Spanish forum is that the posts are in Spanish, thus creating a community genuinely involving those that speak Spanish but not (very much) English; the same for French.

[Claudio_González1]

You are right, Jacob. But in the adobe.com forums they have chosen to let you choose the language for the fixed text, and there seem to be special folders for localized subjects, where people write messages in their own language. Not in the least as convenient or friendly. Not to mention that you have to keep on login in for everything, which takes quite some time.

[Jacob Bugge]

Timeout.

[Claudio_González1]

True. However, I have my doubts that this matter is going to receive any attention until the Adobe/Macromedia forums fusion gets to its latest stages. A simple fusion of the current forums in Spanish would introduce much and larger complications and confusions than there are now in either.

[D__McCahill]

Doesn't hurt to keep the thread alive though, Claudio. Someone looking into it will see a thread with 180+ responses, and think ... hey, we better do something. If the thread dies, you will have a much smaller one when the time comes to press the issue.

[Claudio_González1]

Thanks, Don, my intentions are not leaving it die or go down the drain. Fortunately, in case I forget, Jacob has been coming to the rescue after 30 days of inactivity, for which I am grateful.

[Jacob Bugge]

I agree with Don, too. 30 days, or earlier if it gets a bit too close to the abyss.

[PECourtejoie]

Thanks, indeed, Jacob, I was on holidays in the US, so I did not monitor this thread...

[Claudio_González1]

Yes, I know, Jacob. Thanks for your continued help in reminding me.

I have been thinking about what may happen with the localized forums once the fusion process is completed. In the specific case of the forums in Spanish, we have at present two completely different scenarios. One the one hand we have the formerly Adobe forums, now adobeforums.com. They are subdivied into five subforums, with titles that translate to: Acrobat and PDF format forum, Graphic creation for printing and the web forum (InDesign, PageMaker, Illustrator, GoLive, Creative Suite...), Digital video forum (Premiere, After Effects, Encore DVD, Audition), Digital imaging forum (Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Album), and Other topics, plus a read only permanent topic on how to obtain help more easily and rapidly. Not very convenient, but somehow most newcomers seem to find the right forum for their questions. The whole forum is plagued by sentences and even whole pages in English or in very bad Spanish, and there are some obvious features missing. For example, there is no "Subscribe to this discussion by email" button at the bottom of the box for new messages (I have just noticed that this particular forum in English doesn't have this button either).

On the other hand we have the formerly Macromedia forums, now adobe.com, where we find just two forums in Spanish: Spain Support Foros (sic), with only one category: Spain General Discussion. And the Latin America Support Foros (sic), also with just one category: Latin America General Discussion. Not only are these forums names in a mixture of English and Spanish, but they are also misleading - in fact, there are footnotes in both saying that they "...are not an official customer support chanel for Adobe".

I don't know how this division (Spain - Latin America) arose, but it is absurd and completely unnecessary. As a matter of fact, the Latin American forum is almost a dying one, whereas you find many people from Spanish speaking countries in Latin America contributing regularly in the Spain forum.

I am hoping that the new localized forums will somehow copy or at least mimic the ones in English, but fear that we will just get one of the two existing ones: either the former Adobe, or the former Macromedia. If such were the case, I would choose without doubt the former Adobe ones -at least, they are not designed to be used through newsreaders as the ex Macromedia ones, which makes them almost impossible to use for someone visiting them through a browser. And however inconvenient their subdivision, it is by far better than having all applications under the same roof.

Unfortunately, it seems that full secrecy is the norm regarding the upcoming changes in both Adobe forums, so all we can do is speculate. And wait -for the best, or just wait?

[Jacob Bugge]

The leaves are falling, again.

[Claudio_González1]

My hopes of anything improving are also falling, Jacob. Not a single comment to my previous post is discouraging. Not knowing anything about how the localized forums are going to be handled is also discouraging. The dog fights in the ex Macromedia forums in Spanish because of the lack of a moderator are discouraging, as the forums are tending to be dominated by those who use the more virulent language. Using the link to contact a moderator to warn about an apparently ilegal interchange of fonts and getting no reaction whatsoever is also discouraging. Not ...

Yes, you are right. I am not feeling very optimistic today. Maybe tomorrow will be different.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

The worst part about this is that the whole of Adobe seems to be deteriorating. The whole Adobe site is goofy, not just the forums.

I just left a post in the other forums forum (adobe.com) linking to a recent exchange in the Adobe Camera Raw forum.

The signs of strain are showing. People are unable to contact customer support, much less tech support, QA of some products is not what we were used to, Adobe seems unresponsive. Just a for instance: color management in Bridge is broken, Adobe has known about it for some time and has done absolutely nothing about it.

What disturbs me on a personal level is the realization that, at a now-distant point in time I was all enthusiastic about QuarkXPress too, just like I was about Adobe until just recently. I have been an Adobe customer for over 20 years. Now I fear Adobe is turning into Quark. :/

Frankly, at this point the Spanish forums are the least of my concerns.

[Jacob Bugge]

After posting, I realized that you are seeing the spring with the new leaves, Claudio. I hope your spring will bring hope.

[Claudio_González1]

Jacob, you are of course right: the new leaves have been here for some weeks, my old apricot tree blossomed some time ago and as usual is now fully charged with still growing fruit, I have roses and hibiscus flowers in my garden, ... Yes, there are more important things in life that Adobe. But I have been fighting loossing battles all my life and now it's too late to change.

This particular thread is over one year old, but its originator is almost two years, and I have been fighting this particular battle for nearly three years, without any sign of improvements. What is worse, I tend to agree with Ramón's view of what is happening with Adobe. Too bad. I am however not willing to give up yet, although I see no reason for hope in the foreseeable future.

[Jacob Bugge]

Claudio, Pierre, and others:

Feliz Navidad y una Feliz Año Nuevo,

&

Joyeux Noël et une nouvelle année heureuse.

[Claudio_González1]

Jacob,

Best wishes for you also, although I am afraid I don't know any -Danish it was?

And of course to all those few others who have offered their sympathy and -in one case- help.

[Jacob Bugge]

Claudio,

Best wishes are fine.

I had planned to wait five more days, but then some new threads pushed this one dangerously close to the abyss.

[Claudio_González1]

Jacob,

Yes, I had also noticed it had drifted too far down. But then, I am feeling a bit worried. Two new forums have been created very recently in the Feedback Forums "at the other side"; they are the second and third over here:

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/index.cfm?forumid=39&loc=en_us

And I seem to be reading more complaints than usual about forums "in MM format". I hope these are not announcements of the great change to come.

[Jacob Bugge]

Returning after a very short look I dread an MM like future.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

>don't know any -Danish it was?

French. :D

[Claudio_González1]

Jacob, French? I hope my memory hasn't deteriorated so much, Ramón!!!