Forums

[+VesaK]

I think the reason that you don't get any replies are the fact that we have an active non-GC.com forum in Sweden. Not too many Swedes here.

 

In Finland there has been some talk also about having a separate forum. It'd be nice to hear about your experiences: Why are you not on gc.com, what are the benefits of having your own forum?

 

Edit: removed the word "offtopic"

Edited August 28, 2004 by Tahu Nuva

[+FrkBrum]

It's the same for Norway! We have in fact two major forums! Still, some of us pop in here once in a while just to see what's happening.

An odd thing about the Nordic forum here at gc.com is that we don't speak/read the same laguage. Think the forums should be made for simular language groups rather than geographical.

I can easy read swedish and danish and even understand someone from Iceland, but finnish?? No way! Guess I couldn't read any post from Estonia, Latvia or Lithunia either.

 

Edited August 28, 2004 by Tahu Nuva

[+hedberg]

I didn't start the Swedish forum, but I am a quite active user.

 

You can discuss things you can't discuss here, people can critize things etc.

There have been almost 6000 messages in the forum, and I think it is almost 5000 messages in the forum, and almost 200 registred users.

 

If you understand some Swedish, check it out:

www.plattformen.se/cachingforum

 

At the same server do you find a lot of stats, FAQ and so on: www.plattformen.se/geocaching

 

For Norway:

www.geocaching.no

www.starte.no

 

For Denmark:

www.geocaching.dk

Edited August 28, 2004 by Tahu Nuva

[jupilli]

You can discuss things you can't discuss here, people can critize things etc.

Swedish is very hard for me and I would not like to start with it now. Could it be possible for you to tell what kind of items you need to disscus which you cannot do here ?? SEX and GRUGS ??

 

And, if you have not noticed, the warning meters have been removed !!

[+Divine]

We have in fact two major forums!

I can see some of the benefits of having an own forum for a country with its subforums for beginners, areas, general discussion, off topic etc, but to me following more than one forum would be painful, as only this one seems prone to taking too much of my time. If there were two separate Finnish forums I most certainly would follow only one - if even that.

 

An odd thing about the Nordic forum here at gc.com is that we don't speak/read the same laguage. Think the forums should be made for simular language groups rather than geographical.

I can relate to that (odd) thing, but I don't see it as a very big problem. After all, considering to some other forums I follow, this Nordic one isn't very busy, so if there were more open topics in Swedish, Norwegian or Danish, I wouldn't be disturbed at all about that. I'm sure the topics will stay alive as long as people want to talk about things under that certain topic.

 

I can easy read swedish and danish and even understand someone from Iceland, but finnish?? No way! Guess I couldn't read any post from Estonia, Latvia or Lithunia either.

I'm perhaps not in the same position compared to some other Nordic forum users, since I can understand some Swedish (I certainly don't speak it very well) and maybe even a bit Norwegian and Danish (wouldn't know about Icelandic). So I would most likely at least skim through those topics too, and hence 'get more' of the forum than some others. I also visit the German speaking forum every now and then.

[+Trekker68]

I'm a Swedish geocacher and I’m not much interested in reading about what’s going on in Finland, Denmark, Norway, Baltic etc on a daily basis. And since the language in this forum is not Swedish nor English only I don't even understand what’s it’s about.

One single forum for the entire Nordic and Baltic region in several different languages is mine humble opinion a bad idea.

I visit this forum once in a while to se if there is anything interesting going on but I still waiting for that to happen.

[+hedberg]

In the Swedish forum can we discuss geocaching as a sport. Someone perhaps wonder what alternative sites that have caches listed.

 

You can also talk about software, good experience about software, equipment and so on, without GC.com starts yelling about commercial aspect on it.

 

Things like that...

 

Some of us are members on the norwegian and/or danish forum, and also their members are sometimes members in the Swedish forum. So if anyone is going to Norway, can they ask in the norwegian forum about cache tip.

 

GC.com is great, but they have only one nordic forum. If I want to ask about for example GSAK, then I must turn to a different forum. If I can't handle English, then it is a big problem.

 

So I think that are some of the reasons...

 

The Swedish forum, like the other nordic forums, are open for everybody - not exclusive for the people in the country.

[jupilli]

The comercial point I do understand, it may be a pb evenif I haven't seen it in practice, yet.

About the rest of your points, I feel kind of opposite !! There are too many forums to follow already !!

[+Trekker68]

double post

Edited August 28, 2004 by Trekker68

[+Trekker68]

About the rest of your points, I feel kind of opposite !! There are too many forums to follow already !!

There may be a lot of forums at gc.com but this is the only one that allows discussions in Swedish and still I don’t want to use Swedish here because not everyone here can understand it.

The Swedish forum is the perfect place to discuss Swedish caches with Swedish cachers in Swedish.

[jupilli]

The Swedish forum is the perfect place to discuss Swedish caches with Swedish cachers in Swedish.

First, I have to apologize my poor talent of english language, but I cannot put my words better:

 

I think you are thinking slightly selfish !! Geocaching should be an international hobby and I understand that it should increase the communication between people so that tourists and visitors would be able to find interesting places and targets in any country. If this is different in Sweden and other related countries I have missunderstood something.

 

Again, I apologize my ability to set my words. It is poor talent, not in purpose to hurt your feelings.

PS: I cannot say it any better way in swedish either !! Poor me !!

[+Trekker68]

I think you are thinking slightly selfish !! Geocaching should be an international hobby and I understand that it should increase the communication between people so that tourists and visitors would be able to find interesting places and targets in any country. If this is different in Sweden and other related countries I have missunderstood something.

Yes, maybe it’s selfish to discuss Swedish caches in Swedish but then it’s so easy to be selfish. In this forum 90 percent of the topics are written in Finnish and I’m sure it’s very interesting discussions but not many people outside Finland understand anything about it.

[+Divine]

In this forum 90 percent of the topics are written in Finnish and I’m sure it’s very interesting discussions but not many people outside Finland understand anything about it.

We're known to provide very fast and accurate translations of current hot topics.

 

Seriously, that fact doesn't prevent anyone starting his/her own topic with the (Nordic/Baltic) language preferred. Sometimes it's tried to gather some international input to certain topics.

 

For example, once I opened a thread on geotrash on Finnish legislation. For possible international readers I also included an English subtitle and summary in the first post. Only the twelwth post was someone international (who else than hedberg ). So I started an English thread on the same topic. I dug up the legislation text in English, and carefully wrote the original thread again. I got only one reply.

 

So, I'm sure too that most of the Finnish topics in the Nordic forum is interesting. But I can't artificially make all my posts discussed internationally. If the other-than-Finnish-talking people don't talk here by their free will, I most certainly can't make them talk here. Many of the Finnish topics have a subtopic in English. That's precisely because those who can't speak Finnish can see what's the topic about so they can speak up if they find it interesting. Unfortunately that nice habit of including seems to be getting more and more rare. OTOH, no wonder, very seldom anyone want's to talk about it in any other language. Of course, there are exceptions.

 

So if that 90% of Finnish topics is a problem, do something about it. I'm not going to do it for you. I don't mind people talking their native language here. It's not like the space is running out.

[Cholo]

 

Edit: removed the word "offtopic"

This caught my attention. A new "off topic" forum has been started. Only "premium" members are allowd to use it. I am wondering what would happen if someone opened a thread there in a language other than English? Would any of you be willing to try this and report back here on the consequences?

 

Jupilli, I think you express your opinions very well in English. My second language is Spanish, and I wouldn't attempt to convey that degree of difficulty in Spanish.

[+hedberg]

And when Divine fails with translation, do I help him out with my internet-translator

 

I am a registrered member at a couple norwegian forum, the danish, one in Netherland, Belgium, Australia and a few more (I think).

 

One really strange forum is the Belgium forum, where you have to choose language, and then you get redirected to a forum in that language. The french speaking forum is almost empty. They have two different language forums in one country.

[jupilli]

I am a registrered member at a couple norwegian forum, the danish, one in Netherland, Belgium, Australia and a few more (I think).

 

What an unmerciful fate you have met !! It propably takes most of your good valuable geocaching time to follow all those forums. Poor you !!

 

I think nobody has until now, pointed any advantages for starting new forum for finnish geocachers. GC.com seems to work nice and offers all the services required.

 

I have experience of huge number of sources of info which is spread all around, my company is doing that. Pls believe me, it is a pain in the .... to try to stay ontime when new things are spread on several different systems. The company has tried to ease the situation and some of the forums are sending me an email every time an update occurs, and now I receive so many emails from those sytems that I do not read those at all, just delete the emails.

 

Why not keep on using GC.com services and try to collect all the info and opinions in one place where it can more easily be found by all who require it ??

[+hedberg]

As I said, it is easier to talk about Sweden in Swedish together with Swedish cachers. We can discuss things that GC.com doesn't allow, such as other services that lists caches. We do supply the Swedish people with a complete website about geocaching, including a Swedish FAQ about geocaching and geocaching.com, stats, newspaper in Swedish and of course a forum.

 

A lot of newcomers ask questions there, a perfect place for people.

 

In the FAQ do you find complete description on how to order a PQ, what travellers are etc etc... all in Swedish.

 

This is things that GC.com do not offer, and it is a popular FREE service provided by other cachers.

[jupilli]

 

Edit: removed the word "offtopic"

This caught my attention. A new "off topic" forum has been started. Only "premium" members are allowd to use it. I am wondering what would happen if someone opened a thread there in a language other than English? Would any of you be willing to try this and report back here on the consequences?

 

Jupilli, I think you express your opinions very well in English. My second language is Spanish, and I wouldn't attempt to convey that degree of difficulty in Spanish.

Cholo,

I am sorry but I can only see that this topic has been started on 28th of Aug and you are quoting something before that. I am a poor reader who obviously can see only the 'not interesting' parts of the disscussions !!

I am not a premium member, so maybe that is why !! and maybe someone else can help you.

This is why I cannot help you with your OFF TOPIC question !

[+VesaK]

 

Edit: removed the word "offtopic"

This caught my attention. A new "off topic" forum has been started. Only "premium" members are allowd to use it. I am wondering what would happen if someone opened a thread there in a language other than English? Would any of you be willing to try this and report back here on the consequences?

 

Jupilli, I think you express your opinions very well in English. My second language is Spanish, and I wouldn't attempt to convey that degree of difficulty in Spanish.

Cholo,

I am sorry but I can only see that this topic has been started on 28th of Aug and you are quoting something before that. I am a poor reader who obviously can see only the 'not interesting' parts of the disscussions !!

I am not a premium member, so maybe that is why !! and maybe someone else can help you.

This is why I cannot help you with your OFF TOPIC question !

If that really matters:

 

I was commenting Hedberg in another thread. In that thread my post was off topic (the thread was not for discussing forums) so I marked my post as such. I guess the moderator noticed my question and moved my post out from that thread to start a new one, so people could start discussing about forums. See, my post was edited by Tahu Nuva; I didn't remove the word.

 

This is quite common in forums; discussion branches to another subject and active moderators move some branches out to form new threads. This keeps the discussion on the subject that the thread is about. Usually moderators mark the moved post with something like moved to start a new thread, because there obviously is a need to discuss this matter more, but here it would be off-topic.

 

Ob: I've been geocaching so short time that I've never stumbled on a case where something was not approved on gc.com forum. Has there been cases when posts have been deleted or edited by owner of the forum because of discussing wrong topics?

[+Divine]

Ob: I've been geocaching so short time that I've never stumbled on a case where something was not approved on gc.com forum. Has there been cases when posts have been deleted or edited by owner of the forum because of discussing wrong topics?

Oh yes. Seldom deleted, though. More like locked only. And even more seldom at Nordic countries forum.

[Cholo]

I will try to clear up any misunderstandings about my post. The "off topic" caught my attention and caused a devilish idea to pop up in my head. Divine should surely know that feeling. It had nothing to do with the topic of this thread.

 

GC.com has recently created an "off topic" forum. It can only be seen or used by premium or paying members. You can usually determine that, because just below their avatar something other than 'geocacher' appears. Example: neither I nor Divine are premium members. A premium member has the option of using any description in that area, within reason. They may even put 'geocacher' there. Clicking on their user name, and going to their profile will tell if they are a member or premium member.

 

My devilish idea had to do with this new "off topic" forum. If a premium member went there and started a thread in a language other than English, what would the GC.com powers do about it? I doubt that they have thought about that possible problem.

 

As for some of the questions brought up here concerning language, it's been discussed here before. I'm all for people having a place to discuss things in their native language. The nuances are better expressed, and that's why I would never attempt this in Spanish.

[+Divine]

My devilish idea had to do with this new "off topic" forum. If a premium member went there and started a thread in a language other than English, what would the GC.com powers do about it? I doubt that they have thought about that possible problem.

My bet would be that there would very soon be a new rule which forbids messages written in other language than English. Especially if they're on topic.

[+Captain Morgan]

Hmmm, I'll test it right now!

[+Divine]

My devilish idea had to do with this new "off topic" forum. If a premium member went there and started a thread in a language other than English, what would the GC.com powers do about it? I doubt that they have thought about that possible problem.

My bet would be that there would very soon be a new rule which forbids messages written in other language than English. Especially if they're on topic.

Now Captain Morgan went and started pushing that envelope in the Off Topic forum.

 

Edit: Oh, beat me to it.

 

Hmmm, I'll test it  right now!

Your link is useless for those who haven't access to that forum.

Edited September 1, 2004 by Divine

[+Captain Morgan]

My bet would be that there would very soon be a new rule which forbids messages written in other language than English. Especially if they're on topic.

Now Captain Morgan went and started pushing that envelope in the Off Topic forum.

 

Edit: Oh, beat me to it.

 

Hmmm, I'll test it  right now!

Your link is useless for those who haven't access to that forum.

It's your fault Divine, what else I could do here in Hell ?

[Cholo]

Hmmm, I'll test it right now!

Thanks for the link, Cap'n, here's what I got:

Sorry, an error occurred. If you are unsure on how to use a feature, or don't know why you got this error message, try looking through the help files for more information.

 

The error returned was:

 

You do not have permission to view this topic

 

 

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