[Stuart Wright]

We have plenty of visitors from different countries. Would any of you like to have your own country-specific forums?
To start with the forum would cover all AV topics, but would expand to cover different topics (audio,video etc.) if it became popular enough.
The point of having a country specific forum is to focus on the local market for products, retailers and support.

[dwhite]

May have to recruit some multilingual moderators stuart, as once you have country specific forums, there gonna want to post in their native tongue.

[Stuart Wright]

Originally Posted by dwhite

May have to recruit some multilingual moderators stuart, as once you have country specific forums, there gonna want to post in their native tongue.

Yes indeed. We'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.

[Stuart Wright]

I notice a few people have chosen 'Other' without specifying what country. That's not going to be any use, unfortunately.

[Trollslayer]

Err.. what about the UK?
Or 'No'?

[Stuart Wright]

Originally Posted by Trollslayer

Err.. what about the UK?
Or 'No'?

This whole forum is naturally oriented towards people from the UK since it is a UK forum.

And I'm only interested in the opinions of people who *do* want a dedicated forum for a different country, so I expect people who don't want one not to vote.

[kevcampbell]

if you want another one i dont mind what you have but i dont think there should be another one as this forum could start becoming less active if people leave this forum to join another forum

[goooku]

would really be interested in a forum for Belgium.

The offer of HDTV is quite specific down here

Anyway, super idea for proposing this

[vicbarry]

Ireland. That is all

[KhalJimbo]

I voted for the States, even though I live in the UK I often visit competitor sites in the states when it comes to looking at importing equipment from the states, I think if we had a Avforums.com\us it would be of a better help as if you post in here looking for advise in something from the states you wouldnt have to go to a competitor site for your info, you can still Avforums.com\us to speak to the other side and get more advice on american products and brands.

Hope this makes sense

[KhalJimbo]

Originally Posted by kevcampbell

if you want another one i dont mind what you have but i dont think there should be another one as this forum could start becoming less active if people leave this forum to join another forum

I think what he means is making it a region specific forum now, ie: Avforums.com\us, Avforums.com\de, Avforums.com\au, etc etc

[benmbe]

I am a member of a numer of other sites which are based in the US, But ''from a personal observation'' can honestly say that AV Forums is one of the most polite professional and genuine sites and am soo happy to be a member here.

It's always refreshing to visit this site knowing that there is not any abusive language, with people(members) being ''in general'' very polite and respectful.

I seriously hope that these standards are maintained, as this makes the whole experience very pleasant indeed.

Thank you for reading my message

Humble Regards to all

[benmbe]

Originally Posted by Earthworm Jim

I voted for the States, even though I live in the UK I often visit competitor sites in the states when it comes to looking at importing equipment from the states, I think if we had a Avforums.com\us it would be of a better help as if you post in here looking for advise in something from the states you wouldnt have to go to a competitor site for your info, you can still Avforums.com\us to speak to the other side and get more advice on american products and brands.

Hope this makes sense

Hello Earthworm,

Just read your thread of which I thought brought clarity to the initial question.

I also visit sites in the US and am a member of these.

You are correct about having more info about importing from oversee's, as well as corresponding on the other side.

I personally have gained a number of good sellers since getting into the AV habbit nearly 12yrs ago, and so have a trusted Seller who will import for me ''as and when'' I need a piece of hardware......Blu-Ray player will hopefully be my next purchase in 2010.

Enjoyed Reading your reply

Thank you

[kiwifraser]

Definitely UK

[Nielsy]

A UK biased site wouldn't go amiss, but with the option of expanding searches etc to worldwide.

[abdus]

I voted Other...as there was no 'NO' option in the list

[Stuart Wright]

Originally Posted by kiwifraser

Definitely UK

Originally Posted by Nielsy

A UK biased site wouldn't go amiss, but with the option of expanding searches etc to worldwide.

This *is* a UK site! Blimey.
I have removed the 'other' option as nobody is using it properly.

[dwhite]

I won't vote for any specific country, but I will say that I can't see the point of any further english speaking forums. I can see the point of forums in languages other than english (even as I said earlier would be a nightmare for the mods), as we have a lot of visitors who struggle with english and as such may not frequent the forum as much or get the best out of the site.

[bobjenkins]

USA and Spain would be great, but really I think the site is right on!

[KhalJimbo]

Originally Posted by dwhite

I won't vote for any specific country, but I will say that I can't see the point of any further english speaking forums. I can see the point of forums in languages other than english (even as I said earlier would be a nightmare for the mods), as we have a lot of visitors who struggle with english and as such may not frequent the forum as much or get the best out of the site.

I think its more an equipment side of things than anything else, afterall AVForums is a business so why not try expand into the global market?

[norliss]

I don't really understand the point of the question

[KhalJimbo]

Originally Posted by norliss

I don't really understand the point of the question

Originally Posted by Stuart Wright

The point of having a country specific forum is to focus on the local market for products, retailers and support.

Does that explain it a bit better?

[Haggler]

Originally Posted by dwhite

May have to recruit some multilingual moderators stuart, as once you have country specific forums, there gonna want to post in their native tongue.

That's a lot of hassle imo and only the tip of a huge iceberg that could be avoided, without being funny and detrimental to visitors from outside the uk, in this age of recession keeping the site uk only is one of the few things left for us to be proud of, it's good that we have a site such as this to shout about.

Whilst i welcome visitors from outside the uk posting their opinions in these forums, i like to understand what those opinions are, if they prefer to post in their native tongue surely people from other countries are more than capable of starting their own forum?.

I think the united states for their local market of products, retailers and support is pretty much an obvious addition that we may all benefit from regardless of our locality.

[mossym]

an Irish section wouldn't go amiss, there are quite a few of us on here, and we're a sociable bunch, we won't run amuck if we get a forum

seriously it would be handy as suppliers are few and far between in Ireland, it would give us a place to discuss the few shops we have, shipping from the uk and others, and our own local services

and i didn't vote as you didn't make ireland an option

[KhalJimbo]

Originally Posted by Haggler

That's a lot of hassle imo and only the tip of a huge iceberg that could be avoided, without being funny and detrimental to visitors from outside the uk, in this age of recession keeping the site uk only is one of the few things left for us to be proud of, it's good that we have a site such as this to shout about.

Whilst i welcome visitors from outside the uk posting their opinions in these forums, i like to understand what those opinions are, if they prefer to post in their native tongue surely people from other countries are more than capable of starting their own forum?.

I agree with what you are saying but at the end of the day its business and revenue. If opening it up in other countries can help promote the AVForums name then I think its a good thing for Stuarts business.

[Haggler]

Originally Posted by Earthworm Jim

I agree with what you are saying but at the end of the day its business and revenue. If opening it up in other countries can help promote the AVForums name then I think its a good thing for Stuarts business.

Fair enough, it's solely the posting in native tongues (other than english) i was objecting to.

[dwhite]

My point is if you have say a Spanish forum for example, but limit it to English only, what have you gained? An extra forum, expats and English speaking Spaniards will visit, likely asking questions that could easily just be answered by the current site. Plus if your Spanish speaking and see a Spanish forum, isn't it going to be strange that you have to post in English.

[KhalJimbo]

Originally Posted by dwhite

My point is if you have say a Spanish forum for example, but limit it to English only, what have you gained? An extra forum, expats and English speaking Spaniards will visit, likely asking questions that could easily just be answered by the current site. Plus if your Spanish speaking and see a Spanish forum, isn't it going to be strange that you have to post in English.

Would they not be native to Spanish though, I mean why would a spanish site need to be written in English. Same with a French site why would they post in english, surely because its french they will post in french, just get some french mods to moderate it.

Or have I misread your post?

[Stuart Wright]

Ok, I think we run this forum pretty well, and I think that would give us an advantage over other rival forums. The UK is a small market, and is particularly worse off in the current climate, and will be for several years while we pay off this vast debt the government has got us into.

Expanding to specifically serve people from other countries is a logical next step which I am tentatively exploring.
Take Tom's Hardware, for example (see attachment).
Our servers could easily cope with more forums, we have the expertise and a good search engine ranking.

However, there are already AV forums in most (if not all) of the countries on the list, so if we start up a forum specifically for people from those countries, we will start small and respond quickly to requests/the need for expansion.

It seems sensible to concentrate on English speaking countries first since I don't speak any other languages fluently.
If we recruit foreign speaking administrators whom I can trust, then we could well cater for more countries.

None of this would affect the existing forum since 70% of our visitors are UK based and the majority of discussion is UK oriented.

We are always exploring ways of doing things better to strengthen our market position and expand our market.

[dwhite]

Originally Posted by Earthworm Jim

Would they not be native to Spanish though, I mean why would a spanish site need to be written in English. Same with a French site why would they post in english, surely because its french they will post in french, just get some french mods to moderate it.

Or have I misread your post?

I think you misread my post, because thats exactly what I'm trying to say. People will want to post in their native tongue within their own forum. Perhaps where we are mmisunderstanding is, that I would expect the 'foriegn' forums to be still part of this forum but just subforums, I think from your post you think it will be avforums.de, avforums.it avforums.fr etc.

I'm not actually sure now what stuarts intention is.