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As the site topic is the same as StackOverflow, just in a different language, I think it's better situed to call it e.g. es.stackoverflow.com, with it's own meta on meta.es.stackoverflow.com.

Is that suitable for this kind of proposals?

BTW, I'm sure there IS an audience to es.superuser.com and es.serverfault.com also, but let's go step by step. Maybe this is not suitable for every language, but I think half a dozen or so will be very succesfull sites (I bet a beer on that), including es (Spanish), ru (Russian) and maybe de (German).

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Interesting take. It makes perfect sense, I just wonder whether it'll ever be supported. – Evan Plaice Mar 18 '11 at 1:43
@Dori, this is about both, the proposal itself (now) and the domain name, (future) when the proposal ends the beta stage :) – jachguate Mar 19 '11 at 0:49
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this would be good if all sites were cross pollinated and translated by the user or by machine. (maybe after machine learning on SE creates an enthusiastic group of new ML researches) Facebook implored an army of Spanish speakers to do it's bidding. I think the same could work for Stack Exchange. – Chamilyan Aug 7 '11 at 9:04
This would be suitable at least for the domain name. However, most of these proposals will never get on the BETA stage because the requirements don't make any sense. These proposals are focusing people who are currently NOT members of any StackExchange forums (because they can't understand English) thus they have no reputation at all - And will never be able to earn any because, again, they can't understand English :( – Caio Proiete Jan 22 at 18:29
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2 Answers

up vote 5 down vote

I think the interest is really limited, IT has an universe language, this language is English. With a stackoverflow by languages we will create duplicate questions/answers.

But I think a good proposal is to provide the possibility to translate a validated response in different languages. For example, a question with more than 10 up votes can able to be translated.

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Sorry @sahid, but I don't agree with you. There is A LOT of developers that can't write (or understand) English and there are also A LOT of other developers who can, but won't because they prefer to write in their native languages, which is simply natural. This is why we have so many localized forums, including the Microsoft MSDN/Technet forums. The goal of the proposals above is to enable people to ask and answer questions in their own language, in a separate space. – Caio Proiete Jan 22 at 18:19
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@CaioProiete: for a developer, refusing to learn English is a major flaw and should not be encouraged. – Lohoris Feb 26 at 11:53
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@Lohoris I agree with you that refusing to learn English should not be encouraged as development will be in English at the end. – heyanshukla Apr 6 at 5:41
As stated in SO FAQ, SO is for 'professional and enthusiast programmers'. If I agree that professional programmers should be able to write and read English, I don't see it as a strong issue for hobbyist, or any students taking optionnal courses in programming. – FabienAndre Apr 10 at 13:42
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up vote 1 down vote

@Lohoris, @heyanshukla, and @FabienAndre: I'm sure we all agree that read/write in English is fundamental for any developer, but I fail to see how creating a localized version o SO would be "encouraging" people not to learn English.

It is not like they would stop going to SO in English or anything... SO exists for years and they are not here.

To give you an example, I run a major .NET user group in Portugal with about 2700 developers participating in a discussion list on google groups (localized) and I would bet with you that not even 10% of those developers are members of the SO in English and most likely never will be... Either because they don't know enough English or because they don't want to write in English (most likely) and prefer to write in their local language - personal choice. Creating localized versions of SO would increase the reach to all of these people. IMO, SO is missing out...

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