[Slashcode-general] Running a slash site with two languages

[Alexandre L. <ale...@ec...>]

Hi all,


I'd like your advice and comments on the following. I'm part of a small 
team running a minor slashsite (slashgeo.org, about 20,000 daily hits). 
The content is in English. I meet someone from my community of practice 
which wants to run French content (with French user comments) on the 
same site. I'd like to know the feasibility of running both languages of 
the same slash instance. In the worst-case scenario, we could run a 
parallel site in French, but this has several drawbacks (including 
doubling configuration, doubling site administration, different user 
accounts (not good because French-speaking users may want to use their 
accounts on the English-speaking part of the site), etc).

If I setup a fr.slashgeo.org section-nexus, then I'll have an RSS feed 
for the stories in French. Good. But can section-nexus have their own 
daily newsletter without too much hacking? I'd clearly need two distinct 
newsletters for each language.

Some templates would require translation. Is there anything already 
built into the templates to manage multiple languages? Would it be 
possible to tie the translated templates to the "fr" section-nexus?

I understand that site-wide and topic searches will give results from 
both languages, but that's not a show-stopper to my eyes. We're not 
planning to have stories in one language translated into the other, both 
will have their own set of stories.

Is there something I forgot that would break our plan? :-) Any related 
advice?


Thanks a lot and have a great weekend!

Alex
-- 
Alexandre Leroux, M.Sc., Ing.
Environnement Canada / Environment Canada
Centre météorologique canadien / Canadian Meteorological Centre
Division de la réponse aux urgences environnementales /
Environmental Emergency Response Division
ale...@ec...