Meta: Forum's organisation

Nitrokey Support English
#1

In the forum guidlines, it says:

If you have any further questions about how things should work here, open a new topic in the site feedback category and let’s discuss!

However, the linked page is dead. Hence, I post this meta-post here. I have a few little suggestions regarding this forum’s organisation, but don’t take them too seriously, this just came to my mind spontaneously. :slight_smile:

  1. When I started participating in this forum yesterday, I was a bit confused that there are no real categories (except the language ones). Would it make sense to introduce a category/subforum for each Nitrokey product or product family?

  2. Regarding inclusiveness, I was thinking whether there should be a way to also have a German version of every English post, maybe either automatically generated within each post underneath the original one, or manually written for posts moderators deem important enough? I just had in mind for example my dad, who is also very interested in privacy-enhancing technology, but not very fluent in English (and most of important hints here are in English), and might therefore be a bit hesitant to take further action.

Would be interested in what you think! :slight_smile: But again, no worries if anything! :smiley:

2 Likes
#2

Regarding product-based categories - I think it would be a good idea. I have almost responded to people playing with Nitrokey Storage or something else thinking they meant HSM2…

On translation … I am not sure if this is a good idea. Not all posts bring good quality information and also such a heavy technical stuff can be hard to translate automatically. But maybe Nitrokey marketing would like to invest for such a form of promotion for the German market, who knows!

#3

On translation, there are automated services that seem to integrate efficiently and prudently at the same time. I have such an example, the photo forum I am on, IPernity. If you go there and see comments under a picture, whatever the language, there is a button that proposes to translate automatically to your language. By doing this way, not all comments need to be translated, but the one you wish you always can, and additionally you get aware that this is “only” a translation, i. e. something possibly less accurate than the original.
You can check it there for instance, but (after trying myself) I see one must be a registered user to activate the translation! :frowning: (now, registrating is free if you don’t want to upload thousand of pics)

On product categories, I think something simple, like Keys / computers / Nextbox would be good, and also better than too many categories, because with 15 categories even the most active people won’t read everything, and the forum reactivity will lower, maybe dangerously…

#4

Hi @Tencel!
Thank you all very much for the suggestions!

  1. That’s a hard question. We might need to categorize it by the client software and feature rather, than the product model. For example issues related to the GnuPG are common to all products having smart card, including Nitrokey HSM (which can host a keypair provided proper software is used). In case someone makes a post in Nitrokey Pro, and later someone other in Nitrokey Storage with the very same issue, we will have a duplicate. To discuss.
  2. Automatic translation would be nice, I am not sure though how feasible.
    In the meantime (it’s not the best tip perhaps) Google Chrome has integrated automatic translation through Google Translator, which at least should allow reading the content.
    We of course accept German-language posts and do our best to reply to them. With automatic translation provided by the forum non-German speaking users from the community would be able to respond to given question though. Interesting idea.
    At the moment we are working on multi-language documentation, and shall any questions arise on the forum worth elaboration, we try to do so there and keep in sync both German and English versions, with possibly more languages in the future.
  3. We will check the missing category, thank you for reporting that!

cc @jan

1 Like
#5

Hi all, thanks for your answers! After having received over 200 views but 0 replies I was already worried that I worded stuff too strongly as a newcomer to this forum slight_smile:

Re. 1 (@szszszsz): Maybe it would also suffice as a start to introduce mandatory tags (either as real tags or as part of the heading). Another idea is to have an automated “questionnaire” (e.g., “Which product are you asking about” / “Which functionality” / “Are you reporting a bug/problem/feature request/discussion”) each thread opener has to answer first (using pre-defined answers!). This could already prevent problems like the one @saper mentioned. :slight_smile: Plus it would make life much easier for mods/admins/nitrokey stuff.

Re. 2: I really think that inclusive accessebility is of utmost importance when wanting to get people to adopt safe technological habits! I am more coming from a psychological side here. From my perspective, there are very few if any companies on the market which sell cryptosticks and provide (i) clear, non-overwhelming introductions into concepts (e.g., what is an OTP/U2fF, what is the difference between them) (ii) understandable step-by-step guides on a conceptual level (i.e., don’t confuse people with overly technical details) (iii) everything in multiple languages (I have in mind that you mentioned multi-language documentation).

So the forum language point is really just one aspect I guess, and I might open another thread regarding the overarching topic (which is one that’s on my mind for a bit now - just had a breakdown again when looking at Yubico’s docs).

My dad, if he would have a question about Nitrokey’s stuff, would be quite lost in this forum I guess (if he wouldn’t have me :smiley: ). He would also not really use Google translate or so. I think, @Herve5 idea regarding automated services that integrate easily into the forum sounds cool! But I understand that this might not be a top prio thing for you guys at the moment. :slight_smile: But yeah, community-driven translation might work once it’s rolling.

Best
T

#6

For what is worth, the translator used by my photo site Ipernity above, is DeepL…