Hello there guyz... Im new here..

I have a few questions... I have said that i would like to create / start a new forum soon but i would like your views...

This is what in my mind:

I would like to start a community for Malays speaking ppl, not Malaysian but all malays speaking. Meaning those who speak in Malay language and dun care where they came from. Those who are Malays speaking are most Islam.

WHY? Why? some might asked me. Why only one language forum. As many says, there is gonna be a reason. My reason is i want to be unique and also since there isnt many Malay language forum, i think this is a good idea. Also, now, most Malay parents speaks English at home with their children and the children will only learn their Mother Tounge Languages at school.

Pros: The pros is that I can speak Malays, and my other members are malays too. Can interact with each others more closer. Easy to understand. Unique. That is all in my mind.

Cons: The cons is that, i dun i could affiliate or exchange post with other forums if they do not know how to speak malays. I also dun this there is a lot of malays joining forums like WebMaster, WebDesigning, etc, where im mostly active. They way of advertising is through mouth by mouth and maybe forum sigs might help too. I also the forum could be a success if there isnt anyone interested to join.

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Then other ideas came out from my mind. This is a general discussions forum in English. This would be a great idea but i think there is already alot out there and only a few is well known or successful. This is a good idea since anyone from anywhere could join if they have basic understanding of english.

Pros: All of the users including the admin and staffs know what the community is talking about. It would not be that hard since everyone in the community knows basic English. Advertise it would also be a little easier than the prev ideas, since i can affilates with other English base forum such as AF.

Cons: It will be a tuf competition since there is a lot of it out there. Cant think of others Cons for this.


So can anyone help me on this or tell me more...

thanks..

I think that you already have a good idea for both of these topics. Both are hard to advertise/promote for the reasons you have pointed out. I don't know a lot about Malays (actually...nothing other than what you've just told me), so I don't know how big the market is, what kind of market it is, and whether or not it can be marketted to. Have you found a forum package with a Malays language pack? That could be a huge deciding factor...I'm not sure that there is any forum software out there that will work with Malays - if there isn't, you'll either need to make your own, have somebody else make one for you, or you are left with no Malays option.

As far as general, English forums...these are so hard to promote because, as you have said, there is a lot of competition - in addition to that, it's actually hard to get people in there because of the fact that the topic is so broad. Most people go to forums for a specific purpose, not just anything and everything.

If I had to pick one over the other, I would go with Malays - if it is possible (language pack) and also assuming the market is large enough...if so, I think the internet is in bigger need of this and it'd be easier to promote

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I think you should make a dual-language forum. Most of it in your language and then have a couple of English sections. Some American Malaysians or US born might prefer writing in English but want to feel their culture and be around similar people.

I speak Spanish and I see a lot of the successful Spanish language forums have English and Spanish sections and each section is very successful. I've actually been in discussion with members of a couple of my forums to offer multi-language support and forum sections. It opens us up to a wider audience the worst that can happen is I can always take out a section if it's not successful.

That's a great idea, David. (tocallo)

zanzan, get a Malay forum going, but have a general topic in english only. I believe most Malays speak basic english so it wouldn't be a problem.

But aside from having a language-specific forum, what will your forum be about? We all speak/write english here, but this forum isn't about English. What kinds of topics are you thinking about?

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Thanks for the help guyz... really appreciated it...

Ryan: I do not know what kind of market it is. Cant really figure it out since there isnt as much forum as there is in english. For the start i would used MyBB. The language would not be a problem if there isnt any for Malays. Our words are spelled out using alphabets A-Z and numbers from 1 - 10, same like english.

David: I like ur idea. I think most malays could speak basic english, since most of them would come from countries like Singapore and Malaysia. A english section in malays forum is also good since someone, who doesnt speak malay or understand wanted to know more about the culture, etc, like what u have just said.

Red Matrix: My forum would be a general discussion board.

The problem here is not the characters for posts, it is the words everywhere else...in the forum software itself. The navigation, the buttons, the Profile pages, the search page, etc. If all of Malay speaking people also know English, it wouldn't be a major problem, although it would look strange to have all buttons and navigation in one language and posts in another....It would be best to either find or make a language pack so that all of the forums is in Malays.

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ouhk i understand. Mybb hasnt had the language pack yet...