English is the international language of transportation, commerce and business, therefore I do not feel particularly guilty that my French is passable at best, my German laughable, and my Welsh....well let's not go there shall we.

What I do feel though is that as long as paying members supporting this site continue to be drawn from non-English speaking countries, a space should continue to be provided for so that these individuals can converse in their own languages. I would also go so far as pointing out that the majority of B&O's production run ened up in Scandanavia, it would be churlish to remove the Scanadavian forum from this site.

I do agree with Moxxey though about the US forum. Are there really that many US Avant/BS1 and AV7000 questions that could not be asked elsewhere, or am I way off beam??

For the most part the North America/US Forum does stick to North American Spec questions and issues.  I don't, however, see a real problem with merging as many of the knowledgeable answers originate from Europe/UK Members anyhow and it could potentially be helpfull overall.  

The language barrier on the other hand would be difficult.   We in North America aren't afraid to wear our pants outside and B&O custom makes their products for the 
UK out of something called aluminium...  Whatever that is?😎

I think that the issue here is not about the existence of the "other sub-forums" but rather about the "stale" nature of the general forum at the moment. My experience is that the general forum "comes and goes" in the density of interesting posts for the genral participant. Right now there is precious little to discuss as new products/new capabilities/new designs are not extant. Hopefully this will change later in the year.

Although it would be nice if everyone were contributing on the same forum in the same language, I greatly appreciate (as I am sure Moxey does) the multi-cultural aspects of this site. I do as others and translate the postings in the "other sub-forums" that appear to have interest. More often than not I have learned something either technically or culturally.... the cultrual learnings are quite interesting and very much worth the effort.

As far as the NA Forum, there is some utility but I do think that given the ever increasing similarities in product offerings a subsumption into the general forum may be in order at some point.

moxxey wrote:

the Australian forum

I think there was only an Australian thread reserved for information on the meeting...

elephant wrote:

moxxey wrote:

the Australian forum

I never knew there was one !

It's slightly sad, but not surprising, that people pick up and keep mentioning the fault I made in an original post. I thought there used to be a sub-forum for Australia. Mind you, it sounds like you've picked this out as you're disappointed you couldn't find one! 😉

Anyway, hopefully the debate in the General Forum picks up somewhat.

A bit of a non-issue to me - if you think the general forum is stale then it's stale - if there was a real buzz in one of the non-English fora then I'm sure it would break out into the general forum too. I'm sure that if I had to post in a foreign language it would certainly put me off joining in.

Of course they could all be speaking foreign tongues just to avoid me!😮

I think it's fair to have different languages for those who want to speak their native tongue..... but I don't see the need to separate the English speaking parts. Sometimes I check through the North American forum just to see if there is anything interesting..... but I never post there....

In all honesty I can't see how the general forum is "stale"? I have to advance to the second page to find the first topics that don't have any posts within 24 hours, and only find a few that might have a better choice for a subforum.

moxxey wrote:

Confuses me that there is a lot of discussion in some of the sub-forums - particularly in other languages. Shouldn't we encourage (like other public forums) people to discuss, in English, on the primary 'General Forum'?

What about freedom of speech, cultural and language diversity, or