[CentOS-promo] 【Important】Request for setting up official Chinese forum & Idea of 2014 CentOS Chinese Community

Wed Apr 9 14:53:08 UTC 2014
CentOS Chinese Team <centos-zh-owner at centos.org>

Hello the team,


       Today, we finally decide to write this application letter to the team for requesting setting up official Chinese forum as we have noticed that CentOS official site and its English forum had finished its update. After one-year preparation and communication, we think it is our chance and the time to make this application. Here is the detail.


Backround for CentOS is China


    CentOS is widely used in kinds of companies as a popular operation system for server. We can't tell an accurate number that how many servers in China used CentOS but we can tell that the most biggest Internet companies such as Baidu, Sina, Tencent, they all chosen CentOS as their operation system for servers.  Anyone of us can't imagine that how many CentOS users in our China. Because of this, we can think that how many Chinese users they may want to discuss or solve the questions during they use CentOS. However, the only helpful thing from CentOS official is just a Chinese wiki. There is even no Chinese version in official site.


Why we want a Chinese forum
   You may ask me why not use mail list?  Yes, I admit that we have had a ZH mail list but we found that most Chinese people won't  write mails for those question-based communication. I think this is somehow different from EU countries. The popular communication style for the world wide at present is going for SNS at present, China is also not an exception.However, the best method we consider is the thing that is not only aiming at providing a place that people could communicate and solve the questions, but also accumulating and classifying what people ever asked. Finally, we think a Chinese forum will be the best way, because it could not only supply people to communicate but also help us to accumulate and classify. Of course, if you do a research in baidu or google, you can also find there are thousands of Chinese forums related with kinds of Linux distributions. 


What we have prepared for setting up an official Chinese forum
   Main People
   ---- Timothy.Lee, known as Chinese wiki contributor, who is always keeping Chinese translation for CentOS wiki. He is the best person for help to solve kinds of questions at the very beginning and may expect to organize a Q&A group for further forum.
   ---- I joined CentOS since 2010, with Chinese contributions experience for Open Source Linux system such as Fedora, Open Source forums such as Mybb,and Twitter for Simplified Chinese, several years of forum management and somehow the technical skill for maintain kinds of forum (installation, hacking, configuration and etc.)  Of course, my most important experience is I am the administrator of a 10-year and the largest Linux distributions forum in China which named as Linuxsir with more than 260 thousands members  
 Resources
    In the last year, I have started to make preparation for this application. Besides Linuxsir itself, I also got to communicate with few CentOS related forums which shown at the top of baidu and google search, such as centoscn.com, cncentos.com, centospub.com. They all agree and will support to join if we can push for an official CentOS forum. All of this will help us for strength the forum. 
   Of course, with the help of karan, we have had our official verified weibo account at Sina which is the largest and the most popular SNS in our China. It will help us for further promotion.  


What's the plan for CentOS Chinese Community in the future?
Promotion work: will go through our official Weibo account
Communications: Official forum, ZH mail list, Chinese wiki, maybe another blog for sharing storie


At the end, I think I have written a lot of words to express background, our request and how we have prepared. We are looking forward to getting approval and helping to making the forum out. Thank you very much.


Haowei.Lee on behalf of CentOS Chinese Team
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