People, answer me this: How come are there so many Dutch people among the number of active members of Ironworks Forum who visit the General Discussion section? I can understand that there are many Americans, Australians and Brits, since the site itself is American and everything is written in English. But how are there >10 Hollandese members, while there are 1-3 each from Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain?

Of course, the number of 'active' members is indefinable, so the numbers said are all my personal estimation. If you have a different opinion about that, feel free to express what you think.

EDIT: I forgot that General Discussion, Recent World Events and Books, Movies and TV Shows are about the only forums I go to, so I can't speak about the whole forum.

[ 12-31-2003, 03:05 PM: Message edited by: uss ]

HEy dont forgett about us sweds... The dutch migth just be ´smart people. so smart that they know how much fun this site is... (probably some dum people think this is fun to),,

Holland, Sweden, and a few more European countries, stand a lot closer to the USA and GB culturally than the rest of Europe. For instance, I think Holland and the Scandinavian countries are just about the only ones in Europe that don't dub all foreign movies and TV shows. Because our cultures are so "americanized", the English language is firmly rooted in our societies. Since we're so influenced by it in our daily lives, we generally learn it more easily and fully than other Europeans, and thus feel more comfortable communicating in it on forums such as these.

Holland, Belgium and Scandinavia also used to have the highest ratio of Internet connections per household in Europe, and I know Sweden had the largest annual IT growth in the world a few years ago. Don't know if that's still the case though.

[ 12-31-2003, 03:33 PM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

Count Iceland among the countries were english is rooted in the culture... we never dub movies, except for children movies.

I'm the only active member from Iceland though... [img]smile.gif[/img]

In some sense, many countries throughout the world are americanizing as time passes, including Estonia. The only dubbed shows are those that are for up to six year olds(Teletubbies). People use english slang words in a conversation very often, especially curses.

Usage of the internet is spreading very quicky. When I was in Italy, I could only use the internet in a hotel, in which it costed 10 Euros an hour. Here, I can be get on the internet for free from the local library.


I am currently the only the only active Estonian in this forum. I know this wasn't the case a few years ago, when I met one with more than 200 posts. Hah, but then again, while this place has one Estonian(me), there are no Latvians nor Lithuanians - Estonia has a population of 1,3 mil, Latvia 2,3, Lithuania 3,5.

I wish Dan would post the total number of people and their nationalities in the forum again..

I've often wondered at the lack of South Americans, Africans or Indians on this site. Many of them speak perfect English. Maybe it has something to do with a lack of fantasy games steeped in there culture? Its a very old world european thing I guess. [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

[ 01-01-2004, 10:12 AM: Message edited by: wellard ]

We're secretly taking over the world. Grojlach is our fearless leader, I'm his Intelligence Officer, Dreamer is our Admiral of the navy, Legolas the General of the Ground Forces and Melusine... well.. she's Groj's concubine ;) [img]tongue.gif[/img]

How about Johnny, group clown?

Johnny is trying to bring down the beer companies by drinking all the beer there is. This will cause an economic crisis which in turn will lead us to ultimate world domination!! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!! [img]graemlins/evillaughter2.gif[/img]

ROFL Link :D

Seriously though, maybe it has something to do with the percentage of the population that has internet acces. Which is quite high in Western Europe.