>I understand the argument, and even agree with it. But then, why was the Portuguese Forum started? Did the UT team decide there was a big demand in this particular case, perhaps?

I cannot speak for Michel. This was an initiative spearheaded by Claudio Lassala.

The main reason for the Portuguese speakers need for this is that there is no readily available forum in Portuguese other than what FoxBrasil (a Brazilian Fox group) has created. Contrast that with the wealth of sources in other languages. There are sites in Spanish like Portalfox.com, and Çetin runs a similar site in Turkish.

There are Microsoft Public News Groups (NNTP) in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, German, a new one in Polish I believe and some I probably don't know about. There is none in Portuguese. Hence the Portuguese speakers' need.