I’ve seen lots of successful doctors, surgeons, architects that could barely join some words into the sentence in English. But, I have yet to see a great programmer/computer scientist that does not know English. As you pointed above, without good English skills, first problem that hits you, which cannot be solved with the help of localized resources (local books, sites, friends, etc..) will be your end in the professional IT field. Professionalism in IT requires English, and that’s a fact.

But, I’ve also seen some projects (like Pardus Linux..) that succeeded in creating a good community and userbase just because their interface/documentation/website is localized. But I do agree that user groups cannot make all their participants professionals if not improve their skills or increase number.

My area of expertise is Mechanics. However we dont generally socialise much over internet, I can simply compare my English speaking engineer friends with guys who cannot. The result is very similar with your IT communtity observations.

However when it comes to the support or feedback provided by users, much changes in the non-IT world. People generally dont care to help other users in the world I live in.

One final and simple addition to your global community idea: Keeping it international makes the support pool larger.