Non-HTLAL is too good to let die.

Discuss the LLORG's and HTLAL forum's past and its future here.
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rdearman
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Re: Non-HTLAL is too good to let die.

Postby rdearman » Tue Oct 20, 2015 12:18 pm

Well, I've removed the maintenace page from the top level. There isn't much there, but if you want to have a look: http://language-learners.org

If you have suggestions I'm willing to listen. If you have some "guest post" you might like to have reviewed and put up again let us know. I know there was an effort to develop content and I don't want to step on Rhian's toes, so please copy her on any potential content you'd like to give us.
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Re: Non-HTLAL is too good to let die.

Postby Montmorency » Tue Oct 20, 2015 12:33 pm

rdearman wrote:Well, I've removed the maintenace page from the top level. There isn't much there, but if you want to have a look: http://language-learners.org

If you have suggestions I'm willing to listen. If you have some "guest post" you might like to have reviewed and put up again let us know. I know there was an effort to develop content and I don't want to step on Rhian's toes, so please copy her on any potential content you'd like to give us.


I was a little surprised that there were not more obvious pointers over here from HTLAL.
Having not looked at HTLAL for quite a while, I was unaware of the recent (2015) outages, and the setting up of this site until fairly recently.
This site actually took a little bit of finding - I didn't mind that and was happy to find it, but I wonder if other old HTLAL-ers simply haven't found this place yet?

Was there a concern that if we advertised this site too obviously from HTLAL, we might compromise the relationship with the owner/admin of that site?
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Re: Non-HTLAL is too good to let die.

Postby rdearman » Tue Oct 20, 2015 12:38 pm

Montmorency wrote:
rdearman wrote:Well, I've removed the maintenace page from the top level. There isn't much there, but if you want to have a look: http://language-learners.org

If you have suggestions I'm willing to listen. If you have some "guest post" you might like to have reviewed and put up again let us know. I know there was an effort to develop content and I don't want to step on Rhian's toes, so please copy her on any potential content you'd like to give us.


I was a little surprised that there were not more obvious pointers over here from HTLAL.
Having not looked at HTLAL for quite a while, I was unaware of the recent (2015) outages, and the setting up of this site until fairly recently.
This site actually took a little bit of finding - I didn't mind that and was happy to find it, but I wonder if other old HTLAL-ers simply haven't found this place yet?

Was there a concern that if we advertised this site too obviously from HTLAL, we might compromise the relationship with the owner/admin of that site?


Yes, basically we didn't feel any need to antagonise the site-admin or other users.
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Re: Non-HTLAL is too good to let die.

Postby Bakunin » Tue Oct 20, 2015 12:50 pm

Guys, my inner mathematician is offended. Numbers come with an accuracy which is usually indicated by the number of leading digits. A figure like

75.19 posts per day

implies an accuracy of +/- 0.01. That's ludicrous. A better statement would be

75 posts per day

or better even

70-80 posts per day


The same goes for "2255.7 posts per month"; "2000 posts per month", or maybe "2300 posts per month" would better reflect the accuracy and also volatility of this number. We're a very young forum with wildly fluctuating monthly post counts.

Finally, may I offer another visualization?

20-10-2015 14-48-05.png
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Last edited by Bakunin on Tue Oct 20, 2015 2:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Non-HTLAL is too good to let die.

Postby rdearman » Tue Oct 20, 2015 12:53 pm

Bakunin wrote:Guys, the mathematician in me is offended.

My inner mathematician is a pretty placid fellow, he just copies and pastes from the admin interface. :D
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Re: Non-HTLAL is too good to let die.

Postby tomgosse » Tue Oct 20, 2015 1:08 pm

@Bakunin, Seriously nice graphic. The nerd in me loves it. :)
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Re: Non-HTLAL is too good to let die.

Postby Ogrim » Tue Oct 20, 2015 2:17 pm

Interesting discussion and interesting figures. However, let us not forget that this is a relatively new forum, and although it has the advantage of building on a group of enhusiastic and serious posters from HTLAL, I am not surprised that we do not see an enormous surge in new members.

If we compare with the first years of HTLAL, we are not doing badly. I had a look at the figure of new members signing up each month. It seems the forum was launched in September 2004, when four new members signed up. It did not get into two digits before February 2005, with 22 new members, whereafter there was a slow increase until it reaches three digits in March 2006. The steady increas continued and January 2011 stands out with 789 new members signing up in that month.

One could think that a lot more of the old members of HTLAL would have come over after the last outage. However, although HTLAL had/has a lot of members, very few of them are actually active. If you look at posting history you also get some interesting figures. HTLAL has had in total 106697 (old and current) members, but of these as many as 94222 members, that is 88%, have never posted anything. Only 897 members have posted more than 100 posts.

Of course we must attract new members, but we cannot expect to get huge numbers signing up in just a few months. Unless people are actively searching for "language learning forums" it is still difficult to find this one with a Google search. As the history of HTLAL shows, it can takes several years to build up an important membership base, and even then you can expect just a few to become really active members being able to "replace" the veteran members who quit or go quiet, as Iguanamon refers to.

If the forum just becomes a place for newbies to get advice on the one hand, and provide a space for people to keep their personal study logs on the other, it will not be very engaging for "old-timers". The challenge is clearly to write about new or interesting topics which will engage people to discuss and share opinions, thus keeping the interst of those of us who have been with HTLAL for several years while at the same time attracting new members. I do not pretend I have the magic answer to this, rather I think it is a question of the combined input from all of us - and a dose of patience.
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Re: Non-HTLAL is too good to let die.

Postby Montmorency » Tue Oct 20, 2015 2:59 pm

Whichever of "2255.7 posts per month"; "2000 posts per month", or maybe "2300 posts per month" you choose, it looks better than the previous months (IIRC), so let's hope that it's about right and is a good sign.
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Re: Non-HTLAL is too good to let die.

Postby emk » Tue Oct 20, 2015 3:43 pm

I mentioned elsewhere to rdearman that I've been somewhat overwhelmed by other stuff lately, but I do hope to find more time to work on the site soon.

If we want new users (which I think would be nice), I agree that it would help to have a static site with lots of useful resources, and maybe even a group blog. Personally, I'd love to allow forum members to publish their popular articles (like iguanamon's "Multitrack approach" and some of Bakunin's great experiments, and similar things from many other posters) if they want to on a blog that people can subscribe to via RSS, or easily link to from Facebook, etc. There's a ton of helpful language learning ideas around here, and I've benefited from them tremendously.
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Re: Non-HTLAL is too good to let die.

Postby James29 » Tue Oct 20, 2015 4:03 pm

Bakunin wrote:Guys, my inner mathematician is offended. Numbers come with an accuracy which is usually indicated by the number of leading digits. A figure like

75.19 posts per day

implies an accuracy of +/- 0.01. That's ludicrous.


You conveniently did not quote the word "average" when you quoted Mr. Dearman. I'm not sure why you are so harsh on him. He was averaging whole numbers. Try telling someone who got 2 hits out of 6 at bats that his batting average is .300. That won't go over too well with him. :)
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