The end of TAC?

Discuss the LLORG's and HTLAL forum's past and its future here.
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The end of TAC?

Postby Ogrim » Thu Nov 05, 2015 1:09 pm

The Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC)* was the main buzz of HTLAL, with lot of activity during November and December, when teams were formed, and quite a lot of activity during the first few weeks of the new year, when people still felt energised and eager to take part in the challenge. Then very often the activity level fell dramatically as we got into spring, and only a few teams kept up the activity level throughout the years. Since the HTLAL outage this summer, it seems to me that TAC is almost dead this year. True, many individual logs still have TAC in their name, but the teams who have migrated over here have not been active at all as far as one can tell from the team threads. This leads me to put a few questions:

Do we want to continue with a yearly TAC on this forum? Do we have a sufficient number of active members to keep it going?
If so, should we still call it TAC, or could we maybe consider another name (I never really got the "Annihilation" thing)?
Are there volunteers out there for organising the whole thing/being team leaders?

My experience with TAC is not that good, but maybe that's just bad luck: The fist team I joined was for learning Greek, there were really few of us and most of us basically gave up after 5-6 months. This year I joined the Russian team (which had been very active in 2014), but for various reasons activity levels fell quickly and few of the members engaged with the monthly challenges in the team thread. Then our team leader became more absent (for perfectly honorable reasons), and although we have a team thread here on this forum, nothing has happened there since early September.

This does not mean that I would not want to engage in a similar kind of challenge next year if it is decided to continue with TAC in one way or another, but I do think this is an opportunity to discuss the future of TAC.

* Note for newcomers who were not on HTLAL: TAC is a one-year challenge which you can do as part of a team or as an individual. The following is a quote from Josquin who organised TAC 2015 over on HTLAL:

I think most people know what the TAC is about. The idea is to learn as much as possible in your target language(s) in one year and document your progress in your log. In order to participate, you need to sign up and create your own TAC log. The title of the log may include "TAC 2015", but it has to show the name(s) of the team(s) you are a part of. You are allowed to continue an old log, just change the title by editing the first post of the log and indicate on which page your TAC 2015 starts.
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Re: The end of TAC?

Postby Expugnator » Thu Nov 05, 2015 2:09 pm

It really is almost dead. I plan to continue working on my languages regardless of whether there are challenges or not, and I try to follow any new logs that show up for languages I'm learning or which are on my hitlist. The best about TAC is actually getting to learn together and support each other. Seeing the team threads become dead is by no means worse than seeing the team members, the friends you used to have show up less and less at the fora and then disappear.
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Re: The end of TAC?

Postby garyb » Thu Nov 05, 2015 2:23 pm

I've done four or five TACs now, I can't remember, but to be honest I've just done it out of habit and joined in because everyone else was at it, and I'm now starting to find the whole thing a bit pointless. I do enjoy having a fresh start and making a new log for each year, it's a nice way to assess my progress and think about my goals, but there's nothing stopping me doing that without the challenge. The idea is basically to learn as much as possible and improve your learning methods, but that's what we're all trying to do anyway. The only thing making the TAC different is the teams, but in my experience most members have dropped out like you said, and the various discussions of team challenges and group conversations have been all talk and little action. Team members are encouraged to read each others' logs, but that's generally how things work anyway, people tend to mostly read the logs of others who're studying similar languages or who have similar goals. Well, there's also the popularity contest at the end of the year of voting for the best team and participants.

Also, making plans and goals for a year isn't always realistic. Life gets in the way, motivations for languages change based on travel and social reasons, and priorities change as I learn more and become more aware of what to focus on.

Overall I can't think of any way in which participating in all these TACs has given concrete benefits to my learning that I wouldn't have gotten from an individual log. Essentially the only difference has been the "TAC" in the title. Also on this new forum I'm not keen on having to put my log in the "challenges" section rather than the "logs" one just because it happens to have these three letters in the title.
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Re: The end of TAC?

Postby emk » Thu Nov 05, 2015 3:24 pm

garyb wrote:Overall I can't think of any way in which participating in all these TACs has given concrete benefits to my learning that I wouldn't have gotten from an individual log. Essentially the only difference has been the "TAC" in the title. Also on this new forum I'm not keen on having to put my log in the "challenges" section rather than the "logs" one just because it happens to have these three letters in the title.

So this is still up in the air a bit, and I need to discuss it with with rdearman and the moderators, but I don't see anything wrong with using the two subforums as follows:

  1. Logs: Use this for your personal logs, even if you're doing a challenge.
  2. Challenges: Use this for the main challenge threads and the team threads.
The idea is that you can find the challenge threads without digging through 50 personal logs. :-) And putting all challenge-related personal logs under challenges is just going to make that hard again. If people are generally OK with this division, I can talk to the moderators about clarifying the forum descriptions and moving threads as necessary. How would people feel about this?

Also, re: TAC. I think that one of the problems is that it starts in January, and so it falls pray to the usual problems of New Year's resolutions. As a general rule, January is the worst month to go the gym. :-) And Solfrid once said that this is why the Super Challenge starts 4 months later: it misses the giant TAC rush and it avoids the temptations of the New Year. So you tend to get more serious participants.

So my questions for the community:

  1. What good things did you get out of TAC?
  2. Can we find a way to preserve those good things even if TAC goes away?
  3. What are the traditional weaknesses of TAC?
  4. Is there any way we could help address those weaknesses?
Also, if we know what's good about TAC and TAC teams, then maybe we can either (a) figure out how to use out existing forum software to better support teams, or (b) figure out what kinds of new features would make it easier to learn together.
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Re: The end of TAC?

Postby Ogrim » Thu Nov 05, 2015 4:08 pm

emk wrote:
  1. What good things did you get out of TAC?
  2. Can we find a way to preserve those good things even if TAC goes away?
  3. What are the traditional weaknesses of TAC?
  4. Is there any way we could help address those weaknesses?
Also, if we know what's good about TAC and TAC teams, then maybe we can either (a) figure out how to use out existing forum software to better support teams, or (b) figure out what kinds of new features would make it easier to learn together.


Thanks for putting the questions better than I did.

Personally I did not get much out of TAC, but generally I see that it can be a good motivation factor for some people. Being part of a team can be an incentive, and make the learning process less lonely. I think it also got a lot of newbies to sign up to HTLAL in order to join the teams.

Maybe a way to preserve the team spirit of TAC would be to create "language learning groups" for different languages? As Garyb says, you tend to read the logs of those who study the same languages as you, regardless of whether they do the TAC, and a way to structure that could be to create e.g. a Russian group, a French group, an Italian group etc. where people could post links to their logs and share study tips, resources etc. The difference with TAC would be that the groups should be open for newcomers to join at any time, and it would be up to each group to decide whether they want to do challenges, hold skype meetings etc. The competition element of TAC would not be there, as the groups would not necessarily be required to take part in a challenge, but a "team spirit" may be created.

Weaknesses of TAC. Obviously the New Year resolution syndrome, as emk points out. The teams often relies on the resilience of very few people, and if the team leader and/or one or two of the most active members drop out, the team dies. This could of course be a weakness also of the "learning groups" as mentioned above, but in the end I am not sure how you can avoid this "risk".
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Re: The end of TAC?

Postby iguanamon » Thu Nov 05, 2015 4:12 pm

I realized a few years ago after having tried it once that it was pretty much useless for me. I don't need it for motivation. If I decide to learn a language I'm going to keep at it and I read other people's logs anyway, TAC or no TAC. So much of the success in having a good TAC is dependent upon who is running it and the seriousness of the individuals taking part. While I say, it's not for me. It does get activity going and brings new people into the forum. A few may even choose to stick around until after February! So, for people who feel that they want or need that extra motivation, I think it can be good. Generally, in reality, TAC isn't that much different from what a serious learner does anyway without TAC. It may serve as an incentive for people learning a language to read others' logs who are also learning the same language- which they should be doing anyway. Reading logs can show a beginning learner new approaches, new techniques and provide inspiration. Some of them can also show a beginning learner what not to do as well. It can give senior members who have a language or two under their belts a way to mentor those who are less experienced, ideally.

Since much, if not most, of the conversation on the forum has shifted to the logs, I see TAC as pretty much redundant. Still, if something like that gets people to participate, if they need it to stay motivated, then that's a good thing. Sure, it gets annoying in December and January when the forum seems to get taken over by it, but it's pretty much over by the first week in February for the most part anyway and things get back to normal again.

TAC upsides:
Motivation for those who need it
Gets people participating in the forum
More activity on the forum
Gets people to read others' logs
Possibility to be mentored by more senior members

TAC downsides:
Clutters the forum for two months out of the year.
Nothing gets "Totally annihilated".
Much of the excitement seems to come from forming the team and choosing the team name and team leader rather than actually learning the language.
The challenges are most often designed for the lowest common denominator, not too hard and usually not challenging.
New Year's Resolution people drop out by February.
Once people develop the habit of reading others' logs that interest them, they'll do it anyway- regardless of TAC.
Most teams don't end up with good mentors. It usually ends up being the blind leading the blind.
Most members who sign up don't participate- whether this is because there's a perception that there's nothing really to be gained by participating or "it sounded like a good idea at the time", I don't know but I suspect it's some combination of the two.

Possible solutions:
Change the name, since nothing is getting "annihilated" to something more appropriate for what actually goes on.
Moderators ask for more senior members to run a specific challenge and serve as mentors.
Eliminate a team when it drops below four members participating in a month.
Have a system in place for a team leader to ask for someone else to take over in the event of life getting in the way or just tiring of it.
Start the challenge in the middle of February- when it is normally over from it's January 1 start. This would eliminate the good intentions New Year's Resolution folks and give people in the middle of the dead of winter in the northern hemisphere something to look forward to and the people in the midst of a long hot summer in the southern hemisphere some diversion.
One team per big language and Team Rare for everything else that isn't big enough to have its own team.

Edit: I like Ogrim's idea about language learning groups instead of "TAC". This seems to me to be more sustainable.
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Re: The end of TAC?

Postby Brun Ugle » Thu Nov 05, 2015 4:54 pm

I did organize the TAC one year and it was quite chaotic because no one wanted to wait to start. I wouldn't mind organizing it again though. But I won't be around in the beginning of December, so if everyone could be patient until after the 18th, I'd be willing to do it.

However, I also really like the idea of it not starting in January. I'm sort of doing my own personal challenge right now related to the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin in May. It's been very motivating to me because I have the goal of using my language at the Gathering next year. So, I like the idea of a challenge that runs from sometime in May. But that might not work for those who aren't interested in, or can't attend, the gathering. I suppose it isn't easy to come if you don't live in Europe. But my point it, I think one of the things that works with my personal challenge is that there is a goal at the end, whereas the TAC is more like a New Years resolution that is quickly forgotten.

I've personally had both good and bad TAC years, but I like the camaraderie of the teams.

About the logs, I thought the original intention was for only team logs and sign-up threads and suchlike to be in the challenge section, so I never understood why there were so many personal logs there.
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Re: The end of TAC?

Postby garyb » Thu Nov 05, 2015 5:02 pm

I'm all for moving logs back to the Logs section - I still have trouble finding my own log sometimes because it's not where I expect it!

Iguanamon's post was a good summary of the pros and cons, and it's helped me come to my decision that I won't bother next year. But if some people do find it useful then there's no reason not to continue it.
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Re: The end of TAC?

Postby iguanamon » Thu Nov 05, 2015 6:02 pm

One other downside of TAC that I forgot to mention is that those not participating who could and would offer help may feel as if they shouldn't because they are not a member of "Team X". So while TAC does offer camaraderie of a team, it can also, unintentionally, exclude people who may have valuable insights or help to offer because they may feel excluded or may not even be looking because of those three letters T-A-C.
Last edited by iguanamon on Fri Nov 06, 2015 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The end of TAC?

Postby tomgosse » Thu Nov 05, 2015 6:37 pm

Ogrim wrote:
Maybe a way to preserve the team spirit of TAC would be to create "language learning groups" for different languages? As Garyb says, you tend to read the logs of those who study the same languages as you, regardless of whether they do the TAC, and a way to structure that could be to create e.g. a Russian group, a French group, an Italian group etc. where people could post links to their logs and share study tips, resources etc. The difference with TAC would be that the groups should be open for newcomers to join at any time, and it would be up to each group to decide whether they want to do challenges, hold skype meetings etc. The competition element of TAC would not be there, as the groups would not necessarily be required to take part in a challenge, but a "team spirit" may be created.

I like this idea. I tried TAC's twice at the old site. My problem is that I never knew what to do after I read so much, listened to something, memorized words, etc. This confusion of mine is one of the reasons I always ended up dropping out of TAC's.

I do like the idea of Skype meetings.
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