I won't be going back to HTLAL

Discuss the LLORG's and HTLAL forum's past and its future here.
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Hrhenry
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Re: I won't be going back to HTLAL

Postby Hrhenry » Mon Aug 03, 2015 7:06 pm

Rhian wrote:Which seems reasonable. A month is way too long but a couple of days is on the short side.

That puts it about a month from when you guys initially tried to contact him. That seems quite reasonable.

R.
==
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Re: I won't be going back to HTLAL

Postby Takra jenai » Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:07 pm

Why not visit both boards?
I regulary visit twenty-five sites every day.

Why should it matter whether the old admin replies? Let him be happy. Nagging him is not a good idea.
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iguanamon
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Re: I won't be going back to HTLAL

Postby iguanamon » Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:48 pm

Takra jenai wrote:Why not visit both boards?
I regulary visit twenty-five sites every day.

Why should it matter whether the old admin replies? Let him be happy. Nagging him is not a good idea.
Since you are new to the forum, I will explain to you why we are so concerned with the old forum.

It has the domain name How To Learn Any Language, which is also the name of a still in print book by Barry Farber. HTLAL.com is an established site. Benny Lewis added a link to the site in his book which sold a lot of copies all over the world. The site has a google search ranking when it comes to searching language learning. For many of us, the site was our online home for many years, in my case for five years. The content of the site is very important to those of us who helped to create it. If it goes away, it goes into the void. FX, the HTLAL site administrator and owner holds the copyright to everything there. His cooperation is essential in preserving the archive that we mostly created. I have over 2100 posts over there.

Doing a Google search for any language by using HTLAL.com will turn up a wealth of information that pretty much can't be found elsewhere. Most of the time when someone asks a question here, it has already been answered before and some of those answers are significantly better than what we can come up with at the moment. It can be so much easier, and more helpful to the learner, to just point to an appropriate link. Having that archive secure and accessible for many years to come, having a proper website with a history on Google and in the language-learning community as a whole- continuity, would be invaluable.

Also, FX Micheloud started and created the site about 11 years ago. He gave us a place to talk about language-learning and languages in an intelligent and welcoming community, for that I am grateful. I wouldn't be speaking more than two languages today if it weren't for his creation of the forum. He also kept it a pleasant place to be as regards to discussion. We deserve a chance to be able to have the best of both worlds, one last chance at least. Yes, FX neglected updating the forum and neglected keeping it modern and relevant. Yes, if we go back without any changes, there is only one direction the forum will go and that will be further down and eventually into oblivion. We've known this for years. So, one last chance, but it is not open-ended. I can live with another couple of weeks. Then, if no response is forthcoming, we find a permanent home, an appropriate governing structure and a way forward.

I hope this answers your question.
Last edited by iguanamon on Mon Aug 03, 2015 9:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I won't be going back to HTLAL

Postby rlnv » Mon Aug 03, 2015 9:06 pm

I would like to add a single point speaking to how I feel about HTLAL.

It is the single-best-resource available on the internet for language learning! Period. Anyone that is crazy enough to scan every page looking for interesting threads to read (like me), can spend months absorbing a wealth of knowledge simply unobtainable in a single location anywhere else. For the community to lose that would be unspeakable to many people. I personally am rather new to learning an L2, and have not contributed in any meaningful way to HTLAL, but I can say that without it I may not be where I am today with my studies. It is invaluable.
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Re: I won't be going back to HTLAL

Postby Φιλόσοφος » Mon Aug 03, 2015 9:34 pm

iguanamon wrote:
Takra jenai wrote:Why not visit both boards?
I regulary visit twenty-five sites every day.

Why should it matter whether the old admin replies? Let him be happy. Nagging him is not a good idea.
Since you are new to the forum, I will explain to you...


Most likely I am mistaken, but it is my impression the poster to whom you are replying is significantly more experienced both with the forum and with languages than you yourself. ;)
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Re: I won't be going back to HTLAL

Postby iguanamon » Mon Aug 03, 2015 9:39 pm

If that is the case, then the poster should be honest and reveal that.
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Re: I won't be going back to HTLAL

Postby Cavesa » Mon Aug 03, 2015 10:58 pm

I agree with the points raised. There are both practical reasons and emotional ones for us to hope for some kind of survival of the old htlal site. It is a unique source especially thanks to all the things mentioned being tried, you can not only look up a review of a resource, you can see how and to what result it was being used in past. That is immense.

I cannot see why it matters for this discussion who is more experienced with languages and forums. Of course the point of view of someone being part of the community for years is different from that of a newcomer, even the most experienced newcomer, and both are important to any healthy community.

I don't think "nagging" is the correct word, as far as I got to know the standard of communication of our moderators who are communicating with admin, I totally trust their judgement to find a balance between pushing the things to a result and not being annyoing.

About visiting both sites: That is unlikely to stay this way. Newcomers find the old site but it is nearly dead. The best thing one can recommend them, to get them some fresh answers, is to direct them here, which however doesn't seem entirely right (at least to me), while we still haven't heard from the admin. The old site won't survive like this and if it gets lost because of the drop of activity, we lose the archive. And visiting both sites when one is annoyingly slow and the other does have the community too? That isn't too practical. I cannot visit that many forums daily. While I do not doubt some people can be active in several (or even 25) communities, I simply don't have the time and I am under the impression I am not the only one, part of the community is probably not gonna stay sitting on two chairs forever, some have already switched places for good.
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Re: I won't be going back to HTLAL

Postby kimchizzle » Tue Aug 04, 2015 5:37 am

I decided to update my Russian log on the other HTLAL because someone who isn't a member here wrote me something very encouraging and motivating last week. So today I proceeded to post my log updates I made from a few weeks ago since I last posted there until today. Unfortunately, I made a mistake and posted each day as an individual post so it would retain an authentic journal look. So after about 5 separate posts to my own log in a short timespan, I got my account flagged for spam accidentally. I'm unsure how long it lasts, or if it is permanent. It says, You have exceeded the number of posts permitted in the time span, Please try again later. I gave it an hour and tried again but no luck. I don't know if it is something that mods there can fix or only the admin can fix, or if I just need to give it more time, but it goes to show me that (once) large forum needs an active admin and moderation staff that can handle different problems. I don't mind that my account was flagged, because that is protection for actual spammers, but since it can be easily seen by anyone that I actually wasn't maliciously spamming, I was just updating my log from here to there, I would like to have a way for the problem to be fixed. Hopefully my account there isn't flagged forever though. :cry:
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Feel free to help correct any of my languages, except my native tongue. :shock:

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Re: I won't be going back to HTLAL

Postby Takra jenai » Tue Aug 04, 2015 7:54 am

iguanamon wrote:If that is the case, then the poster should be honest and reveal that.

Reveal what?
I'm Takra jenai. It's Pashto. It means 'Shining Young Lady'. It's an homage to Malala Yousafzai. I've fallen in love with this young warrior.

Edit
See the avatar. It's her.
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Re: I won't be going back to HTLAL

Postby aabram » Tue Aug 04, 2015 8:30 am

Takra jenai wrote:I'm Takra jenai. It's Pashto. It means 'Shining Young Lady'. It's an homage to Malala Yousafzai. I've fallen in love with this young warrior.

Edit
See the avatar. It's her.


Good that you mentioned it. I've been thinking of where and how to bring it up and how to word it but now it's perfect opportunity. I sort of feel that your avatar is misleading. Usually people to have something as their avatar which falls broadly into on of three categories:

1. pic of themselves
2. pic of some character they feel close to or just like for their appearances (Joker, Conan the Barbarian, Edmund Hillary, a Disney princess etc)
3. something else, including animals, objects or whatever

Your avatar is apparently something that you clearly feel that represents you, but it is not a character but a person. I know her and respect her, but seeing it here as a personal picture of another forum member feels misleading to me. There are no additional markings (text with slogan, logo, frames) indicating that it's not you. She's also not that well known to be an instantly recognizable icon like Obama, Chuck Norris or Queen Elizabeth. It's a casual picture and could as well be anybody. Could be you, except that it isn't. That's why I have uneasy feeling about this picture -- it could be mistaken for your identity while it definitely is not.

Just my opinion though.
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