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.