Language Tags

[Bakunin]

It is not a simple matter to attach flags, and I can't see how it could be done automatically, but it would be nice to have the possibility.

I dont' think flags are a good idea. Languages and nations have a strained relationship at best. Nationalism drives many languages to extinction, and languages do cross borders. I would not feel comfortable associating my language learning to nations, and I wouldn't feel comfortable seeing flags all over the place on this forum.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Some interesting screenshots here:
https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... &t=2263616

[garyb]

I like the idea of topic tags, especially for logs, like on HTLAL. It's nice to see at a glance which languages a log is about, and any associated challenges.

Languages in the sidebar and making them searchable has already been discussed a lot (one thread and I'm sure there was another but I can't find it right now), but it doesn't seem like any conclusion was reached, anything other than free text was looking too inflexible or complicated.

[neofight78]

Languages in the sidebar and making them searchable has already been discussed a lot (one thread and I'm sure there was another but I can't find it right now), but it doesn't seem like any conclusion was reached, anything other than free text was looking too inflexible or complicated.

I think this was more in relation to people's profiles. It got too complicated because people didn't just want to list languages, they wanted to say which ones they were studying and how, which level they were, including different levels by skill etc. Whereas I think with a thread it could be a lot simpler. The ideal case being logs where you would tag it with the languages you were learning/discussing. A somewhat simpler and more useful proposition.

[Serpent]

On the search page you can choose to display the results as individual messages or threads. It also searches only within the message and not in the language field or signature. (That was my problem with the google search. It would find unrelated messages for "serpent finnish" or "serpent portuguese" because these are in my profile, and are displayed next to every post)

[pir]

I like topic tags (NOT flags), I find them very useful when they are done well.

We might also want to think about whether only the author gets to flag their posts, or whether anyone might contribute. The latter works really well in communities largely free of vandalism, and it makes up for the fact that not everyone can be bothered to tag their posts -- somebody will do it for you if you forgot.

Are we thinking of just tagging languages?

If we also tag other things will there be a common list of available tags, or can anyone pick whatever comes to mind? The former can be stifling if there is no relatively easy way to administer the list and have things added, the latter can give rise to an unholy mess.

[jeff_lindqvist]

I'd like more tags than just languages. Think HTLAL, e.g. TV, polyliteracy, Assimil, L-R and so on. I don't know exactly how the automatic tagging there works, but it saves the moderators a lot of time. But like HTLAL we'd probably end up with some topics having a large number of tags (for instance, Iversen writes in all his languages, and about several topics).

[galaxyrocker]

I'd like more tags than just languages. Think HTLAL, e.g. TV, polyliteracy, Assimil, L-R and so on. I don't know exactly how the automatic tagging there works, but it saves the moderators a lot of time. But like HTLAL we'd probably end up with some topics having a large number of tags (for instance, Iversen writes in all his languages, and about several topics).

Along with this, I feel it'd just be much easier to open the tags to create your own. Basically, you can tag for whatever you want, as long as it's a single word (or hyphens). I feel the issue with that would come down to searching, especially if someone does a tag like 'learning-irish-with-duolingo-.

[Brun Ugle]

I liked the tagging system at HTLAL. We couldn't make up our own tags, which is probably good because if you let anyone make them up, you get all kinds of nonsense. Also, anyone with more than a certain level of posts was allowed to tag, so less work for the moderators. I never noticed much frivolous tagging there. Some threads had many tags, but I think they were all relevant.

[Iversen]

Just a few words about the tagging system at HTLAL - which we don't have to implement in the same way here.

We basically had three kinds of tags: languages, language teaching systems and the rest. The language tags reflected the languages you could indicate in your profile - and only those, which meant that only FX could add to the list. I think the same applied to the teaching systems. However for many years moderators could add new 'general' tags, but one day the system broke down, and from then on we had to live with those we already had.

As noted above, all HTLAL veterans could mark any topic with those tags, but the most profilic tagger was the system itself, which accorded tags to new threads based on the title. Mostly this functioned well, but sometimes the moderators had to intervene - as when topics about Latin American Spanish were tagged as "Latin". A small number of ultra industrious taggers (including Meramarina, Fasulye, Doitsujin, me and a few others) tagged thousands of messages, and then the rest of the topics were tagged by other members of the forum, including those who tagged their own threads.

If it is decided that we should have tags here then I think we need a mechanism to keep the numbers down - otherwise we'll end up with a small number of heavily used tags and hundreds or thousands of tags which only are used once or twice. I don't know what the technical possibilities are, but such a system is not something you establish in a flash - it takes some planning to get a sensible and practical system.

PS: this is my message no. 100