Miscellaneous sub-forum?

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Re: Miscellaneous sub-forum?

Postby Jar-Ptitsa » Tue Sep 15, 2015 10:50 pm

Spoonary wrote:Yeah, I agree that it would be nice to have an off-topic part of the forum, although I also understand the other points of view presented by Rhian.

The thing is, we have language-specific areas (I know there's only the Spanish one now but I'm sure there will be more) where we can discuss anything and everything, but what if, say, Joe Bloggs wanted to discuss bird watching with others here who enjoy bird watching, but the only place he could talk about non-language things was in these language-specific sub forums, and he didn't have any common languages with any of the other bird watchers around? Poor Joe... :cry:

Edit: I am taking for granted that Joe and other bird watchers would be able to speak/write English, which they would use in an off-topic, bird watching thread. :?


I agree, it would be great to have a bird watchers forum :)

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Re: Miscellaneous sub-forum?

Postby rdearman » Tue Sep 15, 2015 11:51 pm

NIKOLIĆ wrote:
daegga wrote:Opening up the multilingual forum for English off-topic entries maybe? After all, English is supposed to be a language too (and some might even want to practice it outside the scope of language discussion).


I like this suggestion.

I honestly don't see what the problem is. If we can have a Spanish sub-forum, why can't we have an English one? There is a large amount of non-native English speakers on this forum, and I'm sure most of them would like to talk about/discuss something other than "Should I read or should I listen more?".

It would be even easier to moderate than the Spanish one, since (I'm guessing) most of the admins/moderators are native English speakers. I'm pretty sure that off-topic threads wouldn't get derailed as much as the language related threads.


Actually there was a significant amount of debate about starting a spanish sub forum and it is still listed as experimental. And although there has been some good interaction there I still dont see how a miscellaneous subforum contributions something which isnt provided elsewhere. In fact it brings up again the question of having a Spanish forum, experimental or not.

I dont like miscellaneous areas. In my job I don't allow "all other business" to be put on meeting agendas because it just leads to chaos and delays. I like the suggest for a travel forum because i feel that is relevant to the stated objective of the forum, which is to assist with and discuss the learning of languages. But anything marked miscellaneous is in my opinion just a roadmap to trouble.

Again I am not wearing my admin hat, but personal speaking i would vote against anything labelled miscellaneous and without boundaries. On a personal note, I would have to read all this miscellaneous stuff in which i have absolutely no interest in order to moderate it. I am interested in language learning, but have no interest in bird watching, motorcycle racing, sports, and many other topics i would be forced to read through. I dont get paid you know, in fact i would be paying money for the privilege of doing drudgery I dont want to do.
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Re: Miscellaneous sub-forum?

Postby Serpent » Tue Sep 15, 2015 11:55 pm

One idea could be to have *specific* non-language topics covered by subforums, at least travel. Books and culture also had specific areas on HTLAL, and I think science & IT could be another interesting area. These would not be purely offopic subforums but just allowing the non-language aspects of these highly popular topics, while still focusing on languages as much as possible.
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Re: Miscellaneous sub-forum?

Postby garyb » Wed Sep 16, 2015 8:51 am

Maybe I'm being boring and conservative, thinking "if it ain't broke don't fix it", but I think one of the reasons HTLAL and this site are good places to be is because we mostly stick to languages and related topics. I come here because I want to talk about languages, as opposed to about the other things I can talk about everywhere else on the Web. I also agree it would require a lot more moderation and it would be harder to keep away from politics etc.

I can see how discussion on other topics could help members get to know each other better and create a closer community, but by the same token it could also lead to more personality clashes, cliquishness, and new members feeling excluded. I'm not sure what the balance is; the other extreme of all languages all the time would get boring, and some people have been put off the forum because they want more than just discussion of languages and learning techniques. I do enjoy it when threads go a little off topic, posters give their opinions and anecdotes, and I learn a bit more about the people behind the names. Similarly, the most interesting part of the forum for me tends to be the logs, for reading and writing about how language studies fit in to lives, experiences, relationships, travels.

I think specific subforums like the proposed Travel one could be a good compromise. The Fluent in 3 Months forum has a few subforums on travel, culture, social skills, etc. Interestingly it also does have an "off topic/misc" section but from what I could see the discussion in there was still mostly language related. It's quite a different community to here, we have a lot more long-term members and advanced learners, so I'm not saying we should model it or assume that things would work the same here, but it has some nice ideas.
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