Plans for the future

[iguanamon]

Si far, we don't seem to have gotten the "Hi, I love languages and want to learn 15 at the same time (as a raw monolingual beginner)" post yet. I think there have only been one or two typical, "which language should I learn?" posts here so far. Personally, I'll be glad to see more of them again because that will mean new people will be finding us. We stopped getting those posts two or three years ago on HTLAL after a major outage and that's when we started declining in new members. Sure those type of posts can be annoying but their presence tends to illustrate that we are growing.

HTLAL had the "Advice Center". I agree with Mohave and CarlyD. A new members' area could be a good place for these folks to get their answers and not annoy more experienced members too much with a frequently asked question. One of the good things about HTLAL that I liked was that most people who introduced themselves as new members usually got a quick welcoming response. People asking the common questions usually got a personalized response. A "non-canned" answer tends to show the welcoming nature of the forum, even if it may bot be what the poster wants to hear.

[Φιλόσοφος]

I had set aside an hour this morning to create a post reviewing and detailing the reason why Dunwoody Press was such as significant publisher and had already taken pictures from my collection to illustrate my points, when I discovered my previous posts had been deleted without warning or explanation.

This is the reason why having an off-topic forum is so important, so that when discussions arise that veer away from language-learning they can be moved and continued there rather than disrespectfully and summarily eliminated.

During the Enlightenment a multitude of philosophical societies devoted to specific areas of knowledge arose where the leading practitioners of each discipline could present topics related specifically to them. However they also served as a meeting place for the great minds of the time and a vibrant place of discussion of the leading controversies of their day.

Poor moderation rather than technical issues drove the most knowledgeable members of the old forum away with the concomitant decline in the quality and quantity of discussion, and I see the Administrator and most members are intent on continuing those policies here. All I can say is, since I have little interest on the new Assimil graphics and latest hot apps, have fun.

Regards.

[zenmonkey]

I had set aside an hour this morning to create a post reviewing and detailing the reason why Dunwoody Press was such as significant publisher and had already taken pictures from my collection to illustrate my points, when I discovered my previous posts had been deleted without warning or explanation.

This is the reason why having an off-topic forum is so important, so that when discussions arise that veer away from language-learning they can be moved and continued there rather than disrespectfully and summarily eliminated.

During the Enlightenment a multitude of philosophical societies devoted to specific areas of knowledge arose where the leading practitioners of each discipline could present topics related specifically to them. However they also served as a meeting place for the great minds of the time and a vibrant place of discussion of the leading controversies of their day.

Poor moderation rather than technical issues drove the most knowledgeable members of the old forum away with the concomitant decline in the quality and quantity of discussion, and I see the Administrator and most members are intent on continuing those policies here. All I can say is, since I have little interest on the new Assimil graphics and latest hot apps, have fun.

Regards.

Are you sure your posts got deleted? I see the topic here:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1111&p=6456#p6456

[Serpent]

You ranted about politics and offtopic stuff and your post got reported so I deleted it. It had nothing to do with Dunwoody Press. Let me know if you need a copy of your post, the forum saves it automatically. You can't repost it (at least unless emk or rdearman allows it), but feel free to continue the discussion by PM.

I think many people would be interested in your review of Dunwoody Press, myself included.

[Serpent]

I've not seen your post and I didn't delete it. The general procedure is to contact a mod privately.

Your posts were borderline and didn't discuss politics, the deleted one did. We always have to draw the line somewhere.

[emk]

I had set aside an hour this morning to create a post reviewing and detailing the reason why Dunwoody Press was such as significant publisher and had already taken pictures from my collection to illustrate my points, when I discovered my previous posts had been deleted without warning or explanation.

As zenmonkey points out, all your actual posts about Dunwoody Press are still available.

However, I looked at the logs, and it appears that one of your posts was about the "totalitarian ideology of envy and resentment", and about young women getting beat "for booing at a high ranking socialist's wife." This post had almost nothing to do with language learning, and it was deleted by a moderator. No other posts by anybody were deleted, as far as I can tell.

Current forum policy is that political and religious rants are off topic. There's a small amount of wiggle room, for posts that are genuinely about language learning and which do not involve angry rants. But political rants are off-topic because (a) they start fights, (b) they vastly increase the amount of work that the moderators need to do, and (c) they've been known to take over entire forums, causing sites to wind up with nothing more than two sides reciting memorized political talking points at each other. Frankly, I can find all that practically anywhere else on the Internet, and it's fairly boring, because it almost never changes.

Anyway, we've previously explained the forum policy on politics. But you continue to post political rants, and then complain when those rants are deleted, as per forum policy. Let me suggest another alternative: if you would like to set up a forum for arguing about politics, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about forum software, and to point people to your site.

[Serpent]

Much like good governance, good modding must also be able to work with different opinions and challenges from the 'plebs'. Suppression of that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I know, I've been on both sides of the fence during my years online.

It has nothing to do with opinions. As a feminist I'm appalled by what Philosophos mentioned about the persecution of young women, but that's politics AND offtopic. Your posts were indeed borderline political, but they also concerned economics, learning materials/digital content and your personal situation. I've specifically done my best not to suppress that as long as you didn't directly blame the government/policies.

So far the consensus appears to be that offtopic posts can only be allowed in the non-English threads/subforums. And they don't allow politics or religion either.

[Serpent]

The main boundary is always whether it has to do with languages/language learning. Anecdotally it would seem like there's more tolerance for describing the factors that affect your learning (for example being unable to visit a specific country) than abstract rambles, especially concerning the global situation or a country where your native language is spoken, or just any random country you don't have a language learning connection to. In personal logs there's more tolerance than in regular threads (all else still applies, and your personal log is still not the place for writing detailed posts about your political views). External links can be okay, especially if your post includes a reminder not to discuss the political issues here (and you're reasonably sure that people will be able to resist - bad idea in an already escalating thread, for example). Travel advice is important, especially if it concerns a member's safety, but if it's too political it's better to send a PM.
Posts about the recent history generally lead to nasty debates, the older the better. But remember that religious discussions or bashing is not allowed either.

And bear in mind that a perfectly civil but heavily political thread can make people ask angrily why their far less civil threads were closed.

These are just my impressions, I wasn't a mod on the old site. emk and other mods know better