daegga wrote:1e4e6 wrote:With politics, perhaps a slight amount can be alluded in context of languages, in language logs, since they are a some kind of personal "space" for language learning anyway (although no one really should own any certain space).
This was (unofficially?) accepted even on HTLAL as long as it didn't create heated name-shouting. Writing in your target language about current political affairs in the target country does not really create much arousal anyway. Never gotten into problems with this, and it's not like there is no moderator who would understand my target languages.
This is a good question. I can try to explain how things worked before under the old rules. Sometimes the old rules look inexplicable or arbitrary. It's a bit like
Chesterton's fence:
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.
So why were the old rules there? Well, in general, the goal of most of the rules was to enable:
- Interesting discussions about language learning,
- where everybody treats each other with respect,
- and where the moderators don't have to spend a huge effort moderating the forum, because we'd prefer to study languages as much as possible.
Now sometimes, somebody will come up with an interesting new "borderline" case. For example, the rules forbid discussions of religion. But imagine that you're a moderator, and that you see that somebody has started a new log about using the Bible for Listening/Reading. This discussion (1) is interesting, (2) involves nobody treating anybody else with disrespect, and (3) requires zero moderation effort. So if you're in doubt about whether a rule applies in this situation, you can look at the rationale for the rule, and you can say, "You know, nobody ever intended to for this rule to apply in this particular case."
But by definition, any such grey area ultimately involves a personal judgement call by a moderator. In such cases, you can't really claim, "Well, I may have been completely ignoring the
spirit of the rules, but I was obeying the
letter!" I mean, you can't even go up to a real world judge and say, "The noise ordinance forbids loud
music after 10pm, but I was playing
ambient industrial soundscapes all night at 120db, and that's not technically music, as such." When the judge is deciding whether or not ambient industrial soundscapes are music, the judge will probably look at the underlying goals of the noise ordinance.
So we've never had a detailed set of rules about logs, specifically. But if you're studying English, and you find an occasional Bill Maher comedy routine that you want to translate or something, you can probably just use your common sense. If you're really concerned, you could also PM a moderator and ask, "Do you think this would cause a lot of problems?" If a lot of people are feeling really uncertain about what's OK and what's not, then there might be some way to clarify the rules without just introducing
more complications and doubt.