A forum conduct discussion (split from Re: HTLAL might be gone)

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Re: A forum conduct discussion (split from Re: HTLAL might be gone)

Postby Takra jenai » Sat Jul 25, 2015 12:28 pm

rdearman wrote:----
I would suspect they would just warn you some people have found it offensive and ask you to try to find a different video to use with your language learning.

Wouldn't that mean some kind of thought control? I might be interested in that particular video.
Anyone can find anything offensive. Wouldn't it be wise to put up with other poeple's opionons?
As long as you don't use ad hominem arguments.
By the way, I don't mind if people call me names.
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Re: A forum conduct discussion (split from Re: HTLAL might be gone)

Postby James29 » Sat Jul 25, 2015 12:55 pm

[/quote]
Well I have to admit that I got a bigger confidence boost out of developing the habit of saying "they" instead of "he" in abstract posts ("If someone is interested in learning through music, they should try lyricstraining") than out of learning Finnish.I wish I was kidding.

I don't think it's practical to require that though, just to recommend, especially to native and highly fluent English speakers. And yeah, demanding that people don't say "mankind" or "chairman" is overkill.[/quote]

Here is a good learning point for me. To me, using "they" instead of "he" or "she" is simply improper English. I understand the issue that Serpent is getting at and I respect it, but if I use "he" or "she" instead of "they" and someone takes that as "offensive"... the offended person has a problem with the English language and not with me. I have found, over the years, that I often simply write "he/she" in that situation because I feel it is sensitive to the situation, but still proper English. Maybe that is "offensive" too? I do not know. As I am writing this I am realizing that I actually do sometimes use "they" in informal writing or speaking.

It is the same thing with words like "mankind" and "chairman." I still remember my seventh grade teacher, Mrs. Guthrie, beating into our heads that "human" and "mankind" are English words, but "humankind" is not.

I have a big problem with the use of force, aggression and coercion. If people on this forum are told they are "uneducated" or "discriminatory" or "micro-aggressors" because they have a diverse belief about the use of "he" and "she" or "mankind" in the English language that would be the use of aggression and coercion in response to a legitimate disagreement about the English language.

Aggression and coercion cannot lead to progress. If I see hints of aggression and/or coercion as methods to control the way people think it really bothers me. Progress comes through the exchange of ideas and then a voluntary choice to change.
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Re: A forum conduct discussion (split from Re: HTLAL might be gone)

Postby Radioclare » Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:06 pm

I've been staying out of these discussions about the future of the forum, though I have been following them all with interest, partly because I don't have strong views on some points and partly because I don't want to spend time I should be spending studying Croatian getting sucked into long online debates :) Now I've lost track of which discussions have happened in which thread, so you'll have to forgive me if I comment on points which relate to conversations in threads other than this one, but here's my tuppence-worth...

I think there are both pros and cons to allowing off-topic discussion. One of the great things for me about HTLAL is that it doesn't feel "cliqueish" at all in the way that some Internet forums can do. I don't think there's anything (apart from the old forum software!) which would prevent a new person from signing up, starting a log and otherwise contributing. I started a log on HTLAL about 18 months ago now so I'm relatively new but within my first few weeks of posting I had already had all sorts of invaluable advice from other TAC team members in my log and there are so many people I am grateful to for their support and comments there. I think that the openness and welcoming character is one of the most important things about this community and something which really distinguishes it from other places online.

I therefore think there is a risk that an off-topic section of any future forum could damage that atmosphere, insofar as it could lead to a percevied division between those who are very active posting there and those who only post in the language logs, for example. Particularly if there are a lot of arguments there. I know from experience that it can be quite intimidating trying to sign up to a discussion group or forum where a) it feels like everyone else knows each other really well and have all sorts of in-jokes which aren't comprehensible to newbies or b) where there are a lot of heated discussions where people seem to get very angry with each other very quickly. As an exmaple of what I mean, anyone who is familiar with Esperanto might know that there is some debate as to whether the accented characters can be best represented by x's or h's. If you're not familiar with Esperanto you might find it hard to believe quite how violently some people feel on either side of this debate ;) I once posted a beginner's question on an Esperanto forum using the so-called x-method in some Esperanto text which I wanted help with translating (quite innocently) and accidentally sparked off a huge public argument between two opposing factions in that community. That played a significant part in making me vehemently opposed to Esperanto in general and prevented me from learning it for about another four years. We don't want situations to arise like that at HTLAL.

On the other hand, I also know from personal experience how great off-topic discussions on forums can be. Sometimes they present wonderful opportunities for members of the community to get to know each other in a more informal setting, and these online interactions can develop into real and lasting friendships in real life. I actually met my future husband via off-topic discussion in a forum for young British Esperanto-speakers in 2006. If that forum had been heavily moderated with only in-Esperanto or about-Esperanto posting allowed, then my life would be radically different right now ;)

I don't know what the right solution is for HTLAL but I hope the examples above show why I think off-topic discussion requires careful thought.

One forum which perhaps might make an interesting comparison to HTLAL is the forum at lernu.net (the Esperanto language website), because that is also a forum with a very international user-base. I think the rules are largely the same as HTLAL; they are possibly stricter about no profanity being allowed and they have fairly standard rules about not provoking hatred. The forum is structured so that there is an Esperanto-language forum (where there are sections where you can discuss pretty much anything, so long as it is in Esperanto) and native-language sub-forums which are supposed to be used by beginners for asking questions about Esperanto in their native language. In practice, the English-langauge sub-forum is the most active one and any discussion which vaguely relates to Esperanto is allowed there. The moderator of that sub-forum is very(!) active and there are sometimes some very acrimonious threads which develop there and are shut down (often when a newbie comes along and proposes some sort of revision to Esperanto without being able to speak it yet, then people who can actually speak it get angry!). I think the friction in that forum often arises because people who don't speak English very fluently (say at A2 level) are trying to communicate quite complex ideas and are either sounding more offensive than they intend to be or misunderstanding other more fluent speakers as having said something more offensive than they actually have. I don't think we would have that international communication issue in any HTLAL forum because everyone here speaks such amazing English :) The Esperanto-language threads seem to be less actively moderately and pretty much any subject is acceptable. So, for example, there is currently an 187(!) page thread about the crisis in Ukraine. I can't pretend to have read that entire thread but I'm guessing over the course of 187 pages there have been people who have offended each other, yet overall the discussion has evidently stayed civil enough for the moderators not to need to shut it down. So I think off-topic discussions in target languages can be successful :)

On a personal note, I think there is a big difference between requesting that we are all civil to one another and respectful of other people's lifestyle choices (which we should all be able to manage!) and trying to enforce a rule whereby we all have to achieve 100% "politically correct" speech all of the time. I suspect there are a lot of us here who consider ourselves to be fairly reasonable and tolerant people who would not intentially use words or expressions that would offend other members of the community, but who don't have the time/inclination/energy to be 100% up to speed with the ever-changing definitions of what is politically correct and what isn't. At work last week, for example, I was told that we aren't allowed to "brain-storm" ideas any more because using that term might offend someone who has epilepsy. I had never heard of that before and have been merrily brain-storming my way through corporate meetings for years. Instead we are now supposed to have "thought-showers", a term which offends me by it's sheer ridiculousness ;) Despite being gay myself, I confess I get lost with what is supposed to come after T in LGBT acronym and I'd rather be learning Croatian than trying to get up to speed with the intricacies of it on Wikipedia. If someone tells me their preferred pronoun is "zog" then I will always endeavour to refer to them as "zog" and to remind other people to do so if they forget. But if someone complains that I'm discriminating against them by not anticipating the need to add "zog" as an option in the drop-down list on the sign-up page for an event I'm organising, then my patience is likely to wear thin because I think some give and take is needed on both sides. For that reason I would hope we can rely on common sense and general civility prevailing in any future forum, without the need for a set of very prescriptive rules :)
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Re: A forum conduct discussion (split from Re: HTLAL might be gone)

Postby basica » Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:09 pm

Hmm, I was wanting to take some time off the forums but this topic has caught my attention.

Yes, an off topic forum would be great - there's a few forums I was/am a part of that have an off topic forum but still have a no politics/religion rule. I think that's fine. There's plenty of topics that can be discussed that don't include those two topics, but aren't covered in the language learning area. While learning from others and talking about your learning experiences is a definite part of the forum experience - so is getting to know your fellow language learners! :) I think not having an off topic area sorta makes the old HTLAL a bit clinical - no thanks.

As for the politics aspect, I don't think you can really break this down into a set of rules that are easily followable and consistent in each and every circumstance. For example, it would never have occurred to me that there could even be an argument against gendered language because some people don't like it for reasons of their gender identity or lack thereof. Now that I know that, my answer as to whether or not this falls into the political ban has changed from no to yes.

There are going to be times where people might talk offhand about a topic and I don't see a problem - for example a couple posters on HTLAL seem to have learned languages for religious reasons (like learning the languages that the Bible was written in originally or learning a language to evangelise) and I don't see a problem with them talking about it in that context given it's in a matter of fact format. Likewise, sometimes people get interested in a political event that's occurring in the homeland of the language they're learning and that's fine too (to me at least).

However where it seems to me to cross the line is when someone is obviously getting riled up - for example I recall some threads where everyone seemed to be bashing some country (was either france or america - can't recall which) and that's clearly a no go, but eventually it starts getting grey and I think we just need to depend on moderators we trust and simply cop it on the chin if we think they made a bad call. If a moderator consistently makes what someone feels like is a bad call, then perhaps there's an arena where they post their case and others can chime in and then a formal response is given whether or not they agree, why they came to that conclusion and if they agreed with the poster what changes are to be made.

Anyways, that's kinda my thoughts on the situation.
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Re: A forum conduct discussion (split from Re: HTLAL might be gone)

Postby arthaey » Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:15 pm

James29 wrote:To me, using "they" instead of "he" or "she" is simply improper English.

Except that singular "they" has quite a log history in English. (A simple google search for "singular they" will bring up many articles with references.)

Many, many of us (myself included!) has quite prescriptivist English teachers, and it can take some work to unlearn the "rules" they taught that don't really have a linguistic basis.

As a native speaker, I use singular "they" all the time, without even thinking about it; it's completely natural to me. And as you mention yourself, you almost certainly do it too, in informal contexts when you're not busy self-monitoring for it. ;)
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Re: A forum conduct discussion (split from Re: HTLAL might be gone)

Postby James29 » Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:17 pm

Josquin wrote:
NIKOLIĆ wrote:The post was deleted because it offended and hurt real people and that's what the forum rules are supposed to prevent.


I did not see the video and am only responding to the reference to the "forum rules."

This is exactly the nub of the problem. There are many people here that feel "I choose to believe that other person's beliefs are offensive and, therefore, they are, in fact, offensive so I have some sort of right to demand he change his mind or to delete his ideas from being considered by other people."

Someone else said "anyone can find anything offensive" and that is quite true. I do not believe posts should be deleted because someone chooses to feel offended by the post. That is just using aggression as a response.

There is a related issue with how to present an idea that may be found as "offensive" by some people. Sure, it may be more effective to present an idea in a way that is less blunt, but what really matters is the content of the idea and not the tact with which the idea is presented.

Now, there are some situations that may be blatant intentional attempts to "offend" other people. That would be a different situation.
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Re: A forum conduct discussion (split from Re: HTLAL might be gone)

Postby Takra jenai » Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:18 pm

James29 wrote:It is the same thing with words like "mankind" and "chairman." I still remember my seventh grade teacher, Mrs. Guthrie, beating into our heads that "human" and "mankind" are English words, but "humankind" is not.


Serpent forgot to add god or God to her list. In English God is a he, aren't they?
Anyway, languages do change, but let's leave the matter to native speakers.
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Re: A forum conduct discussion (split from Re: HTLAL might be gone)

Postby Serpent » Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:21 pm

Except that I specifically said that it's not reasonable to demand that people avoid words like chairman or mankind. Although it's also not okay to push your opinion that singular "they" is not grammatical.

He/She is better than simply "he" but it excludes non-binary people.
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Re: A forum conduct discussion (split from Re: HTLAL might be gone)

Postby daegga » Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:27 pm

Serpent wrote:He/She is better than simply "he" but it excludes non-binary people.


Most of the time you can avoid the issue by formulating in plural.

By the way, an official encouragement of using "they" as a singular pronoun would strike me as the opposite of welcoming and non-exclusive. For me this would read like "we are a left-wing feminist board". Bear in mind that we are an international forum and such a controversial usage of language does not have the same kind of acceptance and associations everywhere in the world.
Last edited by daegga on Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A forum conduct discussion (split from Re: HTLAL might be gone)

Postby rdearman » Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:31 pm

Takra jenai wrote:
rdearman wrote:----
I would suspect they would just warn you some people have found it offensive and ask you to try to find a different video to use with your language learning.

Wouldn't that mean some kind of thought control? I might be interested in that particular video.
Anyone can find anything offensive. Wouldn't it be wise to put up with other poeple's opionons?
As long as you don't use ad hominem arguments.
By the way, I don't mind if people call me names.


Even the most oppressive regimes in history couldn't control the thoughts of their people. You can think what you like, it is your actions which are judged. Citizens have freedom of speech guaranteed in the USA, but you'll still be arrested if you scream "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater.

Also there are a number of other examples of this "think what you like, but don't say it" under international law. You can think what you want about someone but if you say something defamatory or untrue about them then you can be sued for slander. If you write this down you can be sued for libel.

I'm not saying that video is libel or slander, but what I am saying that moderators are like judges and law makers who must weigh the need of the individual to express themselves and their thoughts against the public good, or the rights of other individuals. It is a very fine line and I think the moderators do a very good job of keeping everyone civil and working well together. These rules are only there to prevent discord and to help us all learn languages.
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