Language Profile - Dev Talk

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rdearman
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Re: Language Profile - Dev Talk

Postby rdearman » Tue Apr 19, 2016 1:36 pm

galaxyrocker wrote:
rdearman wrote:Searching by user is really just implementation of an extension to the phpBB software. Of course since this software isn't specifically designed for language learners, we'd have to have an extension written and then installed.


I don't know PHP or how the board software is set up but how difficult would it be to search the 'languages' section of a profile?


The search system of the software is designed to search the posts not the profiles of the person who posted. So we'd need an extension (probably of the search function) which would allow searches of the author profiles. The profiles are in a database, so it probably isn't a big deal for someone who is a php programmer and wants to access our software on github and create the extension.

https://github.com/language-learners/phpbb

Extension writing tutorial is here:

https://www.phpbb.com/extensions/writing/
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Re: Language Profile - Dev Talk

Postby Komma » Tue Apr 26, 2016 11:14 am

this is not directly linked to the ability to search profiles, but the main reason for being able to do that is to find users studying the same language or speak the studied language, right? for that purpose i'd suggest maybe to open a thread where people can state what they speak and learn, their level and maybe whether they are interested in talking about or in the language. that thread would then be searchable and members who don't want ro be searched by language would just not make a post.
that would be at least a fast solution to that "problem" ;)
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Re: Language Profile - Dev Talk

Postby Komma » Thu Apr 28, 2016 7:21 am

Ok, I opened a thread. I hope the style of how I did (like asking everyone to just make one post and put discussions somewhere else) is ok.. I don't want to forbid discussions in any way, but for reference it's more accessible like that. If that's not ok, then I'll take that part out of the post :oops:
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Re: Language Profile - Dev Talk

Postby smallwhite » Wed Jun 22, 2016 2:52 pm

Komma wrote:a thread where people can state what they speak and learn, their level and maybe whether they are interested in talking about or in the language. that thread would then be searchable and members who don't want ro be searched by language would just not make a post.
that would be at least a fast solution to that "problem" ;)


Would you consider removing the "Wishlist" part?

With "Wishlist" languages included, which outnumbers "Learning" languages in most cases, the forum search function is rendered useless. You have to read each post yourself to find out who's learning the language you're searching for. There're 53 messages in that thread so far and it's already pretty tedious. Can't imagine what it'd be like when we reach 530 messages and you try to search for "German".
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Re: Language Profile - Dev Talk

Postby Cavesa » Wed Jun 22, 2016 3:30 pm

I like the free form, even though I think we could do with a few bits of standartization.

One idea that came to my mind was visual distinction of three profile fields: native language(s), now actively studied, maintained. And a search function allowing me to easily look up logs by people actively studying a language, or natives, or people maintaining the language, that would be quite helpful

As far as the levels go, I don't think CEFR (or any derived bars from it or such things) should be the norm for the profiles. Not only there are many learners with unbalanced active/passive or written/oral skills. Vast majority of people estimates their level most times. Therefore we could either implement that awesome "can do" statement list (in a similar form to the skill list on old htlal) and get some kind of central level assessment, or let people describe their levels anyhow they want and have just as precise or imprecise information. And don't forget there are other scales as well and I am not convinced we should convert them all artificially to cefr (for example, I read some pretty passionate discussions about the real level of the Mandarin exams HSK not coresponding to the officially claimed CEFR equivalents. Or we all know many of the state organized exams (like Maturita here in the Czech Rep.) oficially follow the cefr but may or may not correspond well. Really, do we want to deal with things like that centrally on this forum?). I think letting people use words like "intermediate" "passive" "fluent" doesn't do that much harm in the end.

We should, however, have clear distinction between level estimates and certificates, that is something that worked well on the old htlal, it would be great to have a tool like that in our profiles as well.
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Re: Language Profile - Dev Talk

Postby Komma » Thu Jun 23, 2016 3:15 pm

smallwhite wrote:Would you consider removing the "Wishlist" part?

With "Wishlist" languages included, which outnumbers "Learning" languages in most cases, the forum search function is rendered useless. You have to read each post yourself to find out who's learning the language you're searching for. There're 53 messages in that thread so far and it's already pretty tedious. Can't imagine what it'd be like when we reach 530 messages and you try to search for "German".


You have a point there. I didn't think about it when I made the post. I guess it's not easy to get everyone who posted there to remove their wishlist, but I could make a post about it.
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Re: Language Profile - Dev Talk

Postby Cavesa » Thu Jun 23, 2016 6:06 pm

Komma wrote:
smallwhite wrote:Would you consider removing the "Wishlist" part?

With "Wishlist" languages included, which outnumbers "Learning" languages in most cases, the forum search function is rendered useless. You have to read each post yourself to find out who's learning the language you're searching for. There're 53 messages in that thread so far and it's already pretty tedious. Can't imagine what it'd be like when we reach 530 messages and you try to search for "German".


You have a point there. I didn't think about it when I made the post. I guess it's not easy to get everyone who posted there to remove their wishlist, but I could make a post about it.


Truth be told, I don't think wishlists are that valuable source of information. Yes, they have their place in our individual logs, whenever the author feels they should mention the wishlist. But other than that, it is quite safe to assume everyone on this forum has got all the languages of the world on their wishlist at some point, even though most are just a phase :-D
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Re: Language Profile - Dev Talk

Postby Expugnator » Thu Jun 23, 2016 9:42 pm

Cavesa wrote:
Komma wrote:
smallwhite wrote:Would you consider removing the "Wishlist" part?

With "Wishlist" languages included, which outnumbers "Learning" languages in most cases, the forum search function is rendered useless. You have to read each post yourself to find out who's learning the language you're searching for. There're 53 messages in that thread so far and it's already pretty tedious. Can't imagine what it'd be like when we reach 530 messages and you try to search for "German".


You have a point there. I didn't think about it when I made the post. I guess it's not easy to get everyone who posted there to remove their wishlist, but I could make a post about it.


Truth be told, I don't think wishlists are that valuable source of information. Yes, they have their place in our individual logs, whenever the author feels they should mention the wishlist. But other than that, it is quite safe to assume everyone on this forum has got all the languages of the world on their wishlist at some point, even though most are just a phase :-D


They do for some minor languages. I'd be as happy to meet another learner of Georgian, Estonian or Papiamento as to meet a native speaker of one of those languages.
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Re: Language Profile - Dev Talk

Postby Serpent » Thu Jun 23, 2016 10:12 pm

Totally agreed. For minority languages, any piece of information is vital, so it's great to mention if you own some resources/have dabbled in the language etc. (especially if it's related to a bigger language you do speak) But yeah mentioning you want to learn French, Portuguese or even Hungarian just clutters the thread.

also nope, not everyone's wishlist contains all languages in the world :)
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Re: Language Profile - Dev Talk

Postby Cavesa » Fri Jun 24, 2016 12:21 am

Serpent wrote:Totally agreed. For minority languages, any piece of information is vital, so it's great to mention if you own some resources/have dabbled in the language etc. (especially if it's related to a bigger language you do speak) But yeah mentioning you want to learn French, Portuguese or even Hungarian just clutters the thread.

also nope, not everyone's wishlist contains all languages in the world :)


I agree I haven't thought enough of the minor languages, thanks for the reminder Serpent and Expug.

I was joking about all the languages in the world, but as far as I remember, wishlists with 20 or so languages were nothing rare on the old htlal. Especially among people learning their first or second.
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