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.
8 x