Miscellaneous sub-forum?

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NIKOLIĆ
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Miscellaneous sub-forum?

Postby NIKOLIĆ » Mon Sep 14, 2015 11:43 am

Have the admins/moderators thought about opening/making a non language related miscellaneous sub-forum?
I think a lot of forum members would like to have a place to talk about non language related topics, myself included.

But of course, no politics and religion talk.
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Re: Miscellaneous sub-forum?

Postby Bluepaint » Mon Sep 14, 2015 9:37 pm

Have moved your topic as I think it is better suited here.

Also I can't speak officially but I think the general feeling from the mod team (or at least the impression I got) was that they thought people could either discuss off-topic subjects either via PM, in the multi-lingual boards in their target langauge or people could find an alternate forum for their off-topic discussions. I realise PMs mean you'd only be able to chat with your "mates", multilingual boards would mean you'd need a certain level of a language which your topical conversatiom partners would also need to speak and an alternate forum means you might not get to speak to those you've bonded with here/those you already respect and know. So I guess I'm saying we don't have a perfect solution save creating an OT board thus making more work and possibly diluting the language side of things.

Again all my thoughts, none of it official. I've pointed the mods in the direction of this thread anyway. By posting all this I may have opened a can of worms but it's a reasonable request so it deserves discussion...
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Re: Miscellaneous sub-forum?

Postby daegga » Mon Sep 14, 2015 9:43 pm

Opening up the multilingual forum for English off-topic entries maybe? After all, English is supposed to be a language too (and some might even want to practice it outside the scope of language discussion).
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Re: Miscellaneous sub-forum?

Postby Spoonary » Mon Sep 14, 2015 9:51 pm

Yeah, I agree that it would be nice to have an off-topic part of the forum, although I also understand the other points of view presented by Rhian.

The thing is, we have language-specific areas (I know there's only the Spanish one now but I'm sure there will be more) where we can discuss anything and everything, but what if, say, Joe Bloggs wanted to discuss bird watching with others here who enjoy bird watching, but the only place he could talk about non-language things was in these language-specific sub forums, and he didn't have any common languages with any of the other bird watchers around? Poor Joe... :cry:

Edit: I am taking for granted that Joe and other bird watchers would be able to speak/write English, which they would use in an off-topic, bird watching thread. :?
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Re: Miscellaneous sub-forum?

Postby Bluepaint » Mon Sep 14, 2015 10:00 pm

I agree, it'd be such a shame for imaginary Joe and that was one of the concerns I had about OT threads being confined to the multilingual area.
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Re: Miscellaneous sub-forum?

Postby brilliantyears » Tue Sep 15, 2015 6:33 am

I would really like to see a miscellaneous forum too.
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Re: Miscellaneous sub-forum?

Postby rdearman » Tue Sep 15, 2015 9:08 am

Just playing Devils advocate, but why doesn't joe the bird watcher go to a bird watching forum, most of which are in English?

Also nothing preventing joe from using his log as the unofficial bird watching area.

Given that English as an inordinate amount of usage on the internet in comparison to other languages the miscellaneous topics tend to be better covered there.
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Re: Miscellaneous sub-forum?

Postby sctroyenne » Tue Sep 15, 2015 5:16 pm

PsittacusMagnus wrote:I was going to say the same thing, rdearman. But we could ask 'Where is the bird watching forum for beginner/intermediate learners of English?'

Perhaps we could organise a off-topic area for non-natives who want to practice their English before being thrown into the deep end of native-English speaking forums whose main concern isn't linguistic. Instead of just a free-for-all, we allow non-natives to start threads on topics which interest them and natives/other non-natives can help out - giving linguistic advice on their topics (even doing comparison between languages to help out > might lead to some interesting content like technical vocab lists between English and various languages. Another optional step is to allow posting 'posts of interest' for discussions on the more heated topics are desired, which can be moved into PMs.

EDIT: On logs, they are sacred space. Although conversations like this might be of high interest to someone, they might get a whole heap of posts in their log.


With the off-topic linguistic angle it almost sounds like working on "islands" à la Boris Shekhtman (How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately). Though that can be covered off-site through Lang-8 or another foreign language writing practice platform...

The discussions about enhancing multilingual posting capabilities (having a translated version of a post, having multiple language versions of a single post, etc) was partly to facilitate this kind of thing - letting people practice writing in their TLs, expanding the Multilingual lounge, and opening up the forum to users with weaker English skills while still letting everyone communicate with each other.
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Re: Miscellaneous sub-forum?

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Tue Sep 15, 2015 5:36 pm

If there were a miscellaneous sub-forum, it could not go unmoderated. Certainly the admin would not accept an unmoderated subforum for reasons clear to all. So who would moderate it? None of the proposals for an off-topic forum has addressed this issue, SFIK. Would the current moderators want to do it? Even if they wanted to, would they have the time? Both the admin and emk have suggested folks find another forum to discuss their non-language questions and issues. To date no one has made a counterargument that is even remotely persuasive.
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Re: Miscellaneous sub-forum?

Postby NIKOLIĆ » Tue Sep 15, 2015 10:44 pm

daegga wrote:Opening up the multilingual forum for English off-topic entries maybe? After all, English is supposed to be a language too (and some might even want to practice it outside the scope of language discussion).


I like this suggestion.

I honestly don't see what the problem is. If we can have a Spanish sub-forum, why can't we have an English one? There is a large amount of non-native English speakers on this forum, and I'm sure most of them would like to talk about/discuss something other than "Should I read or should I listen more?".

It would be even easier to moderate than the Spanish one, since (I'm guessing) most of the admins/moderators are native English speakers. I'm pretty sure that off-topic threads wouldn't get derailed as much as the language related threads.
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