A language learners’ forum

The reason it is in there is because of link spamming in the profile. But i will talk to the mods and get a consensus.

Not listing anything in the profile is starting to become the norm for new members now,

rdearman wrote:The reason it is in there is because of link spamming in the profile. But i will talk to the mods and get a consensus.

As far as I can tell, there's no way to spam in the "Languages" field of the profile, because it doesn't support BBCode tags. We can (and should, IMO) make that profile field available to users on first sign-up. I can't remember how to do this, though. Do you?

iguanamon wrote:Most new users are not bothering to fill out their profiles at all. This makes it difficult to respond to their posts

I totally agree. I believe that requiring everyone to fill in their native language, their country and preferably one or more of their target languages would greatly enhance the quality of this forum. It would encourage more interaction, and it would permit members to have confidence in statements that members make about languages. And of course, it would encourage answers and dialogue. And it would remove the real annoyance of so often glancing over at the profile to better understand a post, only to find nothing there. It would be big improvement to LLorg. I know it will entail some extra work by the already hard-working moderators. It would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

OK, I've modified the new user group permissions so that they can edit the profile fields. So now everyone can fill in their profile.

Yet Another Bump. Seeing this a lot now with new members here on the forum. Filling out your profile makes it easier for us to help you. The languages you study, have studied, and their levels are useful things to know when giving advice... and for you to receive the best advice. Vagueness when listing languages is also unhelpful. When I see a member list their languages as Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic and Finnish- is that member studying these languages, proficient in them or what? We don't know... well we kind of do from the questions they ask at times, still, can it hurt you to tell us just a tad bit more? Where you are, on a country level, helps too, for the same reason. Please consider doing this as a courtesy to your fellow members here.

BUMP, Several new members in the last few days... most of whom have not filled out their profiles. I think we should start thinking about making it mandatory. I understand the privacy concerns but we are a language-learning forum. Listing languages- native, spoken and studying, is highly useful to those who are giving advice and to those asking for advice. It's starting to get quite annoying and frustrating.

I'm made this a mandatory field on registration, although I'm not sure how effective it will be. But we shall see.

iguanamon wrote:BUMP, Several new members in the last few days... most of whom have not filled out their profiles. I think we should start thinking about making it mandatory. ..... It's starting to get quite annoying and frustrating.

I totally agree. And I think it should be retroactive and apply to all members. Some of the top contributors here have no profile. I don't understand that concept. It sure would add a lot of credibility and utility to our forum, and help everyone to accurately gauge comments and advice.

If "Forum Rules" says "All posts should be in English", can I request profiles to be in English instead of in

ภาษาไทย 日本語 العَرَبِيَّة‎‎ Tiếng Việt 中文 ελληνικά 한국어 svenska հայերեն
or
en fr it de es zh jp ru pt / eng lat fra spa kor rus jpn

? 'Cos that's as incomprehensible as using national flags which we have (fortunately) ruled out.