Lang-8 is such a disappointment

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zenmonkey
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Lang-8 is such a disappointment

Postby zenmonkey » Mon Jul 10, 2017 7:27 pm

I'm currently rated 13 / 109,105 (German) and 1 / 2,771 (Hebrew) on Lang-8 - I've completed more than 50 corrections and my last 3 post have been left uncorrected. I'm going to give up on that site and either just post only to italki or start my own service (I'm that done with them).

I'm guessing that outside of English/Asian languages the site is just not that useful now and slowly dying out since they do not accept new registrations.

Bye, felicia.
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Re: Lang-8 is such a disappointment

Postby Cavesa » Mon Jul 10, 2017 7:48 pm

It's just because of the registrations. I've been looking at it recently againg and nothing had changed. It's been almost half a year. Their fb page is full of people with the same messages "I used to recommend Lang-8 to friends/students and cannot anymore. Hi-Native is simply nowhere near as useful as Lang-8. The site is dying out."

Really, it surprised me to see so many responses like this without any single reaction from Lang-8. They only reacted to people complaining about a small issue about login on their old accounts with facebook. So, they read it but don't care at all.

I get it that their main product is the stupid Hi-Native now (why are so many resource makers dumbing down and destroying useful tools these days? Are we, the potential customers, really considered to be totally stupid?). But why close and let die out an already successful product that could have standed side by side with the new shiny crap one? It is obvious that the users of Lang-8 are not likely to lower their standards and go for Hi-Native. So, why this strategy? And I simply cannot understand that some people don't value their previous success and their customers. As far as I know, there were some paid services on Lang-8, perhaps they could have improved the model to earn more.

Italki notebook is the only similar option, it seems.

Yozzi.com is a website I found not long ago. The idea is excellent, but the reality leaves to be desired. In theory: You write a magazine article about something, and natives correct it, and people read it for the content, and you correct such pieces by others. In reality, there seems to be no community so far. And the proper way to publish something is to contact the creator, ask for permission, send it,.... too much hassle. And I am not sure whether natives would like to read stuff there for the content, and learners shouldn't read stuff by other learners. There is a lot of potential on the website, but many changes would be needed, and huge propagation everywhere to gather a community.

Websites list Hellotalk as an alternative but it looks more like a chat and voicecall app, is there something like Lang8 among the functions?
And they also list Busuu and its language exchange function, is it there? The free version includes only their crappy courses, not this, so I cannot find out. And Interpals may be an opportunity to get a language exchange penpal, perhaps. Anyone has experience with it?
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Re: Lang-8 is such a disappointment

Postby rdearman » Mon Jul 10, 2017 8:26 pm

zenmonkey wrote:I'm currently rated 13 / 109,105 (German) and 1 / 2,771 (Hebrew) on Lang-8 - I've completed more than 50 corrections and my last 3 post have been left uncorrected. I'm going to give up on that site and either just post only to italki or start my own service (I'm that done with them).

I'm guessing that outside of English/Asian languages the site is just not that useful now and slowly dying out since they do not accept new registrations.

Bye, felicia.

If you want to write it, we could probably host it here. Especially if you're going to opensource it. :)
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Re: Lang-8 is such a disappointment

Postby Brun Ugle » Mon Jul 10, 2017 8:45 pm

rdearman wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:I'm currently rated 13 / 109,105 (German) and 1 / 2,771 (Hebrew) on Lang-8 - I've completed more than 50 corrections and my last 3 post have been left uncorrected. I'm going to give up on that site and either just post only to italki or start my own service (I'm that done with them).

I'm guessing that outside of English/Asian languages the site is just not that useful now and slowly dying out since they do not accept new registrations.

Bye, felicia.

If you want to write it, we could probably host it here. Especially if you're going to opensource it. :)

I love you both!!!
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zenmonkey
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Re: Lang-8 is such a disappointment

Postby zenmonkey » Mon Jul 10, 2017 9:25 pm

rdearman wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:I'm currently rated 13 / 109,105 (German) and 1 / 2,771 (Hebrew) on Lang-8 - I've completed more than 50 corrections and my last 3 post have been left uncorrected. I'm going to give up on that site and either just post only to italki or start my own service (I'm that done with them).

I'm guessing that outside of English/Asian languages the site is just not that useful now and slowly dying out since they do not accept new registrations.

Bye, felicia.

If you want to write it, we could probably host it here. Especially if you're going to opensource it. :)


Thanks for the offer, I actually have hosting capacity and URLs.
I installed an instance of Joomla and have some ideas on how I'd do it.
But if I do implement something, I'm going to certainly want to think on how it specifically adds value to ALLF.
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Re: Lang-8 is such a disappointment

Postby rdearman » Tue Jul 11, 2017 8:39 am

zenmonkey wrote:
rdearman wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:I'm currently rated 13 / 109,105 (German) and 1 / 2,771 (Hebrew) on Lang-8 - I've completed more than 50 corrections and my last 3 post have been left uncorrected. I'm going to give up on that site and either just post only to italki or start my own service (I'm that done with them).

I'm guessing that outside of English/Asian languages the site is just not that useful now and slowly dying out since they do not accept new registrations.

Bye, felicia.

If you want to write it, we could probably host it here. Especially if you're going to opensource it. :)


Thanks for the offer, I actually have hosting capacity and URLs.
I installed an instance of Joomla and have some ideas on how I'd do it.
But if I do implement something, I'm going to certainly want to think on how it specifically adds value to ALLF.

If you can make it into a docker container ...
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zenmonkey
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Re: Lang-8 is such a disappointment

Postby zenmonkey » Tue Jul 11, 2017 6:10 pm

rdearman wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:
rdearman wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:I'm currently rated 13 / 109,105 (German) and 1 / 2,771 (Hebrew) on Lang-8 - I've completed more than 50 corrections and my last 3 post have been left uncorrected. I'm going to give up on that site and either just post only to italki or start my own service (I'm that done with them).

I'm guessing that outside of English/Asian languages the site is just not that useful now and slowly dying out since they do not accept new registrations.

Bye, felicia.

If you want to write it, we could probably host it here. Especially if you're going to opensource it. :)


Thanks for the offer, I actually have hosting capacity and URLs.
I installed an instance of Joomla and have some ideas on how I'd do it.
But if I do implement something, I'm going to certainly want to think on how it specifically adds value to ALLF.

If you can make it into a docker container ...


Bwahaha! Docker. I'm going to pass on that. Docker and I are not the best of friends right now.
All my virtual machines are belong to us. Looks like I've crashed both Docker and VMware on my machine.

But I'll keep the site posted on this idea - I can say that I have an inkling of a project now and think I can build something. More to follow...
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Re: Lang-8 is such a disappointment

Postby Blue » Tue Jul 11, 2017 7:31 pm

The way to make Lang-8 work is to use HelloTalk or whatever other service to meet potential language partners, and when you find someone who is a high-quality partner, ask them if they're interested in using Lang-8 with you. Then you two can give each other high quality feedback and happily ignore the rest of the Lang-8 userbase. Use HelloTalk to practice informal chatting, to ask questions, and for video/voice chats, and use Lang-8 to get help with much longer and more formal writing. Perhaps there could be a thread on this forum for Lang-8 users took hook up with each other.

Edit: I haven't used lang-8 in quite a while obviously. I wasn't aware registration was closed.
Last edited by Blue on Wed Jul 12, 2017 7:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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zenmonkey
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Re: Lang-8 is such a disappointment

Postby zenmonkey » Tue Jul 11, 2017 8:19 pm

Blue wrote:The way to make Lang-8 work is to use HelloTalk or whatever other service to meet potential language partners, and when you find someone who is a high-quality partner, ask them if they're interested in using Lang-8 with you. Then you two can give each other high quality feedback and happily ignore the rest of the Lang-8 userbase. Use HelloTalk to practice informal chatting, to ask questions, and for video/voice chats, and use Lang-8 to get help with much longer and more formal writing. Perhaps there could be a thread on this forum for Lang-8 users took hook up with each other.


Except Lang-8 doesn't accept new users so if your HelloTalk person isn't registered Lang-8 then that won't work.
Plus - if you found someone to correct you - on HelloTalk or here you don't need Lang-8.

Lang-8 is for strangers to correct you - when that fails just use email or the forum.

Still, thanks for the suggestion!
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Re: Lang-8 is such a disappointment

Postby Cavesa » Tue Jul 11, 2017 8:52 pm

Blue wrote:The way to make Lang-8 work is to use HelloTalk or whatever other service to meet potential language partners, and when you find someone who is a high-quality partner, ask them if they're interested in using Lang-8 with you. Then you two can give each other high quality feedback and happily ignore the rest of the Lang-8 userbase. Use HelloTalk to practice informal chatting, to ask questions, and for video/voice chats, and use Lang-8 to get help with much longer and more formal writing. Perhaps there could be a thread on this forum for Lang-8 users took hook up with each other.


Two problems here. First is the registration, which is impossible.

The second is getting an exchange partner. I cannot, my native language simply isn't popular among natives of my target languages, what a suprise. If it was that simple, I wouldn't need any Lang8, I would just get an exchange penpal and exchange mails and corrections.

A simple metaphor, as this still seems to be too abstract for the internet language learning community: the language exchange sites are like a market full of people exchanging fruits and vegetables.
I want oranges and apples. But people with oranges don't want my potatoes, they want apples. And people having apples want oranges or melons, again no demand for potatoes.
Of course there are people, who would love to get the potatoes, but they have only carrots.
Sure, I could also offer cucumbers (a C2 non native language), but there are tons of people with much nicer and more tasty cucumbers (natives), so why would anyone choose mine. Of course, there are people who would offer me lower quality oranges for my lower quality cucumbers, usually with their oranges being even worse than my cucumbers,but we would probably both end up with stomachache.

Lang8 with its huge community was a way to avoid this obstacle. You didn't have to exchange directly, one piece for one piece. Had I registered (stupid me, stupid, stupid, stupid. For once, hoarding apps and accounts "just in case"could have been helpful), I think it could have worked like this: I would correct Czech texts usually written by Russians, the Russians would correct the texts written by the English natives, The English natives would correct the Spanish natives, and the Spanish natives would correct MY texts in Spanish.

This is the principle of a huge community, where everyone can give corrections to everyone, the chain can have several participants. In the normal exchange setting, I am out of luck. And truth be told, I am getting tired and annoyed of all those people giving the easy advice "just get an exchange partner, its simple, just don't be afraid to reach out and join an exchange site, you obviously haven't tried", who absolutely don't know what it is like outside of their bubble, no offence meant.
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