Subforum Split?

Do you agree with the proposal?

Poll ended at 2018-06-01, 13:05

Yes
2
25%
No
3
38%
I don't care
2
25%
I have another idea
1
13%
 
Total votes: 8

Linguaphile
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Re: Subforum Split?

Postby Linguaphile » 2018-03-25, 20:26

księżycowy wrote:I was thinking of the same thing. The Uto-Aztec language family is a perfect example of this. It's spread out over the U.S. Southwest and Mexico.

It's a perfect example, in my opinion, as to why linguistic groupings are better than geographic ones. It makes a lot more sense for all the members of a language family to be in the same subforum, doesn't it?

I would definitely love to see an Uto-Aztecan forum (and I also agree that it's a perfect example of the benefits of linguistic groupings in cases like this).
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

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Aurinĭa
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Re: Subforum Split?

Postby Aurinĭa » 2018-03-25, 20:27

I had been purposefully staying out of the whole discussion for a while (though I kept reading), because I felt that some of the most active contributors to the discussion wanted to go in a very different direction than I did. I had laid down a reorganisation proposal, and given my opinion about the why of it. You called my argument unconvincing. But you also said, only two days ago:
vijayjohn wrote:To be fair, especially in light of the poll in this thread and some of the comments over on the general forum renaming/reworking thread, I'm starting to get the impression that people do care more about forum traffic than I might have thought. So I might have been wrong on that point at least.

I'd also like to point out that the leading option on the poll is currently still "No, don't split the forum up".

vijayjohn wrote:I like your idea as proposed but am going to tentatively suggest also making subforums for the following since they each have as many living members as or more living members than Eskimo-Aleut:
vijayjohn wrote:I meant living languages.

I was listing language families and mentioned the members of those families. The members of a language family are languages.

So language families containing more languages are more worthy of their own forum than language families containing fewer languages?

vijayjohn wrote:It's just a separate discussion

IMHO, it's not a separate discussion. These language subforum management threads are all about how to organise the different languages and subforums, and what księżycowy said is definitely a part of that discussion, as is what you said, and what I said.

księżycowy

Re: Subforum Split?

Postby księżycowy » 2018-03-25, 20:35

At this point the poll is very close to a 50/50 split between the two overarching ideas: "split it" and "don't split it."

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Re: Subforum Split?

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-03-25, 21:28

księżycowy wrote:It's a perfect example, in my opinion, as to why linguistic groupings are better than geographic ones. It makes a lot more sense for all the members of a language family to be in the same subforum, doesn't it?

I think it depends on what you're trying to achieve...and that probably doesn't work very well for Indo-European languages. :P
Aurinĭa wrote:But you also said, only two days ago:
vijayjohn wrote:To be fair, especially in light of the poll in this thread and some of the comments over on the general forum renaming/reworking thread, I'm starting to get the impression that people do care more about forum traffic than I might have thought. So I might have been wrong on that point at least.

I'd also like to point out that the leading option on the poll is currently still "No, don't split the forum up".

And then people immediately started saying, "You know, maybe traffic isn't so important after all."
So language families containing more languages are more worthy of their own forum than language families containing fewer languages?

Here's the thing: In North America (north of Mexico) today, there are 20 language families that each have at least two indigenous languages that are still spoken to this day. There are also seven language isolates that are still spoken (i.e. seven languages that are still spoken but have no living relatives today), eight entire language families that are extinct, 21 extinct language isolates (i.e. 21 extinct languages with no known relatives), and 45 extinct languages that are listed here as unclassified.

As I see it, the extinct languages could all go into the Ancient, Classical, and Extinct languages subforum. However, this still leaves us with 20 families and seven isolates. So the question is: How do we organize them?

To me, it makes sense to make separate forums for the language families that have the most languages and keep the rest in the general NAIL forum. It also wasn't entirely clear to me on what basis księżycowy singled out the Algic, Iroquoian, Na-Dene, Siouan, Salishan, and Eskimo-Aleut families. The first five of these happen to be among the families that have the largest number of languages, but Eskimo-Aleut only has seven according to this list. I finally understand now that he specifically mentioned these seven language families because they are the ones that have generated the most interest among UniLangers (there are more threads on UL about these particular language families than about any other NAILs). I think that also makes sense.
vijayjohn wrote:It's just a separate discussion

IMHO, it's not a separate discussion. These language subforum management threads are all about how to organise the different languages and subforums, and what księżycowy said is definitely a part of that discussion, as is what you said, and what I said.

Yes, but what I take issue with in what you said is not the views you expressed but rather the assumptions you made about what I was saying.

księżycowy

Re: Subforum Split?

Postby księżycowy » 2018-03-25, 21:51

vijayjohn wrote:I think it depends on what you're trying to achieve...and that probably doesn't work very well for Indo-European languages. :P

I'd like to think I've made my thoughts on what I'm trying to achieve clear. I don't really have any overarching or grand ideas for other language families. Just the one's I'm in charge of or have an interest in, I'm sorry to say.

To me, it makes sense to make separate forums for the language families that have the most languages and keep the rest in the general NAIL forum. It also wasn't entirely clear to me on what basis księżycowy singled out the Algic, Iroquoian, Na-Dene, Siouan, Salishan, and Eskimo-Aleut families.

I stole them from your proposed list a few pages back on the Subforum Reorganization thread. I just added Eskimo-Aleut to your list because of it's popularity. So the better question is, why did you select those languages? :P

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Re: Subforum Split?

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-03-25, 21:54

Lol, well, like I said, I selected them because they are some of the biggest language families in North America. At any rate, I was concerned about whether we could come up with a valid reason for singling out those families (including Eskimo-Aleut), but I think you've convinced me that we do have one.

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Re: Subforum Split?

Postby Aurinĭa » 2018-03-26, 10:56

I'd like to know what was so horrifying and disturbing about a small misunderstanding that doesn't change my opinion or the point I was trying to make (namely, that neither the number of languages that are part of a language family nor the number of native speakers are relevant to this discussion, but that the activity level and interest on the forum are).

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Re: Subforum Split?

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-03-26, 13:42

a) You're an admin. You know full well the final decision rests with you and the other admins anyway, not with anyone else participating in this discussion.
b) There's no evidence that you know anything in particular about NAILs (in fact, you pretty much just proved that you don't), so making a snap decision that has to do with them seems extremely unwise on your part, especially when it directly affects people who do know something about NAILs.
c) You never said anything while we were talking about what it would look like if this subforum were split up by language family and only spoke up to shoot down my suggestion.
d) When you did shoot it down, you didn't even bother to make sure you understood what you were trying to shoot down first.
e) I never even said anything in this discussion about either specific languages (apart from when Koko said he'd keep the Algic forum alive if it existed) or numbers of speakers, so I find it baffling and accusatory when you suddenly start talking about the numbers of speakers of specific languages as if I did talk about either of those.
f) If you had any doubts about whether the families I listed were language families, specific languages, or something else, you could have just done a simple Google search on any of them.

księżycowy

Re: Subforum Split?

Postby księżycowy » 2018-03-31, 20:59

Ok, moving back to our NAIL discussion:
[I'm not meaning to ignore the above, it's just if you guys want to continue it, it would probably be better to move it elsewhere.]

I want to thank everyone that has discussed things here. :)

However, I am a bit frustrated that it's only been a few people. I need to contextualize this poll in order to make the best decision I can for this subforum. A "yes" or "no" doesn't quite cut it, I'm afraid.

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Re: Subforum Split?

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-03-31, 23:45

How many people participate in this forum to begin with, though?

Maybe it might get more responses if you were to link to it in the general-subforum-renaming thread?

księżycowy

Re: Subforum Split?

Postby księżycowy » 2018-04-01, 2:14

I mean, somehow we got 14 votes in the poll.

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Re: Subforum Split?

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-04-01, 2:55

Hmm...do you think it would help to make a poll like "do you agree with the following subdivision"? Or do you have another kind of poll in mind?

księżycowy

Re: Subforum Split?

Postby księżycowy » 2018-04-01, 12:38

At this point I'm questioning how useful polls are for this sort of thing to be honest. For this type of discussion we can't leave it at a "yes" or "no".

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Re: Subforum Split?

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-04-01, 21:55

I wonder whether it would make sense to just give it more time.

księżycowy

Re: Subforum Split?

Postby księżycowy » 2018-04-01, 21:58

Well, I'm not looking for a solution by tomorrow (despite how it might sound :P ). Nor have i turned off the voting yet.

I guess I would like people to step up to the plate and discuss more. Idk.

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Re: Subforum Split?

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-04-01, 22:05

Or rather, you'd like more people to step up to the plate and join the discussion, right?

księżycowy

Re: Subforum Split?

Postby księżycowy » 2018-04-01, 22:27

Yes, that's what I meant.

And not just here, but also in the other subforum organization discussion too.

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Re: Subforum Split?

Postby Linguaphile » 2018-04-02, 1:55

I'm the one who voted "I don't care." The reason I did that was that I had initially voted "no," but I (like some others it sounds like) initially thought that splitting the forum would mean there would no longer be a general NAIL forum. Once I realized that wasn't the case, I briefly changed my vote to "yes," then decided that actually I'd really be fine with it staying as it is as well - so I changed it to "I don't care." I'm equally fine with it remaining the way it is or with the creation of forums for specific language families or groups. As I mentioned earlier, there are some language families and languages I'm specifically interested in (in North America, mostly Muskogee and Yuman languages; if you add Central America, then also eastern Oto-Manguean). And because of my interested in Yuman languages, the idea of a forum for those languages found in both North and Central America interests me. But I'm not sure how many others are interested, and I'm not actively studying those languages right now, so if there aren't enough other people to make a separate/new forum then I'm not going to push for it myself either. If/when I do become more active with those languages, there is at least the existing NAIL (and CSAIL) forum, so that's good enough as far as I'm concerned.
Ordinarily, if I don't have an opinion either way, I simply don't vote - it seems weird to me to actually cast a vote saying "I don't care;" I tend to think that those who do care should be the ones to decide and those who don't care don't need to vote - but in this case I had already voted "no" based on a misunderstanding, and there is no way to retract a vote, only to change it. So that is how I ended up with "I don't care," and why.
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

księżycowy

Re: Subforum Split?

Postby księżycowy » 2018-04-02, 2:11

Thank you, Linguaphile. :)

księżycowy

Re: Subforum Split?

Postby księżycowy » 2018-05-02, 12:19

I admit it's a bit late to bother doing this, but I reworded the poll question and an option or two.

Please readjust your vote as nessicary.


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