Language List

[Luís]

Is it possible to add?

Name: Yenish
Flag: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... people.svg
ISO: yec

Name: Balaibalan
ISO: zba

Name: Medefaidrin
ISO: dmf

Name: Lingua Ignota
ISO: qli

Name: Enochian
ISO: qen

Name: Oahspean
ISO: qoa

Added

[Light_Prophet]

Is it possible to add these?

Name: Milyan
ISO: imy

Name: Sidetic
ISO: xsd

Name: Sudovian
Flag: https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/b/by%7Dstyat.gif
ISO: xsv

Name: Galindian
ISO: xgl

Name: Skalvian
ISO: svx

Name: Curonian
ISO: xcu

Name: Jassic
ISO: ysc

Name: Danuar
ISO: qqd

Name: Luminmech
ISO: qme

Name: Bushraki
ISO: qbk

Name: Kamael
ISO: qql

Name: Fal'Cie
ISO: qfc

[Karavinka]

I can't help but say that I have a feeling that ONYX HORUS is just a spammer/troll. Aside from one thread on the word chicken in the translation subforum, how much have they used, or even discussed, the languages they continue to try to add to the list? What's the threshold here? (If there is one.)

I completely agree with the feeling, and I also think he works under more than one alias.

Starting this thread is the greatest sin I have ever committed to Unilang.

[księżycowy]

I just can't help but think we are gaining a bunch of bloat to our list here. It'd be one thing if these additions were seeing use, but I don't see that being the case with 95% of these additions lately.

I mean, by all means, add as much as we have the resources for. If it's fine to just keep adding, then don't mind me. But it seems like this thread is being taken for a ride.

[Linguaphile]

I just can't help but think we are gaining a bunch of bloat to our list here. It'd be one thing if these additions were seeing use, but I don't see that being the case with 95% of these additions lately.

I guess the theory is that people are making posts like these to get a foothold into the forum and to appear like a legitimate user, with a plan to post commercial links or other spam-like posts in the future? And this is probably true. (Another sign of this seems to be that they go back and edit their posts repeatedly, which I see the most recent list has as well.)

But I looked at the profile of the user who posted that most recent list, before that account was deactivated, and noticed that he/she had listed a lot of ancient and extinct languages related to (or otherwise similar to) the languages that he/she wanted to have added.

Even if these languages don't yet have any posts mentioning them, I guess it's not unreasonable that, when you sign up on a forum and create a profile, if the languages you know aren't available, you'd want to be able to add them to your profile and that's understandable.

So... how do we distinguish a new user who is bringing new languages into our forum, from spammers who are not?

Suggestion: would be it be helpful to genuine new users whose languages aren't listed, if we created an entry in the language list for "other language not listed" so that they could, for example, include it in their profile ("Other language not listed - Native Language", "Other language not listed - Known at an advanced level (B2,C1)", etc.) and a policy like we have in the politics form, that a user's first post shouldn't be one asking to add profile languages? We could make a post to that effect pinned at the top of this thread and also an explanation that it is an anti-spam measure, not meant to limit the languages that are actually used or listed in profiles. I think we're very happy to add new languages for active users, we just want to make sure that they are genuine users with an interest in languages, and not spammers or bots with an interest in selling us Nike shoes or fake diplomas.

Starting this thread is the greatest sin I have ever committed to Unilang.

No, I appreciate it and appreciate Luis for adding them, because I have asked to have quite a few added myself and use them often. In fact, in the most recent list made by the user whose account was deactivated, I was glad to see this one listed:

Name: Sudovian
Flag: https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/b/by%7Dstyat.gif
ISO: xsv

and I do think it should be added, because it has been used numerous times (including by me) and I've just been either writing out the name instead of a flag, or using the ownflag code. I should probably remember this thread more myself and add the languages that I'm actually using rather than using the ownflag code as much as I do.

[księżycowy]

It is admittedly difficult to judge whether any particular user is submitting and legit request here or just taking the piss. Maybe, if technicality possible, we do as Linguaphile suggests, along with putting some threshold on being able to suggest languages here. Whether it be X amount of posts, or X amount of time. (I would probably prefer posts).

It becomes moot though if someone if just listing them on their profile for whatever reason. We want an active community, no?

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with wanting any language added to the list by itself, and I'm not against that. But I do think it's not worthwhile to have this be the most active thread on the forum. (I may be exaggerating here a bit, but it has been pretty active compared to the rest of the forum. It'd be great to see continued use of other subforums and threads. By all means, with these new additions to the list being discussed!)

I don't want to gatekeep (nor is it my place). These and just my thoughts and suggestions. It's ultimately up to the admins/mods.

EDIT: I reread your (Linguaphile) post more clearly (I was skimming before), and we basically said similar things. A bit different, so I'll leave my suggestions alone.

EDIT 2: I would bring up a different suggestion, but I know how this forum loves it's stars and flags.

[Luís]

I have no idea why this particular user keeps on deactivating their account, but he/she doesn't look like a spammer (or at least has never tried to advertise anything on this forum). Last time I checked many of the languages he/she asked to be added were actually listed on their profile.

I agree that the whole situation seems a bit sketchy, but since I'm not really sure where to draw the line, I've been adding all the languages anyway

But yeah, we can certainly think of different ways of going about it. I'm open to suggestions!

[księżycowy]

I have no idea why this particular user keeps on deactivating their account, but he/she doesn't look like a spammer (or at least has never tried to advertise anything on this forum). Last time I checked many of the languages he/she asked to be added were actually listed on their profile.

Right, at this point I doubt they are a spammer, but it still odd that they aren't doing anything more than just adding the languages to their profile.

I agree that the whole situation seems a bit sketchy, but since I'm not really sure where to draw the line, I've been adding all the languages anyway

And I thank you for your hard work to keep at the additions, regardless of their sketchiness or lack thereof.

But yeah, we can certainly think of different ways of going about it. I'm open to suggestions!

The only other solution I could think of would potentially do away with the flags and possibly stars, unless there was a way to incorporate them somehow. But, maybe make it a self-fill in list of some sort? Something that would be user defined so that it wouldn't matter if the language was on the list or not. As far as I can tell, one of the main purposes of the list is searching, and that (at least in some applications) appears to be broken. Not that that couldn't potentially be fixed. I have no idea how easy it would be to fix, or what it would entail.

I'm just thinking of another forum I frequent much more often (LLORG), which have a section on the profile that is just an empty box that you can list whatever languages you want that you are studying, or know to some level (and you are free to qualify your languages as you wish). I'm not saying we have to copy that style verbatim, but maybe we could come up with something similar in a UL style? Just a thought.

[linguoboy]

I just can't help but think we are gaining a bunch of bloat to our list here. It'd be one thing if these additions were seeing use, but I don't see that being the case with 95% of these additions lately.

Cosigned. Along with Linguaphile, I've been complaining about this for over a year already. I also don' think we're dealing with a spammer, just someone who likes collecting language codes for some reason.

It's really annoying now when I go to the list to look for the code for a particular language and I have to wait half a minute for the page to completely load. Having two versions of the list (one for frequently-used languages and a complete list) would solve this problem, but it could be confusing for users and would be need ongoing maintenance (as previously un(der)used codes made the cut).

[Karavinka]

The language list and the stars have always been vanity stats for profile decoration. They're linked, and looking at the slug when clicking them makes me think there was intended to be a search function to find other users who speak or are interested in the language

Code: Select all

https://forum.unilang.org/memberlist.php?mode=searchuser&search_proficiency=1&search_language=de

However as you can see it just returns the full list of users. If this search actually worked as intended, then I can see the benefit of adding more obscure languages, as long as they're going to be used by someone at least, otherwise it might just make more sense to allow a blank field for them to enter custom names for any language they don't find. But either way, it's going to require work, and I don't know if there's any actual maintenance work on the site.

[Linguaphile]

The flags aren't just used in profiles, they're also used extensively in the Translations forums and elsewhere. In most of those threads, the flag itself is the method of identifying the language. If the flags were removed, all of those posts would basically be "broken" and hard to read, bordering on useless.
I also regularly use flags in a lot of my posts to identify which language I'm posting in where I'm working with two or more languages in one post, which I do often. (I could stop using them, that's not a problem if someone feels I should. But my concern is for all those older posts, mine and others', that already use them to identify languages.) There are enough of those threads, that removing the flags would make those threads difficult to understand and make Unilang a more frustrating place to browse through. I wouldn't want to get rid of the flags for that reason.

[księżycowy]

I do acknowledge that the flags are also used extensively on the forum by some users. They in and of themselves are also broken in that they used to direct to the Wikipedia page for whatever language they are meant to represent. That and the identification script when you hover the mouse over one only works on PC (obviously). In some cases I'm not sure how helpful the flags actually are in helping identify languages/dialects.

Not that that means anything for whether they stay or go.

Regardless, I'm not sure if there is an easy solution to any of this. Maybe we are back to X amount of activity before a new user can request a new language? Idk.

[Luís]

Thanks for the input!

Unfortunately I can't really make any major changes to the forum. Something like creating a custom search option for finding people who speak a certain language at a certain level would have to be done by proycon.

We can start by implementing the rule "no new language requests for new accounts". Other than that, we can try to clean up the list a bit as well. Someone mentioned that all the flags made the page take longer to load. I haven't really noticed that and I guess it depends on your device / internet connection, but it's a valid point.

But cleaning up the list is going to be subjective as well...

[Helroid]

Edit: Nevermind

[księżycowy]

We can start by implementing the rule "no new language requests for new accounts".

This is a start, and thank you for implementing it!

Other than that, we can try to clean up the list a bit as well. Someone mentioned that all the flags made the page take longer to load. I haven't really noticed that and I guess it depends on your device / internet connection, but it's a valid point.

But cleaning up the list is going to be subjective as well...

As for this, I'm not sure what the best course of action should be. It's certainly the type of thing where you can't please everyone. But some guiding principles would be best.

[Karavinka]

This is not an addition but a change suggestion. I noticed Pali has Indian flag with the native name in Devanagari, which seems a little off to me. Yes, the language originated in what's now India but Devanagari would be a rather minor choice as the preferred script among the Pali readers, falling behind Roman, Sinhala, Thai, Khmer, Burmese and Lao. (Unlike Sanskrit, for some reason it's the preferred script for many Sanskritists.)

My suggestion is to use Pali (Pāḷi) instead, so it doesn't attach the language to any particular nation. Just in case someone mentions, it'd be this in Brahmic, but that'd be silly for 1. it's even less commonly read and 2. the forum doesn't support it, which is why I had to link it. As for the flag, I might just want to suggest the Dhamma wheel instead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripi%E1% ... _wheel.svg

Sure it's a religious symbolism but it better represents the language than the national flag of India. (And please, let's not go to route to subdivide the language by script, there literally is no point doing so...)

[Helroid]

I'm newish here. so here it goes:

Is it just me or is the list hard to navigate? The upper half is alphabetical so it's easy to find languages, but the lower half is chaotic. (It took me a long time to find Cornish (down at the bottom near Old Cornish but no Middle Cornish ) Also Old Ossetian is at the top with Old Norse, but not grouped with Iron and Digor, same goes for Mycenaean Greek.

Looking at it, it would make sense to remove anything that isn't a proper ISO code, (As invented codes, from experience elsewhere, cause chaos). Such as the list of conlangs down at the bottom .

[Muikkunen]

I'm newish here. so here it goes:

Is it just me or is the list hard to navigate? The upper half is alphabetical so it's easy to find languages, but the lower half is chaotic. (It took me a long time to find Cornish (down at the bottom near Old Cornish but no Middle Cornish ) Also Old Ossetian is at the top with Old Norse, but not grouped with Iron and Digor, same goes for Mycenaean Greek.

Looking at it, it would make sense to remove anything that isn't a proper ISO code, (As invented codes, from experience elsewhere, cause chaos). Such as the list of conlangs down at the bottom .

It's like that for me too. Don't know what is the reason.

It wasn't always like that, so I don't know what happened.

[Linguaphile]

Yes, me too.

If anyone with the ability to add languages is still monitoring this thread, could this be added:

Name in English: Purepecha
Native Name: P’urhépecha
Flag:
ISO: tsz
Wikimedia link for flag: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... 9pecha.png

[Multiturquoise]

I'm newish here. so here it goes:

Is it just me or is the list hard to navigate? The upper half is alphabetical so it's easy to find languages, but the lower half is chaotic. (It took me a long time to find Cornish (down at the bottom near Old Cornish but no Middle Cornish ) Also Old Ossetian is at the top with Old Norse, but not grouped with Iron and Digor, same goes for Mycenaean Greek.

Looking at it, it would make sense to remove anything that isn't a proper ISO code, (As invented codes, from experience elsewhere, cause chaos). Such as the list of conlangs down at the bottom .

It's like that for me too. Don't know what is the reason.

It wasn't always like that, so I don't know what happened.

I think the ones at the top are the languages that don't have a variety, or whose varieties have not yet been added to UniLang. If there is only one variety of the language, it goes lower and if there is more than one, it goes even lower. The lowest are the constructed languages.