The biggest question here

[proycon]

I sent an e-mail to proy to make him aware of the discussion going on here.

Thanks! Interesting discussion indeed! My two cents:

- Secondly, make it more useful beyond being a forum. The Resource Archive is old, but it seems on the right track. It should probably be thoroughly reviewed for all rotten links, and made simply a list of links to free legal resources. To reduce the problem of maintenance and increase its value to visitors, you could have a rule of only having 20 links per language, and assign an official day or two in a year to check for link rot, displaying the last link rot check date prominently.

In the old days (2000-2008) the resource section was actually our main focus and we worked on creating language learning resources ourselves. The forum was just one of the section rather than the main one. But indeed the resource archive now is stale and very outdated. I agree that having a simpler resource section that links to free legal resources is a good idea. Simplicity and maintainability should be key. Link rot checks could even be automated.

Another idea: if anyone has spare money, you could well buy Google ads; people do click on those things. I know of one Latin forum that used to actually do this!

I'm rather against any commercial advertising, that's what has ruined/is ruining the web in the first place.
We have always had a free & open philosophy and our websites has been free of ads.

I do think that software modernisation is unavoidable though. Even replacing phpBB entirely. I'm not sure who among us has the time to do that. I think that at least the Resources Archive should be on a wiki software. I have some experience running small wikis, I can't volunteer myself in the short term, but in the mid-term it might be possible. Perhaps wouldn't be great if the forum and a wiki aren't integrated though.

I agree, the software is very old so things are kind of stuck the way they are. Ideally we'd replace phpBB entirely and move to something more lightweight, modern and easily maintainable, with a renewed focus on resources. But any such migration is quite a hefty project in its own right, for which we need time and expertise. If there's really a large enough interest and a core group of people interested in building something anew then I can of course help out but otherwise I lack the time for such a project nowadays unfortunately. As Car said that's why the things are currently the way the are:

IIRC, the rest of the site is in the state it is in because we didn't have enough people taking care of the parts.

I know it's not my opinion that matters here

On the contrary, such things have to come from the community itself so it matters!

If it was up to me, significant growth wouldn't be desirable.

I agree, growth in itself shouldn't be a goal. It should all be about quality, if the community is smallish and high-quality then that's fine. Of course, running on stale/outdated technology is an inhibiting factor here.

It's simply that old-fashioned forums like UL are do-ocracies. Things will only be done if someone volunteers to do them and I know that I'm not going to take over any sysadmin or moderating duties in the near future.

Yep You hit the nail on its head. If there are any technical initiatives with consensus and volunteers then I'm more than willing to accommodate them.

[md0]

Nice to hear from you, proycon.

Once I'm settled in my work, I'll give it some thought and see what I can realistically propose on the technical front.

[azhong]

It's not bad to revise the whole software, of course, to make it easier to use. On the other hand, however, may I have a different voice?

As an Eastern, I was told when I was a college student that those famous western colleges were reputable not because there were fancy buildings on campus; in fact the buildings were much older than those we have. What makes these colleges outstanding are their professors.

I am unsure; what the story has mentioned are your schools. And again, I am not being against any ideas of revising the software or promoting the forum.

[Car]

I sent an e-mail to proy to make him aware of the discussion going on here.

Thanks! Interesting discussion indeed! My two cents:

You're welcome! Thanks for replying.

[Naava]

A few comments from me:

An idea: a Twitter account that posts interesting new threads or excerpts of particularly good or thoughtful posts, with appropriate tags, at the very least typically #languagelearning.

Not a bad idea, but it requires a volunteer(s) who'd be interested in finding and tweeting those threads/posts and who'd also have enough time for it.

Secondly, make it more useful beyond being a forum. The Resource Archive is old, but it seems on the right track. It should probably be thoroughly reviewed for all rotten links, and made simply a list of links to free legal resources.

I like this idea. I've recently stumbled upon some new free materials for studying Finnish and could post those there if we updated the resource archive in one way or another.

I know this is really stretching it, but it'd also nice if we could have an update on the icons and smileys; some of them look quite pixel-y and old...

I agree, but I don't know how easy it'd be or if it is even possible.

If it was up to me, significant growth wouldn't be desirable.

I agree, growth in itself shouldn't be a goal. It should all be about quality, if the community is smallish and high-quality then that's fine. Of course, running on stale/outdated technology is an inhibiting factor here.

100% agree.

[aaakknu]

I'd like to ask: what are non-affiliate reviews and how can they help the forum? (they were mentioned in the first post here).

[vijayjohn]

I took it to mean something like 'reviews of a product by people who don't work for the company that made them'. For example, if I wrote a review of Rosetta Stone, and I don't work for Rosetta Stone, then (if I understand correctly) my review would be a non-affiliate review.

[aaakknu]

I took it to mean something like 'reviews of a product by people who don't work for the company that made them'. For example, if I wrote a review of Rosetta Stone, and I don't work for Rosetta Stone, then (if I understand correctly) my review would be a non-affiliate review.

Thank you, now I understand.