Viestejä: 66
Kieli: English
RiotNrrd (Näytä profiilli) 1. joulukuuta 2011 23.04.01
Today, correcting someone's posts without being asked is considered rude. I say we turn that on its head and call open season on errors in forum posts.
This is a learning site, not a social networking site. If someone is offended because someone else corrected their post, then my take on that is that they aren't that interested in learning from their mistakes, since they obviously don't want to know what their mistakes are. But if that's true, why are they on a learning site?
I think we should by default consider the forums to be places where all posts are considered eligible for correction* by anyone. If you don't want to be corrected, then don't post.
This should solve the issues with poorly written posts, as the thinner-skinned writers will simply stop writing, and any errors by more dedicated students will be called out for anyone - especially beginners - to see.
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* By "correction" I don't mean editing someone else's post. I simply mean bringing up the corrections in a new post.
erinja (Näytä profiilli) 1. joulukuuta 2011 23.22.01
RiotNrrd (Näytä profiilli) 2. joulukuuta 2011 0.57.13
erinja:If someone writes a long message filled with errors, who wants to spend their valuable time correcting all of those errors?I think some people would. Or some people would just comment that there were too many errors in there, thus warning the beginners not to bother getting confused.
But no one HAS to slog through a long post and correct it. I'm not saying it should be a mandatory activity. I'm just saying it ought to happen a lot more than it does, and the reason it doesn't is due to a social norm against correcting people. That seems counterproductive on an educational site.
The biggest problem with the forum today, in my opinion, is that it is quite possible to make a mistake, make the same mistake again, then make it yet again - each time reinforcing the mistake in ones mind as NOT being a mistake - and people won't tell you that you are doing it wrong because they don't want to be rude. So, as a practice arena it's not doing a lot of good, because people rarely ever get any feedback, even when feedback is sorely needed.
I'd rather people would be "rude" enough to tell me when I make a mistake, so that I only need to do it once. Do I like being corrected? Not particularly. But it certainly speeds up the learning process, and actually does belong here.
I would like to believe that the Lernu forum is more than a place meant for purely social interaction; in a purely social setting, correcting peoples language IS rude. But in an educational setting the exact opposite should be true. The reason we are here is to learn and practice Esperanto; getting it right and assisting others to also get it right ought to be the primary goal, with social interaction being something secondary (perhaps a strong secondary, but still not #1).
sudanglo (Näytä profiilli) 2. joulukuuta 2011 10.52.21
Obviously you can't expect beginners to make perfect posts, but at the same time you don't want learners to get confused or pick up bad habits.
I remain of the opinion that rather than a ghetto for spertuloj, the simplest way of dealing with the issue is to provide a convenient way of flagging poor or good language.
Perhaps rather than marking texts which need revision, perhaps there should be a way of signalling that a post is in particularly good style (and free of grammatical errors).
So something like Facebook's Likes and Dislikes, but based on language level rather than whether you agree with the opinions expressed.
My guess is that the Report Spam facility is rarely used and could be pirated for such a use.
For the guidance of beginners the marking of 'good' posts would be just as effective as the marking of 'bad' posts.
However the carrot might be better than the stick in this case, and might incentivize posters, who could then experience a warm glow of achievement from having their posts stylistically approved of.
erinja (Näytä profiilli) 2. joulukuuta 2011 13.13.41
Or would there be, for example, three levels, "perfect", "some errors", and "riddled with errors"?
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On providing errors, I remember when we first set up the lernu forums, we were a bit worried about beginners perpetuating errors and learning bad grammar from one another. Eventually we decided that it wouldn't be possible to correct every single post, so we decided just to risk it.
On the culture of correcting others, in principle I agree that on a learner's site, it would be good to correct people. The flip side of that is that Esperanto culture generally considers it rude to correct people, and I wonder if people would come from our forums, used to correcting people left and right, and become insufferable bores in normal Esperanto society, continuing to correct people incessantly.
cFlat7 (Näytä profiilli) 2. joulukuuta 2011 14.06.58
Also, the feedback could be associated with the post itself, as blog-like comments, so that threads don't get "polluted" with correction posts.
robbkvasnak (Näytä profiilli) 2. joulukuuta 2011 15.16.53
I also think that posters should be encouraged to use the Antaŭmontri button and reread their posts before actually posting them.
darkweasel (Näytä profiilli) 2. joulukuuta 2011 15.18.06
robbkvasnak:You can’t really encourage them more than this forum already does (by forcing them to do so before sending a posting)...
I also think that posters should be encouraged to use the Antaŭmontri button and reread their posts before actually posting them.
sudanglo (Näytä profiilli) 2. joulukuuta 2011 16.35.20
Say 5 stars for excellent style and free of grammatical error - a less generous starcount for posts not reaching this standard.
No stars - the poster needs to work on his Esperanto. Exercising this rating facility would be done by the forum members themselves. But nobody should be compelled to vote.
I've seen something like this work elsewhere on the net with the average star-rating being displayed.
Robb, the solution to impenetrable English in the English Language forum is to allow non-native speakers who post there to put their posts in Esperanto.
I've argued for this in the past but met with stern opposition (not well-grounded in my view).
erinja (Näytä profiilli) 2. joulukuuta 2011 19.04.17
I personally disagree with putting language rankings on any of the non-Esperanto forums. This site is here to teach Esperanto, not other languages, and I have no interest in stigmatizing people who don't speak English well. You can simply ignore their posts if you don't think their English is good enough to be worth your time.