erinja:lernu! is a website for learning Esperanto. Would you come to our English-language forums for advice on getting a stain out of your shirt or repairing a broken chair? If you had a website with computer forums, one of which was called "On various topics", would you assume that the forum was for topics related to computers, or would you go to that forum to ask for a foolproof recipe for apple pie?

It's an Esperanto website, so "various topics" should be understood in the context to mean any topic relating to Esperanto. The only reason why this site has forums that are not in Esperanto is to enable beginners to discuss topics related to Esperanto in a language that they're more comfortable with. It doesn't make sense to come to an Esperanto website to discuss motorcycle maintenance, the political system of Trinidad and Tobago, basket weaving, or the revision of English spelling - unless you want to discuss these topics in Esperanto, in our Esperanto-language forums.

It's ok if a thread starts off relating to Esperanto and diverges somewhat, but if a thread is start to finish unrelated, this isn't the appropriate section of the forums to post it in.

Perhaps it would simply be easier to change the forum description to mentioning "Esperanto-related topics" or similar, in order to avoid this misunderstanding. Many websites devoted to a particular subject (like Esperanto), still have forums in which users can chat about anything, to simply socialise with the group they feel comfortable with. So people who are used to such websites may take "various topics" to mean just that.

It's like teaching a class, if time after time people are misunderstanding you for the same reason, perhaps you should alter how you teach.

EldanarLambetur:Perhaps it would simply be easier to change the forum description to mentioning "Esperanto-related topics" or similar, in order to avoid this misunderstanding. Many websites devoted to a particular subject (like Esperanto), still have forums in which users can chat about anything, to simply socialise with the group they feel comfortable with. So people who are used to such websites may take "various topics" to mean just that.

It's like teaching a class, if time after time people are misunderstanding you for the same reason, perhaps you should alter how you teach.

The forum system will be changing the way it operates with the new lernu, so though we've had some discussions within the lernu team on these kinds of labeling issues, we decided generally to avoid making changes that make more work for our translators, on aspects of the site that will be going away.

I believe this topic will be covered in the terms of use associated with the new site.

I've opened a new thread on this topic, and anyone interested in further discussing it should go there.