Genjix:You don't ban people for having different opinions to you. Maybe in China it's normal, but not here.

Touché, but you can disagree without being disagreeable. That's the problem.

Anyways, interesting website, but I wish we could churn out something better.

Genjix:

LyzTyphone:

Genjix:Kial vi parolas stultecon ĉi tie en la anglejo? Vi ne diras uzan ion ajn por komencantoj

Odoras ke iu baldaŭ blokiĝos.

Smells like someone is gonna be banned.

You don't ban people for having different opinions to you. Maybe in China it's normal, but not here.

Having a different opinion is not the issue. Nor is what is or isn't normal in China.

The issue is Lernu's rules.

Part of the rules, please note #4 and #9:

"Specific rules for the lernu! forums:

1. Don't continually write about something that doesn't relate at all to the topic.
2. Check to make sure that the topic that you are creating doesn't exist yet in the forum.
3. In the Esperanto language forums, write only in Esperanto.
4. In the national language threads, write in the language indicated for that forum. If you write in Esperanto, please translate the text into the language of that forum.
5. The only place where you may use forums for commercial purposes is under the topic "About everything else".
6. It is forbidden to send many identical or nearly identical messages.
7. Do not slander other users or be dishonest in your discussions. For example, it is forbidden to misrepresent the contents of other messages, to change your comments with the intent to hide or misrepresent the meanings, or to provoke other users into disobeying the rules.
8. Don't include spam.
9. Obey the administrators of the site. If you are warned to translate your message or correct it, because it doesn't obey the rules, please do that. Otherwise, your messages may be deleted and you may be blocked and unable to use the page further."

* bold added

The above excerpt is viewable here:

http://en.lernu.net/pri_lernu/reguloj_kondicxoj....

Usually posters provide their own translation. If they are unable to do that, then they usually post something like "Please translate this into ________ language" whatever the language of the forum is.

It's true that this forum digresses a lot, but since the topic of the forum is "for discussions in English", it isn't breaking the forum rules to digress to topics that don't necessarily involve Esperanto (even if they began talking about Esperanto).

I agree that the Esperanto-language forums can be somewhat poor in content. However the way to solve this problem isn't to post to the English forum in Esperanto - it's to create more forum threads and stimulate discussion in the Esperanto forums. If you make it worth people's while to read a conversation, they'll come and read it and participate. I am sure that we have many posters who are here in the English forum, though their English is imperfect, for that precise reason.

Genjix:

LyzTyphone:

Genjix:Kial vi parolas stultecon ĉi tie en la anglejo? Vi ne diras uzan ion ajn por komencantoj

Odoras ke iu baldaŭ blokiĝos.

Smells like someone is gonna be banned.

You don't ban people for having different opinions to you. Maybe in China it's normal, but not here.

Genjix, I really don't like your attitude. What on earth has China got to do with all of this?!

People can write in the English forums if they want to, and you should just shove off and leave them to it!

You can just use the Esperanto forums if that's what you like - many other people use them, too. Coming over here and trying to bully people into abandoning the English forum is not going to work. Just stick to what you like and try and win people over by doing something constructive, rather than just making criticisms!

Genjix:

LyzTyphone:

Genjix:Kial vi parolas stultecon ĉi tie en la anglejo? Vi ne diras uzan ion ajn por komencantoj

Odoras ke iu baldaŭ blokiĝos.

Smells like someone is gonna be banned.

You don't ban people for having different opinions to you. Maybe in China it's normal, but not here.

Genjix:If moderators are here, then maybe they should enforce a ban on threads which aren't beginners asking questions about Esperanto in English. All the other stuff reduces value from the Esperanto forums and moves discussion here.

Voilà.

(Furthermore, Lyz is from Taiwan, where they feel the frustration about the Chinese filter first hand because it affects their internet traffic. And if I recall, the UK (and a fair bit of Europe) is pushing for some extremely similar laws to China's. In fact, it would not surprise me if the UK introduced internet filtering well before Taiwan did (well, within their power as opposed to having China's filters affect their own web traffic).)

Anyway, I understand your worries. Sed ne zorgu! One's probably better off learning EO in a heavily Anglophonic environment while relaxing than learning EO while stressing about it. Simply because worrying about these things inhibits learning about languages.

Additionally, the "fluff" you describe might actually have something interesting in it regardless of language. For example, I learnt a LOT of things about linguistics here in English. Because of that, when I went to learning EO, I could understand the rational a lot better, and I could relate it to my other language, English. I could at the same time reference back to languages I have learnt before and go "hey, thats the same thing that happens in Russian/Swedish/Indonesian/French!".

Things like grammar, and different ways of expressing the same concept, I would't have become aware of if I just delved into EO without discussing or reading these things in English. I might have a slowly decreasing EO vocabulary thanks to my current French studies, but thanks to learning the grammar in English, I could learn EO grammar, which helped me open my mind up to a whole new way of saying the same old "fluff".

Anyway, "fluff" is what keeps the universe running

That said, you're free to pursue knowledge of Esperanto however you like. But the above is just a little bit of reasoning for why some might hang around here. Some of us might not push for stronger EO acquisition simply because we're happy looking on and cheering from the sidelines, and many won't be happy with that level of mediocracy. So feel free to pursue it how you like of course.

(Qwertz, in this case, "fluff" means stuff of little value or consistency, just like how "fluff" is normally used to describe hair or fur or carpet like stuff that's not very thick. It's not quite the same as the EO "Lanugo")

ceigered:
(Qwertz, in this case, "fluff" means stuff of little value or consistency, just like how "fluff" is normally used to describe hair or fur or carpet like stuff that's not very thick. It's not quite the same as the EO "Lanugo")

Thanks. In German I only know that Fussel (=German) this way. In German I would use parolas ferrubo/ "Schrott/Sch##ß/Schwachsinn reden" what Genjix tried to categorize.

Can someone summarise what was said above? I can't be bothered to read all those walls of text.

Thanks.

Genjix:Can someone summarise what was said above? I can't be bothered to read all those walls of text.

Thanks.

I think that English is your mother language. If yes, I must say that its style is not elegant.

Genjix:Can someone summarise what was said above? I can't be bothered to read all those walls of text.

Now that's pathetic.

Genjix:Can someone summarise what was said above? I can't be bothered to read all those walls of text.

Thanks.

tl;dr:

Let's all chill the f___ out and stop caring bout s____ that ain't important before this ends up looking like a flame war.