erinja:No, we will not be changing the rules of the forum...

You exaggerate a bit, one esperanto post here or there does not change the very idea of English forum. And as Sudanglo has pointed out - there may be someone who wants to add something to the discussion, but he/she can't due to limited command of English. Why can't he/she do it in esperanto on esperanto devoted website? If this action is singular it does not harm anyone. And such posts doesn't happen in threads for beginners.

You may interfere when two persons start a discussion in some other language.

geo63, you are sometimes worried that people misinterpret things that you say.

Please do not EVER compare something that someone says to things that you read in Mein Kampf. Because people are very likely to get offended and get angry with you.

You may be interested in reading about Godwin's Law / Leĝo de Godwin / Prawo Godwina

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I'm not angry at all. I'm explaining to you, and to other users, the situation.

Please do not tell me when I may and may not interfere. These forums have rules. Users who do not like the rules can feel free to use a different Esperanto learning website and not this one. And yes, I will feel free to tell a user when they are not following the site's rules.

The first few times it will be a friendly reminder. After the same person disobeys the rules many times, the reminders become less friendly. I'm sorry about it, but we have these rules for a reason.

erinja:Please do not tell me when I may and may not interfere...

I am not telling you what to do: I wrote "you may" in sense of "oni povas". It was not directed to you at all - again misunderstanding in English. Be tolerant - you are talking to a foreigner, not native.

And as for "Mein Kampf" - I have never read the book, only short passage (on some Website) that dealt with esperanto, and I didn't like it.

Erinja, RiotNrrd, +1 (I totally agree with both of you).

The main problem here, I think, it's not only related to the rule of 'English in the English forum', but with the fact that discussions not related to Esperanto and English are started in this forum.

I understand threads related to the translation of English texts to Esperanto and vice-versa... Or beginners asking how to express an idea. This kind of threads are the most common in other non-Esperanto forums.

But threads like this one, the one about linguists and Esperanto (I know altebrilas also started that thread in Esperanto), PMEG on Kindle, a good film in Esperanto, pangrams, etc. should have been started in the Esperanto forums, and not here.

There have been lately a lot of threads in this forums, and in some Esperanto ones, related to this fact... Some people have asked why this forum has that much activity compared with other national forums, why interesting threads are started here and not in the (more international) Esperanto ones. There is even a survey about who speaks Esperanto AND English, that was started because of this fact.

I think we should help to change this and, whenever an interesting question comes to our mind, we should post it in one of the Esperanto forums, if it's not related to this one. If somebody posts here one of those interesting threads, we should try to move it to the Esperanto ones, asking the poster to translate it (or translating it ourselves, and posting it where it belongs).

Just my two cents.

Amike,

Daniel.

At the heart of this issue is the question what are National Language forums for?

No doubt, the original intention was to provide a space for beginners whose Esperanto wasn't up to either submitting a question about Esperanto, in Esperanto, or understanding any answer to that question given in Esperanto.

But things seem to have moved on.

The English language forum seems to have acquired an international following and contributions are often from experienced Esperantists outside anglalingvanujo.

That doesn't seem to me to be a bad thing.
In fact, it seems to me a positively good thing.

Even for the narrow purpose of dealing with beginners' questions, the presence of experienced Esperantists of different mother tongue backgrounds is clearly useful.

But if the English language forum were confined to just beginners' questions and its current free-ranging form were abandoned would it retain its popularity?

Once you admit that it is an asset to Lernu to have attracted to a forum many experienced Esperantists from different countries, then the question naturally arises as to whether it might not be a good idea to allow bi-lingual contribution in the National Language forum.

This would allow for an enhanced contribution from those who can read that national language but not easily write in it.

To say you as the poster must translate your Esperanto posting into the national language doesn't adress this issue. If the contributor could do that, he/she would have posted in the national language in the first place.

Obviously in answer to beginners' questions the poster who replies in Esperanto must request that native speakers of the national language help him out with a translation.

But again this isn't a bad thing - in fact makes the nat lang forum a more interesting place by presenting such challenges.

By the way, can I just add that for a period, until the running of the site it was handed over to someone else, the Forums of the Young British Esperantists (inevitably including many beginners) were run on a bilingual basis (English and Esperanto in the same threads) and it all worked very smoothly.

sudanglo:The English language forum seems to have acquired an international following and contributions are often from experienced Esperantists outside anglalingvanujo.

That doesn't seem to me to be a bad thing.
In fact, it seems to me a positively good thing.

Not really, because there are forums in Esperanto to do that. We are excluding lots of other people to contribute in these discussions. Only people who can understand English read this forum. People who can't understand English, but reads and writes in Esperanto can't participate in the discussions started in this forum (even if we allow bilingualism in this forum, they would only understand part of it).

I have seen at least one Japanese person protesting that an interesting thread was started in one Esperanto forum and in the English one, and the discussion progressed only here, and he couldn't understand English (it was the one about linguists and Esperanto).

What you say about those forums worked well in the YBE because the site was aimed at English people, lernu is aimed at people from all the world.

And remember that the goal of this site is to help people to learn Esperanto, not to practice their English.

Amike,

Daniel.

I think it generally doesn't matter since someone who can't understand an esperanto comment can just ask for a translation. Let's promote some good ol' fashioned capitalist initiative

In the mean time, a bilingual discussion probably is better than having it in full english with translations for EO, or full EO for those not up to that stage since they can still grasp the context of the conversation in one language, and use that to decipher the other.

(Thus, @Henma, I don't think it'd be bad to promote the use of some Esperanto here in the national language forums as it sort of acts like a "docking system" between the national language forums and the EO forums, allowing people to go between easier without having to "step outside" (I'm thinking of a space-analogy )).

@ Geo, if you don't might me putting in my 5¢ worth, for an explanation of the may/might/can distinction, generally we often use "may/might" to create imperatives when talking to others for some silly reason that no one knows. (and I noticed "moz'e" (can't do correct accent symbol) in Polish which is similar to moć means "maybe" too).

The "may" effectively then means you give the person permission.

So,, "You may interfere when two persons start a discussion in some other language." means "I give you permission to interfere when two people start a discussion in some other language".

To avoid this nasty afteraffect we change it to things like "It might be better if ...." or "Maybe (someone) can .....".
But even the, if we use "you", it still makes it sound like you have authority over someone, and Erinja probably felt this instead of what you meant.

So we can then change it to "Maybe we can/It might be better if we .....", because the "we" makes it sound like we're all equal and we're all in it together, working in glorious socialist utopia, with no patronising (OK, maybe a silly way to put it, but that's probably how it works in the subconscience!).

Of course, there are some who don't like the idea of "we" and get offended at the thought of being compared to a fellow human being, but they're "ignorindaj"

On a small point of language, Geo, 'You may X' in English (depends on context) can carry the meaning of 'I give you permission to X'.

Any misunderstanding on Erinja's part just goes to support the case for allowing bi-lingual posting.

Edit: Oh I see Ceiger has already made this point.

sudanglo:On a small point of language, Geo, 'You may X' in English (depends on context) can carry the meaning of 'I give you permission to X'.

Thanks, I will remember that. I thought that "you may" meant "you can if you like" (I mean = no one will have anything against if you interfere in such situation). I know it was clumsy English, but Erinja takes everythng too seriously, forgeting that it was writen in broken English, so the meaning might (is that right this "might" here?) be different. Those "can" "may" "might" always confuse me a lot and I am too old to begin learning English anew.

PS: I didn't learn English at school, but all by myself in freetime. So do not expect too much from me.