a question to the new moderator

Once I recommended this site to a friend, who could have been a valuable member to this forum if he had just given it a second thought to participate, but instead he said to me: “waw, this forum is full of rubbish, bullshit and racism”… he never came back.

My question to the new moderator is: why did this person, who quickly checked the posts in here, come to such a conclusion, say so about this forum and subsequently never came back?

The problem of this forum is that it is not drawing the attention of people who really knows how to write. How would you expect a serious participant to write here if he has to choose between such threads:

- Have a running/runny nose?
- Why is English swearing so weak?

“no offensive is made here to those who started these threads”

I believe this situation is a consequence of tightening the topics to language related subjects. I am one of those who kept within the circle of languages talk, but once I found nothing to talk about, at the end I started a very silly thread, which has the word “language” in its title: what language do you use in your dreams!

What is so wrong to have categories to choose between to let people talk more seriously? For example “Art”. I could say, out of respect to this word, no one will post dirty stuff there like “Fuck Brunce”. You can have languages forum, Art forum, history forum… this way, we can learn English not only from people who are here either to argue, or voluntarily here to answer questions about “running nose”, but also from people who can talk in depth in a subject they like to talk about, and to be interactive in different subjects, rather than limiting it to languages.

This site is perfectly “handy” to use, but it lakes interesting topics.

And something just came in mind; why don’t you set levels for participants to write in. for example: Beginner, intermediate, advanced. Maybe this could put some pressure to improve our writings, after all, it’s purely an educational mission this site is for.

Once again, I am excepting an honest answer from the new moderator on my question above.

This is an ESL site, so its logical that not all can speak perfect English. Whats the problem in asking about idiomatic expressions 'to have a runny nose'?

no problem, except that it does not attrach new good writers to join so that we learn from them.

mike : « And something just came in mind; why don’t you set levels for participants to write in. for example: Beginner, intermediate, advanced. Maybe this could put some pressure to improve our writings, after all, it’s purely an educational mission this site is for. »

Et dans quelle catégorie penses-tu pouvoir jouer ? Es-tu certain que tout le monde ici partagera ton avis ?

google translation to greg's:

"And in which category do you think of being able to play?"

Intermediate level, sometimes advanced, but I have to be careful of what I write....that's if you mean the level categories

" Unquestionable Es you that everyone here will divide your opinion? "

have no clue what google trnaslation means!

<<no problem, except that it does not attrach new good writers to join so that we learn from them.>>

What? No entiendo lo que querés decir... La razón de este foro es enseñar a los noobs a hablar inglés correcto... Si tu amigo quiere hablar con otros nativos debe buscar otro foro..

<<Unquestionable Es you that everyone here will divide your opinion?">>

<<have no clue what google trnaslation means!>>

= Are you sure that everyone shares your opinion?

Please, don't you ever use the google tranlator. It's crappy.

BTW, Mike, have you ever heard of *equal rights*?

mike, how many foreign languages can you speak?

If there were multiple ESL levels, oh la la, who would correct all the mistakes? Hey, Furrykef! Do you want the job?

From Liz: **Please, don't you ever use the google tranlator. It's crappy.**

Although there are no grammatical mistakes in your sentence, but in situations like this, you should not use this style of writing. You better say for example:

" by the way, don't use google translation. Its really crappy"
" better not to use google translation. Its crappy" ...
"you should not use google translation. Its crappy" … etc.

Writing is not just only being able to write correct grammar. You have “writing skills” which is just as challenging, and requires to practice, both witting, and as importantly, reading and seeking knowledge from different sources and writers. Apparently, this forum is not meant to be for that purpose.

How you write to a friend or to a colleague might not apply here, unless you indeed meant to use that accent when you wrote your comments about googles trslatore, which is then something different.

And yes, I am aware of the “equal rights”. I have the right to have my opinion spoken, and you have the right to agree or disagree; Nothing wrong in that.

The issue of "rights" in whatever context is so much of a hot potato is it not? So many people bang on and on endlessly about their "rights" (be it in the European Court of Human Rights or whatever!) but the issue of "responsibilities" is overlooked completely - either by mere oversight or by design.

Anyway, it's so nice to know that this Forum is being controlled and hopefully we will see no more mindless trollery and obscenities.

All posts dealing with the mechanics of the English Language are great and very welcome, and at the same time any discussion on a whole range of topics is also really nice so long as they are written in reasonably correct English. At the same time I think this is how native English speakers could help learners, and that does place a bit of a responsibility on our shoulders otherwise we would be seen as right dickheads if we don't set some kind of example.

I'm always wary of correcting glaring mistakes made by people who are obviously learners of the Language and I tend not to do it. Giving offence is not very pleasant and it's hard to know where to draw the line.

Ok so yes but not sure so possibly not

But this new moderator Josh is very hyper-active by nature. He needs to calm down a bit. He is deleting posts right, left and center.