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Even Greener Pastures
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#Post#: 14700--------------------------------------------------
HEY, WHAT IS WITH THIS "CHAT" THING?
By: NealC Date: April 22, 2019, 7:08 pm
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I hope you have all checked out the Chat feature, it's fun!
When I first came online in 1994/95 it was for chat on the old
prodigy system. I made many real life friends in Chat, and
ultimately met my wife on a Chat board. Chat has a special
place in my heart, and is an excellent way to pass the time :-)
Of course there are just a few of us here, and we are scattered
all over the world's time zones. So meeting people for Chat can
be rather random. But Chat seemed to be a natural fit for a
language learning forum and a great place for the members to
practice their target language. We hope you will take advantage
of the feature for just that reason. We added the calendar
feature too, so you can set up a Chat appointment with someone
and note on the calendar that on such day at such time you will
be chatting in German, or Polish, or Italian, or whatever. The
forum clock is set to Universal Coordinated Time, so any
scheduling on the calendar should be done on that clock. Use
the internet to translate UTC to your time zone. And remember -
UTC never "Springs Ahead" for daylight savings time.
But beyond that here in EGP Admin we would like to use Chat as a
recruiting tool to bring in New Members. Even Greener Pastures
was started as a group of people disenchanted with the arbitrary
way we were treated by the powers that be at Italki.
Unfortunately, as much as we enjoy each other's company we have
not been able to grow much beyond our initial group as people do
not know about us, have not been able to meet us as friends, and
the many advantages of our little group are not readily
apparent. Chat can help fix that.
We are proposing that we choose a date in May to host our first
"Open to the Public" Chat. We would like the members to sign up
for at least an hour on that day to facilitate Chat with anyone
who might show up as a Guest. It would be nice if we could be
open for 24 hours, we have people all over the globe, but 12
hours is fine too. Right now we are looking for English
speakers, but we are open to branching out to whatever you like.
Members would be there to Chat, to help people with their
English questions, and to show them how our site can bring a
little light into their lives and perhaps make language learning
easier and more fun. We would informally advertise the Chat
day/hours on any language related board; we are fairly sure
there will be no problem in getting a crowd for a Free Chat in
English with native and fluent speakers.
We would like to repeat this scheduled Chat for a few weeks at
first, just to get a good, growing membership going. Hopefully
after that scheduling a Chat once a month and any chat that just
pops up normally should keep things moving. We are also hopeful
that in a few weeks time we will have new sections at the ready
to help people with language learning, we are already talking to
some of you in that regard. Perhaps one day we could even have
a section where teachers and students can set up lessons
together!
This board never has to become big just for the sake of being
big or having numbers. But we do want it to have a depth of
membership that all by itself will make this place even more
dynamic and fun. And we do believe that in helping others we
will make language learning even more fun for ourselves.
So, please respond below with any Feedback!
Thanks!
#Post#: 14701--------------------------------------------------
Re: HEY, WHAT IS WITH THIS "CHAT" THING?
By: SHL Date: April 22, 2019, 11:26 pm
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Neal, let me be the first to thank and congratulate you for
doing a truly amazing job at revising the board in so many
positive ways. I think it‘s really wonderful of you to put the
time and effort into trying to build the board as you are doing.
Unfortunately, the chat function does make it a bit tricky to
find people at the right time and place to be available, but it
was a great addition, and it does work. (My time zone puts me at
the worst place among everyone else, unless it‘s about lunchtime
for me, but I can sort of make it work.)
I also like the green tint on everything (I assume it‘s the same
for everyone else). I think you‘ve taken your natural capitalist
business and marketing skills and applied them to this board to
make it a big success, and you did it all without any monetary
incentive. Pretty cool.
Italki and other language boards might be great to recruit from.
Learning a language should be fun and non-intimidating and I
think you can guide this board in that direction. I will say, we
definitely should not try to recruit from that English
Stackexchange board. Those are the rudest people I‘ve ever run
into in my life. I posted a few things on the English board in
English of course, yesterday and some Australian guy commented
and said I didn‘t answer someone‘s question properly or
something, and he said that my „non-English orthography“ was
off-putting. I was like, „what?“ I had to look up the word
„orthography“ - I mean, I have heard it before but it‘s hardly a
word I use everyday. I suppose he didn‘t like my German
quotation makes, the „low and high“ style and I did spell
English as Englisch, but talk about picky. Then I logged on
there today and they blocked me from posting answers to English
language questions in English because they said my answers
weren‘t up to their „quality standards.“ And that Australian guy
said I should break up my paragraphs more or something and not
write in blocks? Can you imagine these rude people? There‘s no
love of humanity in their hearts. They‘re as bad as those Quora
folks.
But, never mind them, you are doing a wonderful job and I know
it will be a success. :)
Oh, did you notice my new little quote below, „Nur tote Fische
schwimmen mit dem Strom“? Only dead fish swim with the tide.
This is the title of a 1981 book by the same name, by Michael
Schneider, with the official English translation „Only dead fish
go with the flow.“
There‘s an online explanation of the phrase, which states it is
usually used to embolden people not to accept everything, to
become engaged, and to trust in their own opinion and problem
solving abilities. It says its origins are not known, but that
it may have arisen as a consequence of the advent of
left-leaning political movements of the 1960s and 70s. The
origin of the term might have been from the expression to swim
against the tide or flow. Sort of a spin on that expression.
So, your improvements to the board are certain proof that you
are not swimming with the tide yourself, which is admirable.
Great job.
#Post#: 14704--------------------------------------------------
Re: HEY, WHAT IS WITH THIS "CHAT" THING?
By: NealC Date: April 23, 2019, 9:19 am
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Thanks for the kind words Steve!
The green is probably just temporary, until I can figure out how
to get it back. It was red for a while there but Alharacas
thought her computer screen was bleeding :-)
Well, we want you for a few hours that day Steve, you are a good
chatter and you are in the late time zone. Just don't try to
convert everyone to lean too far to the left on their first day
out. Perhaps you can even convince a few to come in for some
German Chat at some point.
thanks!
#Post#: 14705--------------------------------------------------
Re: HEY, WHAT IS WITH THIS "CHAT" THING?
By: SHL Date: April 23, 2019, 11:03 am
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[quote author=NealC link=topic=998.msg14704#msg14704
date=1556029198]
Thanks for the kind words Steve!
The green is probably just temporary, until I can figure out how
to get it back. It was red for a while there but Alharacas
thought her computer screen was bleeding :-)
Well, we want you for a few hours that day Steve, you are a good
chatter and you are in the late time zone. Just don't try to
convert everyone to lean too far to the left on their first day
out. Perhaps you can even convince a few to come in for some
German Chat at some point.
thanks!
[/quote]
Well Neal, as far as converting people to the democratic
socialism goes, as they say „nur tote Fische schwimmen mit dem
Strom“, so there you go. :) But yeah, I‘ll be glad to
participate that day in chat and see if I can get someone into
German chat sometime.
#Post#: 14795--------------------------------------------------
Re: HEY, WHAT IS WITH THIS "CHAT" THING?
By: Aliph Date: April 28, 2019, 6:42 am
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Hi there!
A) I would gladly participate to the chat room, but what are we
gonna talking about? Besides, I have an awful Italian accent
speaking English (the global Lingua Franca) and I am shy.
B) I absolutely love the green color. Please administrators do
not change it.
#Post#: 14798--------------------------------------------------
Re: HEY, WHAT IS WITH THIS "CHAT" THING?
By: Truman Overby Date: April 28, 2019, 6:57 am
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[quote author=Sofia link=topic=998.msg14795#msg14795
date=1556451728]
Hi there!
A) I would gladly participate to the chat room, but what are we
gonna talking about? Besides, I have an awful Italian accent
speaking English (the global Lingua Franca) and I am shy.
B) I absolutely love the green color. Please administrators do
not change it.
[/quote]
As far as I know, there's no voice function in the chat room.
And what's wrong with foreign-accented English? I could listen
all day long to foreign-accented English. Most Americans feel
the same way. Personally, I'd love to hear you speak English.
#Post#: 14799--------------------------------------------------
Re: HEY, WHAT IS WITH THIS "CHAT" THING?
By: Truman Overby Date: April 28, 2019, 7:02 am
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At first I thought it said this CAT thing. I like cats but I
think we need a separate board for cat discussions. :D
#Post#: 14802--------------------------------------------------
Re: HEY, WHAT IS WITH THIS "CHAT" THING?
By: NealC Date: April 28, 2019, 8:08 am
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No **** ing cat discussions! And no videos, especially of them
being scared by cucumbers. Violators will be taunted severely,
survivors will be <French accent> taunted a second time!<\french
accent>.
It is bad enough when Steve posts his "amusing dressed up cat
pictures". How embarrassing.
#Post#: 14803--------------------------------------------------
Re: HEY, WHAT IS WITH THIS "CHAT" THING?
By: Nikola Date: April 28, 2019, 8:25 am
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[quote author=NealC link=topic=998.msg14802#msg14802
date=1556456909]
It is bad enough when Steve posts his "amusing dressed up cat
pictures". How embarrassing.
[/quote]
Those were not for you!
#Post#: 14804--------------------------------------------------
Re: HEY, WHAT IS WITH THIS "CHAT" THING?
By: NealC Date: April 28, 2019, 8:28 am
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[member=7]Sofia[/member]
The new green is a rather happy accident!
The admin controls on this board are not very intuitive, you
really have to "play around" and see what changes/gets broken to
understand how things work.
I actually turned things red before Alharacas told me it made it
look like her monitor was bleeding. I couldn't figure out how
to change it back, so she asked for green. Personally I would
prefer more of an emerald green, but that one only came with St
Patrick Shamrocks so I went with this.
Not sure if Alharacas asked for green because of the site name
or just out of desperation for anything "not red", but it is
rather ingenious and a fitting choice. Proof that a two headed
admin is better than one :-)
So if you see further curious things going on, it is just me
trying to figure this place out. Pay no attention to the man
behind the curtain!
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