Idea about new forum structure and expansion

[Jasper May]

@Masteradmin: That would be a good idea. But please, 1. keep the same structure (same categories), 2. keep all the posts. I'd hate to lose all the posts again.
So you could register at www.masterlanguages.com and have:
- russian.masterlanguages.com - General Discussion, Pronunciation and Accent, Grammar and Vocabulary, Translate This!, Culture and History, Book Reviews etc. etc. to Tech Support and Site Comments
- german.masterlanguages.com - General Discussion, Pronunciation and Accent, Grammar and Vocabulary, Translate This!, Culture and History, Book Reviews etc. etc. to Tech Support and Site Comments
- spanish.masterlanguages.com - General Discussion, Pronunciation and Accent, Grammar and Vocabulary, Translate This!, Culture and History, Book Reviews etc. etc. to Tech Support and Site Comments

Anyway, you get the idea.

[Mile-O-Phile]

So you could register at www.masterlanguages.com and have:

I'd suggest master-languages as the hyphen is interpreted as a space and helps with search engines, etc.

[Pravit]

Jasper, you have forgotten such arabic.master-languages.com.

[Jasper May]

And Chinese, and Japanese, and Latin... Aaah, if only I had the time. Pesky school...

[Pravit]

"Don't forget the Punjabi!"(TM)

[MasterAdmin]

In case someone else didn't understand, this is what I mean.

http://jerriko.net/images/perhaps.jpg

That's the gist of it, I didn't want to put all the current categories in there because the image would have bee too big.

So far EffMah's suggestion makes good sense to me. The only concern I have is that the domain name is MasterRussian! I guess newcomers will be confused to find an umbrella of languages under MasterRussian.

@Masteradmin: That would be a good idea. But please, 1. keep the same structure (same categories), 2. keep all the posts. I'd hate to lose all the posts again.
So you could register at www.masterlanguages.com and have:
- russian.masterlanguages.com - General Discussion, Pronunciation and Accent, Grammar and Vocabulary, Translate This!, Culture and History, Book Reviews etc. etc. to Tech Support and Site Comments
- german.masterlanguages.com - General Discussion, Pronunciation and Accent, Grammar and Vocabulary, Translate This!, Culture and History, Book Reviews etc. etc. to Tech Support and Site Comments
- spanish.masterlanguages.com - General Discussion, Pronunciation and Accent, Grammar and Vocabulary, Translate This!, Culture and History, Book Reviews etc. etc. to Tech Support and Site Comments

Anyway, you get the idea.

If I understand correctly, you suggest several separate forums each on an individual sub-domain. Is that right? Well, perhaps that will make them too unrelated because you would have to leave one forum in order to enter another one.

Like the forum on this site I've stumbled across? It seems quite new (although it has over 1,000 members) as there's little discussion that I can find. There's nothing much on it, anyway. It's got one hell of a painful navigation system.

At a glance, I really like their website and structure. But I envision problems with making such a site poplular. The more languages you cover, the harder it gets to become good at anything.

[quote=Mile-O-Phile]

www.masterlanguages.com[/url] and have:

I'd suggest master-languages as the hyphen is interpreted as a space and helps with search engines, etc.[/quote:1ed5swos]
Let's forget about Master(-)anything/whatever. Most of them are already taken. I think we should be more original. Perhaps, we should make a contest for the best name. But don't post them here please, because some cybersquater will snatch them right away. You can PM the name to me if you have an idea

[MasterAdmin]

Like the forum on this site I've stumbled across? It seems quite new (although it has over 1,000 members) as there's little discussion that I can find. There's nothing much on it, anyway. It's got one hell of a painful navigation system.

Well, on the second thought that site is too ambitious with just 1000+ members it has. And it has an extra level to pass on your way to the language of interest. I think that putting everything on a single long page could be better.

[MasterAdmin]

OK, we have some changes now. I believe I considered all your comments before making them. Please, tell me what you think, what languages you'd like to see there and whether you'd like to be a moderator for one of the forums.

[Jasper May]

@Masteradmin: I think you wouldn't go to many forums anyway, I for one would just stick to Russian and maybe Arabic, and occasionally go to the boring languages for school, so I won't need links to all the other forum. But of course you could do it like you've done at the bottom of this site, with links to all the parts of masterrussian.com. So every forum would have links to every other forum.

At least I'd like Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Italian, Latin, Arabic, and the boring bourgeois languages like German, French and Spanish. If you decide to do a Dutch one, I'd gladly be the moderator.

[MasterAdmin]

I will be opening new forums depending on demand and then they will have to be promoted one way or another. So if you like Dutch then maybe you'll want to take some responsibility about this part of the forum. But again it's a question of how many people will use it. To begin with, I only want to have a few forums that are really in demand. Hey, I'll start a Dutch one but if it goes slowly then you'll probably want to switch to some other language.

I do not have a procedure for moderators yet. But most likely it will include not only deleting stupid and off-topic posts but also contributing to the discussions and promotion of corresponsing section of the forum.

[Mile-O-Phile]

That looks great.

I was just wondering about the Norwegian forum. Are Swedish and Danish not very similar in most respects? Was just thinking that Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian might cover a better gamut of Scandinavian languages.

[Jasper May]

Well, I don't like it. I think it's spreading resources far too much - and thin. And why are all these subforums on the domain 'masterrussian.net'?

[Mile-O-Phile]

And why are all these subforums on the domain 'masterrussian.net'?

I'd view it as a primer in that MasterAdmin can see which languages "take-off" and start getting traffic. Those that do will, no doubt, be awarded their own forum going forward.

[Pravit]

Well, I already mentioned a rather wonderful possible name for a Punjabi website, but I don't think anyone would go on it(including me). The languages I want are Arabic and Chinese - they have a very large number of niche learners that have no place to go to discuss things online. There are already tons of French and German forums online that are well moderated and full of discussion, so I don't know if opening another one would help all that much. I'm all for Scandinavian langauges, though I doubt that I would visit their forums very often.

[TronDD]

I want to request a Japanese forum. I'd spend a lot of time there.

Tim.

[Pravit]

TronDD-san wa nihongo o hanashimasu ka? Watashi wa nihongo o sukoshi shimasu....

[TronDD]

Well you know more than I do, Pravit. I barely got the gist of that.

I know some words and phases and a tiny bit of grammar. I've been trying to avoid learning Japanese so I'll focus on Russian but I keep getting curious about Japanese.

I think I'll end up breaking down and trying to learn them both at the same time. That could be fun, I enjoy languages but don't have a knack for learning them.

I'd be in the Japanese forum asking questions, not answering them.

Tim.

[Pravit]

Hee, I know a very very small bit, with those sentences above I pretty much exhausted my Japanese. I used to be really interested in it, but its rigid grammar and the sheer quantity of set phrases drove me insane. Sort of like the way they insist on teaching their fighting. Dammit, kata ain't gonna work when joo gettin' beaten by two thugs wit' pipes!

[TronDD]

"We learn Karate so that we need never use it" -- Akira-sensei

Tim.

[carperdiem]

ЧАТ ЧАТ ЧАТ ЧАТ ЧАТ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok .. you get the point. What better way to practice your Russian than with chat! My god man!

Sorry... I got a little worked up.

I often have to go on RussianNy.com and make a vain attempt just to practice some Russian in a chat room. Some guy in Brighton Beach always end up cyber-laughing at my poor Russian. Here, at MR.net, we have people that would be willing to help those out that need it. It seems to be an ideal addition, and a sure fire ===>DRAW FOR MORE WEBSURFERS!!!!!!!<====

So whatever you do, please add a Russian chat room!

As far as the structural changes go, I really like to forum structure as it is. However, I would also like to see other LESS COVERED languages.

Like others have said, German, French, and Spanish sites are a dime a thousand. Would be a waste of time to add 'em. Add something like a Hindi forum or Chinese. I would really love a Chinese forum, Hindi forum, or Arabic forum since those are such widely spoken and important languages.

Thanks...

P.S. ADD CHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!