Hey everyone, new mod here. I’d like to hear you on a few things, in order to make this community grow:

1. Who should be the primary target audience of this community?

We could tailor it primarily for layperson or for people with deeper Linguistics knowledge. Or we could simply let it roll.

2. Which type of moderation do you guys like? Stricter or laxer?

A stricter moderation would include rules like “quote your sources”, “no crack theories” (proto- or pseudo-scientific hypotheses lacking methodological rigour), stuff like this; it would also mean that I’d discourage off-topic a bit further.

3. “Almost no crown or cross” rule: yes, no, indifferent?

By “almost no cross or cross” I mean that posters would only be able to talk about politics and religion as much as necessary for the subject of Linguistics. For example you’d be still fine posting something like this, but you wouldn’t be able to discuss here the Marxist side of the matter, only the Linguistic one. Just an example, mind you.

4. How much do you know about Linguistics?

Are you a grad, undergrad, informed layperson, or just curious? Are there areas that you feel confident on, like Sociolinguistics or Phonetics or something like this?

5. Which type of content do you want to see here?

Papers? Videos? Discussions? Historical Linguistics? Sociolinguistics? Phonetics and Phonology? Since mods are IMO responsible to nurture a community, I don’t mind looking for stuff to post here, but I’d like to know which one.

Thank you!

EDIT: I’m reading all your comments, even the ones that I didn’t reply to, OK?

  • library_patron@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    5·
    2 years ago
    1. A mix would be nice.
    2. I’d certainly prefer stricter moderation; “quote your sources” and “no crack theories” seems like a bare minimum to making this community valuable.
    3. Yes, it would be nice to keep the focus on the linguistics, which is how I understand the “almost”.
    4. I have decent familiarity with computational linguistics, but linguistics is not my main area.
    5. I’d be most interested in keeping up with and seeing discussion on the latest publications, but I’d have no problem with other content.
    • LvxferreOPM
      2·
      2 years ago

      Good to know that there’s people from the CL here, as I’m clueless when it comes to that area!

      Yup, that’s what the “almost” means. Thanks to you folks I have a good idea on how to implement the rule.

  • hakase
    3·
    2 years ago

    1. A mix would be nice, especially while the community here is so small. On a side note, somebody needs to make /c/linguisticsmemes asap.

    2. While I did value /r/linguistics’ more strict academic focus, it also made the place a bit dreary at times. So maybe “stricter but not quite as strict as /r/lingustics”?

    3. I agree with this rule completely, though I wonder which issues you will choose to consider political/not political.

    4. I’m a professor in a lingustics-adjacent field, with extensive knowledge about historical linguistics methodology and a variety of modern synchronic theoretical methods in various other subfields as well.

    5. All of the above. Especially while the community is small, I don’t see much benefit in being too exclusionary.

    Thanks for doing this - people like you who have the time and willingness to build communities here are what will make Lemmy successful long-term!

    Edit: I just saw your comment below (and now also the sidebar), and I think “One way I can implement this is by a simple “keep on-topic” rule, but enforce it a bit harsher for subjects bound to bring divisions outside Linguistics into the table.” is the perfect way to approach the problem.

  • lalay721@feddit.it
    3·
    2 years ago

    New user here (formerly lurking for years on r/linguistics (and r/conlangs)):

    1 (and 2). While everything depends on what “deeper” is, I think the sweet spot would be to have both advanced and beginner-friendly (as in helping beginners and giving resources) while not allowing crank linguistics, i.e. trying to close topics such as e.g. “is English a Romance language?” posted by people with absolutely no clue of the topic. (of course that should probably be done by having one or more lists of resources to share with newbies, shutting them up would not benefit anyone I think).

    1. I’m kinda indifferent but, yeah, topics going to discuss the non-linguistic side but the political or religious ones should go to another community, I think it should be part of a wider rule on going off topic.

    4 (and 5). I studied languages in university but formal linguistics courses only as an aside (although those were quality courses). That said, I have been conlanging for a whole decade now and studying topics of linguistics for and because of that, so that I do read some papers once in a while for curiosity… “informed layperson” I think sums it up. As for topics, historical linguistics and phonology might be the ones I’m most interested in, but everything is welcome as long as it’s of an intermediate-advanced level; and I would prefer papers, somehow linguistics is not a subject I can keep attention to if it’s presented as a video, the only time I look for them is to hear other languages being spoken.

    • LvxferreOPM
      2·
      2 years ago

      Thank you! I hope that more people reply, so I can get a good grasp of it.

      I think it [politics and religion] should be part of a wider rule on going off topic.

      Noted. One way I can implement this is by a simple “keep on-topic” rule, but enforce it a bit harsher for subjects bound to bring divisions outside Linguistics into the table.

  • agrammatic@feddit.de
    3·
    2 years ago
    1. Who should be the primary target audience of this community?

    I think it’s fine to let that play out

    1. Which type of moderation do you guys like? Stricter or laxer?

    Similar to above, but a baseline should be maintained to keep the initial contributors coming back. E.g. for one, I’m not looking to get angry by PIE-denialist drivel for example (this might be a location-specific concern).

    1. “Almost no crown or cross” rule: yes, no, indifferent?

    I find it better to moderate the quality of the discussion, rather than the content. So long as it is still relevant to Linguistics and it’s not a flamewar, it should be acceptable.

    1. How much do you know about Linguistics?

    Stopped short of pursuing a PhD in the field. Studies were focused on language disorders and non-typical morphosyntax.

    1. Which type of content do you want to see here?

    Definitely not papers. I would prefer discussions. Most of what I did on Reddit was to support language learners by giving them linguistically informed explanations of grammatical phenomena in the languages they were studying, and discuss with other language enthusiasts about emerging linguistic change or non-mainstream usage.

    Eventually there might be a necessary split between a community of the science (this one, perhaps) and another one purely for language learning, but for now it might be most sensible to keep them at the same place.

  • schmorp@slrpnk.netEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Nobody commented yet, might as well:

    1. Let it roll for now, see who appears
    2. and 3. Less rules for now to not discourage activity, maybe check again when more users are commenting in here
    3. I’m a trilingual translator but not a studied linguist - so mostly curious layperson.
    4. I’ve been through what you’ve posted so far - it’s all interesting. I do appreciate if not only videos are posted in a group, but that’s just my personal preference.

    It’s a bit empty in here, but I hope you don’t give up, I’m sure people will appear eventually.

  • v4nadium@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 years ago

    Hi! I’m a curious enthousiast and I would expect general discussions about linguistics. I would love to see very specific papers and I wouldn’t mind basic grammar questions being posted here. Some can reveal deeper implications, maybe. No crack theories is good imo. No cross or crown: i guess culture and language are very intricate and one can explain the other but beyond that, judging ang proselytism should be forbidden.

    • LvxferreOPM
      2·
      2 years ago

      No cross or crown: i guess culture and language are very intricate and one can explain the other but beyond that, judging ang proselytism should be forbidden.

      Yup - and that’s the general basic idea behind the “almost”. Linguistics is intrinsically tied to those things, for example you’ll see Hindi and Urdu splitting and adopting different vocab influences basically due to religion, or the whole definition of a language being political in nature.

      But at the same time I don’t want to see political fights here, like the ones I see in r/linguistics when two magic words (“Ukraine” and “Russia”) are mentioned. I don’t feel like it’s the right place to discuss it.

      Thank you for your input!

  • glaber
    2·
    2 years ago

    1. Let it roll! But I’m a fan of pop-science and think the community could be a good place to discuss general questions, maybe delving into them if we see they hit an interesting area

    2. Yeah. No spurious stuff, though maybe we could have some kind of Bad Linguistics Mondays? And allow for posts that have bad linguistics examples with a rule making it mandatory for the OP to explain what’s wrong and provide the correct explanation

    3. As someone else here said, as long as it doesn’t cause a flame war I think it’s not too harmful to let things go a little off-topic, as long as they have a tangential relation to linguistics or languages

    4. I have a Bachelor’s Degree! I like all subfields, but I think my favorite would be historical linguistics and semantics!

    5. As standalone posts I wouldn’t know what to tell you… Definitely news, though.