# Allowing freer language discussions to take place in English Only section



## supermarioutd

Dear all,

First and foremost I need to thank the people who created this wonderful forum which has been a powerful platform for language-related discussions. 

Personally speaking, this forum has been one of the best things in my life and let me explain why: There is nothing I love in this world more than learning English. 
And I have learned plenty here. Odd as it may sound, I am filled with joy whenever I see that red notification thing on the bottom right corner which means a new reply was posted in my thread and I am going to learn something new. 

One problem I have recently encountered though is that freer discussions about idioms and expressions are not allowed in the most active section of the forum which is ENGLISH ONLY section. 

We are allowed to ask only one question about one specific word and if we engage in a creative discussion about alternative ways of expressing ideas then the thread will be closed. 

Let me give you an example: I once started a thread about how I can describe a city that is located south of a mountain range. Someone suggested this: The city is at the foot of the mountains. Another user kindly offered this alternative: This is a massive city but it seems small in comparison with the majestic mountains that cloak its fringes. I cannot tell you how happy I was when I learned those two ways of expressing that idea or describing that situation. 

There were many many other instances when I had a specific question and then started a thread and after a creative discussion I learned new and better ways of expressing that same idea. 

But the problem is that the forum rules do not allow providing alternative ways of expressing ideas. 

I would like to sincerely urge the decision makers of this forum to allow free and creative discussions about expression take place in the English Only section. 
I honestly do not think the sky would fall if the wonderful native users of the forum provided us learners with some alternative ways or more creative ways of expressing ideas. 

That would really make life more beautiful


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## Glasguensis

The sub-forums on this site are mostly what we call* dictionary forums* - they are specifically linked to one of the online dictionaries, and are intended as an extension to the dictionary - the idea is that whenever you have a question about a word or expression you can search in the dictionary and the results page gives you both the dictionary results and the relevant threads on the linked forum. In order for this to be useful, the threads shown need to be fairly closely related to the expression you search for and not too time-consuming to consult. For the translation dictionaries, for example, the title needs to contain the expression in the source language. That way if you are trying to translate, for example “game console” into French, you find not only the dictionary entry but also a related thread which contains the words “game” and “console”.
There are sub-forums which are not linked to dictionaries (this one for example), and they have different rules. 
For every user who actively posts on a forum there are hundreds if not thousands who only use the search functions.
Currently EO is a dictionary forum, linked to the English (definitions) dictionary. If the rules were changed as you suggest, I can see two possible scenarios :
1. The dictionary search results show these additional threads which are not useful to those seeking to understand the definition of the expression 
2. The moderators perform some manual action (let’s not worry about the technical details) which removes these additional threads from dictionary search results 
Clearly 1 has a negative impact for the thousands of dictionary search users while 2 has a negative impact on the moderation workload.
The alternative to changing the rules is of course to post such threads somewhere else. Not only are there numerous other language forums which allow such discussions, there is even a non-dictionary sub-forum on this site which is intended for such threads.


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## supermarioutd

I appreciate your comment. Honestly, I am of the view that finding the definition of a word should not be that difficult. 
The most difficult part of learning a second language is finding beautiful and creative ways of expressing yourself in a language that it not your own native language. And sometimes you have an idea and you think it in your own mother tongue, but you can't find a way to express it in English and that is really frustrating. So I think the forum would be much more useful if it allowed freer discussions to take place. Let me give you an example:
I once wanted to express the idea that my teachers in high school were very strict in terms of marks. I started a thread in the ENGLISH ONLY section and finally after a few suggestions we came up with this sentence to express that idea:

_Our teachers were really tight-fisted when it came to handing out marks and they failed students left, right and center._

You cannot imagine how happy I was to learn a sentence like that. For you it may seem insignificant. Not for me! 

On the other hand, if I don't know the meaning of tight-fisted, for example, I can easily go to a million dictionaries on the Internet and find a million examples to learn the meaning. 

What is difficult about learning a new language is not being able to express yourself, not finding the meaning of a word.



Glasguensis said:


> Not only are there numerous other language forums which allow such discussions, there is even a non-dictionary sub-forum on this site which is intended for such threads.



Could you kindly introduce some other forums where free discussions about expressing ideas in English take place? 

I searched on Google and I tried a few of them and believe you me that in none of them was I able to find users who are as creative as users here and that was really really frustrating. I only got good results here in the ENGLISH ONLY section.


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## Sowka

I have been a member of these forums for more than ten years now, and I have observed the following: There are learners at various levels. Most of these learners want to learn to use the language *correctly*. A learner who has difficulties with basic grammar rules or word collocations will be overwhelmed by threads that discuss "creative" use of the language.

I think the vast majority of participants are at that level of learning: They want to get rules that are as clear as possible so that they can use the language in an adequate manner at school or in their job.



supermarioutd said:


> And sometimes you have an idea and you think it in your own mother tongue, but you can't find a way to express it in English and that is really frustrating.



I have more than 50 years of experience with learning foreign languages. In all my languages, I have found "colorful" expressions of ideas for which my own language (German) offers only relatively boring expressions. And vice versa.  Which means: We should study the creative use of a language within that language. We should not expect a foreign language to have a beautiful / original expression for something that our own language is able to express beautifully or creatively.

For me, in English, an excellent resource has been "The Hitchhiker's Guide ..." by Douglas Adams. I will never forget the sentence on the first page of the book that describes a quite uninteresting house: "The house had four windows set in the front of a size and proportion which* more or less exactly failed to please the eye*." I find this so very, very lovely -- and things like this can be found in texts written by native speakers with a particular mindset.


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## supermarioutd

Sowka said:


> I have been a member of these forums for more than ten years now, and I have observed the following: There are learners at various levels. Most of these learners want to learn to use the language *correctly*. A learner who has difficulties with basic grammar rules or word collocations will be overwhelmed by threads that discuss "creative" use of the language.
> 
> I think the vast majority of participants are at that level of learning: They want to get rules that are as clear as possible so that they can use the language in an adequate manner at school or in their job.



Thanks for taking the time to respond.

I see the point that you are trying to make, but honestly, *I do not think the sky would fall* if one or two users started threads in which creative discussions occurred. Am I so far off in suggesting that those users who seek to merely learn to use words correctly simply do not have to read the threads that I start?



Sowka said:


> We should study the creative use of a language within that language. We should not expect a foreign language to have a beautiful / original expression for something that our own language is able to express beautifully or creatively.



I respectfully disagree with this part. This is an over-generalization. There were many many instances when I could learn some very very beautiful and creative ways of expressing the ideas I had in my mind in this forum. In some cases I was not necessarily looking for an English equivalent of an idiom from my own language. I just described the idea in simple terms and ended learning a much better way of expressing it in English.


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## Glasguensis

You may find it easy to find definitions but if that were true for everyone then you would be the only one posting on the forum. Just in English Only there are dozens of new questions seeking a definition every day, and that’s not even counting the hundreds of people who find the answer they’re looking for in an existing thread.
The 99% of users who *are* in fact looking for a definition can only “not read your threads” if they were somehow marked as different or didn’t show up in the dictionary search, which comes back to an increased workload for the moderators.
Whilst I understand your viewpoint I have to agree with @Sowka that what you want to do is not at all typical: most learners of English (or indeed any other language) never reach the level of wanting to learn new idioms and be creative, and those who do generally either live in a place where the language is spoken widely, or read extensively in that language. These methods are uncoincidentally the ways native speakers learn to be more creative.


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## supermarioutd

I appreciate the point you are seeking to make with respect to other users. But again I'd like to reiterate that those people can perform their own searches and if they end up in the kind of threads that I start and do not find it useful, then they can move on. 

I am not seeking to force anybody to read my threads. I intend to ask my own questions and others can ask their own and I honestly do not see these two as mutually exclusive.


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## velisarius

One problem is that we are not supposed to do people's homework for them, so when a member asks  for a "creative way of expressing an idea", that's making us do all the work. I'm not suggesting that you are asking for homework "help", but plenty of others do.


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## supermarioutd

velisarius said:


> One problem is that we are not supposed to do people's homework for them, so when a member asks  for a "creative way of expressing an idea", that's making us do all the work. I'm not suggesting that you are asking for homework "help", but plenty of others do.



I seriously doubt trying to find a beautiful way of expressing an idea would be a part of anyone's homework! 
We can leave it to the discretion of users. If they suspect the thread started is about homework, then they can simply not contribute to that thread. 
That is easily detectable.


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## velisarius

You're not doing yourself a favour by asking others to write your sentences for you. Perhaps you simply need to read a lot more.  Your problem often seems to be a lack of original  ideas rather than how to express your own ideas in English.


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## Glasguensis

supermarioutd said:


> I seriously doubt trying to find a beautiful way of expressing an idea would be a part of anyone's homework!
> We can leave it to the discretion of users. If they suspect the thread started is about homework, then they can simply not contribute to that thread.
> That is easily detectable.


Once again you only seem to be considering the case of users who reply to threads. Although I’ve already said this, let me repeat that this site is a dictionary site, and the forum rules are designed for the 99% of users who use the threads as part of a dictionary search. Also note that if the rules are changed it’s not just a handful of threads you create which we need to consider, it’s all the other threads which are currently removed but which your proposal would allow. There would fairly quickly be a significant number of threads which were not useful for dictionary searches.


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## Peterdg

Let me shed some other light on the issue.

This website does not come for free. Making the site available and maintaining it costs money.

There is a business model behind all this. The site and the affiliated dictionaries have to generate money so that the owner of the site and his co-workers can make a living and continue to support the site.

It is the site owner's discretion to determine which rules correspond best to serve the purpose of his business and in this case, it seems to be more appropriate to not allow discussions to go beyond the current rules. Previous posters have mentioned some of the reasons, but there may be more.

Furthermore, there is a forum (which is available for members that are active for longer than 6 months in the forums) where you can ask for the type of questions you are interested in.


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## supermarioutd

velisarius said:


> You're not doing yourself a favour by asking others to write your sentences for you. Perhaps you simply need to read a lot more.  Your problem often seems to be a lack of original  ideas rather than how to express your own ideas in English.



I am not a native speaker. Sometimes I hear an idiom in my own language and I don't know the equivalent in English. 
A few weeks ago I started thread and ended up learning the idiom "*bringing sand to the beach*" after explaining the idiom in my own language. 
There have been many many more instances when I learned useful and beautiful idioms like that throughout the 4 years I have been in this forum.


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## Myridon

supermarioutd said:


> I am not a native speaker. Sometimes I hear an idiom in my own language and I don't know the equivalent in English.
> A few weeks ago I started thread and ended up learning the idiom "*bringing sand to the beach*" after explaining the idiom in my own language.
> There have been many many more instances when I learned useful and beautiful idioms like that throughout the 4 years I have been in this forum.


You have now given at three examples (and stated that there are many more examples) where were happy and satisfied by using the forum, yet you insist you have a problem.  I'm not sure what you want.


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## supermarioutd

Myridon said:


> You have now given at three examples (and stated that there are many more examples) where were happy and satisfied by using the forum, yet you insist you have a problem.  I'm not sure what you want.



Yes! I was happy indeed. Very much so. And I remember you yourself contributed to many of the threads I started and I am grateful to you and other amazing users. 

Here's the problem: I have been told many of my threads in the ENGLISH ONLY section, which is the most active and most useful part of this Forum, break the rules and that really saddens me.


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## Myridon

supermarioutd said:


> Here's the problem: I have been told many of my threads in the ENGLISH ONLY section, which is the most active and most useful part of this Forum, break the rules and that really saddens me.


Yes, but could you be specific?  You should be giving specific examples of what should be allowed - examples of the problem, not specific examples of what is not the problem.


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## supermarioutd

Yes. I will give you an example. A few weeks ago I was looking for the English equivalent of a Persian idiom. I explained it then said it is similar to the expression "bringing coal to Newcastle". Then we had a discussion and folks suggested other idioms. I learned a new idiom: "Bringing sand to the beach". I was told this could be the best equivalent as "bringing coal to Newcastle" is not used anymore.

I was really excited to learn a new idiom.

Anyways, that thread was closed because the moderator was of the view that users were offering alternatives and we were not focused on one specific idiom.


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## Ghabi

supermarioutd said:


> I was really excited to learn a new idiom.


You're welcome to post on the All Languages forum. For example, there's a thread there for bringing coals to Newcastle:
- to carry coals to Newcastle
where "to bring sand to the beach" is also mentioned.

You can create new threads concerning other idioms there (search the forum first to see if there's already previous discussions for them, of course).


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## supermarioutd

Believe me! I have tried other sections of this forum.

Nowhere have I been able to get wonderful results like the ENGLISH ONLY section.

All I want is to be able to start threads there without the fear of my thread being closed.

Would the sky fall if I did that? I am not sure.


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## Glasguensis

The sky wouldn’t fall but it would create extra work for the moderators. Other than you benefitting from faster replies, what is the advantage of your proposal ?


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## supermarioutd

The advantage is ENGLISH ONLY section gets me the results I want. Because it's active and folks there are really great.

But other sections are inactive and my threads in them do not produce results.


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## Sowka

supermarioutd said:


> But other sections are inactive and my threads in them do not produce results.


The people who have replied to your non-EO threads will certainly be grateful for this assessment.


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## tunaafi

supermarioutd said:


> The advantage is ENGLISH ONLY section gets me the results I want.


This could be because the rules as enforced by the mods keep everything pretty well focused. OK, some of the mod may sometimes seem a little over-pedantic in their interpretations of the rules, but generally speaking, everything runs very smoothly indeed. One of the main reasons I have migrated here from other forums is that if I find a thread interesting, and choose to follow it, I can be pretty sure that the posts will not wander off topic, and that members treat each other in a civilised manner.


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## DonnyB

supermarioutd said:


> Nowhere have I been able to get wonderful results like the ENGLISH ONLY section.
> 
> All I want is to be able to start threads there without the fear of my thread being closed.
> 
> Would the sky fall if I did that? I am not sure.


Well, okay, but if we were to alter the English Only forum rules, we'd have to do it for everybody, we couldn't do it just for you.  And neither could we just let everyone start whatever threads they wanted: the sky wouldn't fall, but the forum would pretty soon get over-run and become unmanageable.

So....  in the light of what everyone has said about what the English Only forum was originally designed for, and what the overwhelming majority of people still use it for, in what way _exactly_ do you propose that we alter the current rules?  Or put it another way: what _specifically_ are you proposing that we start allowing that we don't allow now but which would be of general benefit to everybody?


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## eno2

Creative digressions. That's what he wants, I think. But that's a totally other thread model and approach. As it is now,  In order to not get deleted too much, thread openers and users have to walk a   tightrope of rules. I don't think the closely moderated big subforums would profit from loosening up those rules or from loosening up moderation of those rules ,  nor would thread searchers and users benefit.  My experience is that in the smaller and less frequented language subforums, there's much more freedom, much less intervention. And of course, enthousiast learners who like to go fast, profit from that widening of the discussion. In the big subforums, just face it, no chance of getting away with that.


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## supermarioutd

eno2 said:


> Creative digressions. That's what he wants.



Yes. That is what I seek indeed.


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## supermarioutd

Just a little bit of flexibility on the part of moderators and rule-makers here would make my life more beautiful.


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## tunaafi

supermarioutd said:


> Just a little bit of flexibility on the part of moderators and rule-makers here would make my life more beautiful.



Perhaps you mean a little _more_ flexibility. We agree to accept the rules when we sign up, and then some of us complain if they are enforced  too rigidly (in our opinion). I have had several posts deleted, but only because my interpretation of the rules has been  a little free. I have also sailed close to the wind at times, and generally found the mods more flexible than I expected initially.

If we get just a little bit of what suits you, and then a little bit of what suits me, and then what suits somebody else, we could be heading into dangerous waters . The system here is not perfect (no system is), but it seems to me to function pretty well, and we are largely free here of the rambling digressions, and the snarky comments,  that are the bane of some other sites I have played on.

And, of course, we do have these *Additional Forums, *where we have a lot more freedom to go off-topic within reason, make suggestions, complain, etc. There are one or two tweaks I'd like in *my* ideal world, but they probably would not suit others, just as the tweaks others might like would not suit me. I think most of us do pretty well here. 

If I feel the urge to do what is out of order here, I can always hop across to the four other forums I play on. You have the freedom to do the same.


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## supermarioutd

Could you folks please help me find a forum in which I can have active creative discussions? 
Please introduce some here. 

It does not seem highly likely that I can start my threads in the ENGLISH ONLY section like the good old days!!


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## eno2

You could do a search 'Language forums English'
Perhaps English.stackexchange.com could suit you.


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## machadinho

supermarioutd said:


> Could you folks please help me find a forum in which I can have active creative discussions?


Read widely. Write. Rewrite. Have others read what you write. Read what they write too. Discuss your writings. Enroll in some creative writing course. There are many options available online.

Why are you so obsessed with EO? It's just a forum.


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## eno2

... with very strict rules that serve a purpose, as many explained here.


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## supermarioutd

machadinho said:


> Read widely. Write. Rewrite. Have others read what you write. Read what they write too. Discuss your writings. Enroll in some creative writing course. There are many options available online.



I always read and write. But sometimes I need help from native speakers. 



machadinho said:


> Why are you so obsessed with EO? It's just a forum.



It always helped me get results. I was really really happy with it.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Hello, supermarioutd. Are you perhaps wondering why contributions (comments, messages) which offer further alternatives are suggested are closed or replies deleted? I sympathize with you in thinking we should be able to see many different suggestions by native speakers of the target language who speak our mother tongue as a second or third language if we can't find what we're looking for in the dictionaries; I've sometimes felt frustrated in this regard, and have even hesitated to post suggestions if several have already been made. But '"No lists"is the (perhaps Procrustean?) rule.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Here's something else that just occurred to me: In the, um, list in light blue characters at the bottom of a dictionary entry, there are often many entries cited which contain only one word in the expression the poster is asking about, and it would be time-consuming to check them all in the off-chance of finding "the  right one". (I did say 'If we can't find what we're looking for in the dictionaries".)


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## DonnyB

ain'ttranslationfun? said:


> I sympathize with you in thinking we should be able to see many different suggestions by native speakers of the target language who speak our mother tongue as a second or third language if we can't find what we're looking for in the dictionaries; I've sometimes felt frustrated in this regard, and have even hesitated to post suggestions if several have already been made. But '"No lists"is the (perhaps Procrustean?) rule.


I'm not unsympathetic to this, believe it or not, but I just see it as a question of where you (or rather, we, as moderators) draw the line.  If something is being proposed which is so hideously unidiomatic and stilted that no native speaker would say it, then there shouldn't be any real objection to people putting forward an obvious alternative or two.

The difficulty arises when either there_ isn't_ an obvious ready-made alternative (and I think that was the problem Supermario was up against), or when various people put forward different suggestions and everyone else starts discussing them so that thread loses any sort of clear focus. It's that second scenario which lies behind the "No lists" rule.


ain'ttranslationfun? said:


> Here's something else that just occurred to me: In the, um, list in light blue characters at the bottom of a dictionary entry, there are often many entries cited which contain only one word in the expression the poster is asking about, and it would be time-consuming to check them all in the off-chance of finding "the  right one". (I did say 'If we can't find what we're looking for in the dictionaries".)


This (I assume you're referring here to the lists of previous forum threads, by the way) is a legacy of fifteen years of - how shall I put it - inattention to the fact that we were building up a huge database of duplicated and/or non-specific thread titles.  It's far too late to do anything about it now, other than prevent the problem from getting any worse than it already is.  Which we're doing: we regularly trawl through the list of new threads posted on the front page of the forum and alter any dud titles.  But sadly, there just isn't the moderator time available to do much more than just retro-edit the odd one or two that we come across in the course of searching for something.


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## tunaafi

DonnyB said:


> sadly, there just isn't the moderator time available to do much more than just retro-edit the odd one or two that we come across in the course of searching for something.


Place an ad for new mods to boost your numbers.

Don't forget to mention the six-figure annual dollar(/euro) salary, the company car, the health insurance and the all-expenses-paid holidays in Tahiti every two years.

I'm sure you'll get one or two good people applying.


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## supermarioutd

Hello everyone. The Internet was down in my country as it completely was plunged in chaos.

Honestly, Wordrefrence is the website that I missed the most! I am happy to be back here. 

I think we should continue this discussion and hopefully we can have a more flexible English only section.


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## DonnyB

supermarioutd said:


> I think we should continue this discussion and hopefully we can have a more flexible English only section.


But the reality is, I'm afraid, that reading back through this thread, there seems to me to be virtually no support for your proposal, possibly because you haven't explained exactly what your proposal_ is._  If I can perhaps return to the question I asked you:


DonnyB said:


> So....  in the light of what everyone has said about what the English Only forum was originally designed for, and what the overwhelming majority of people still use it for, in what way _exactly_ do you propose that we alter the current rules?  Or put it another way: what _specifically_ are you proposing that we start allowing that we don't allow now but which would be of general benefit to everybody?


All you came up with in response to that was:


supermarioutd said:


> Just a little bit of flexibility on the part of moderators and rule-makers here would make my life more beautiful.


In what way do you think we should be more flexible, bearing in mind that we, like you, have to work within the rules as they stand at the moment?


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## supermarioutd

An example of flexibility would be this: 

I start a thread posing a question like this: 

I am looking for creative way to describe the weather in a city which is always "polluted"

One user offers this suggestion: Smog is a major problem in this city.

Another user offers this : The permanent presence of a claustrophobic ceiling of opaque polluted skies can be really depressing.

I live for this kind of beautiful sentences.

Then a moderator would certainly delete this thread as it amounts to providing a list of ways to express an idea / situation / feeling, etc. 

But if we have more flexibility on the part of moderators, threads like that can survive and continue producing beautiful results without disrupting the functionality of the forum as a whole. And the sky would not fall.


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## DonnyB

Okay, thank you for that example.   

I'm just going to respond briefly from a moderator's point of view and then I'll step back a bit and let other people give their reactions.

Firstly, we'd have to waive the requirement for a sample sentence and some context to support a specific initial question.  More significantly (and I think this would be the big stumbling block) we'd have to waive or alter the current rule which forbids members from rewriting sentences or composing new ones off their own bat.  It's all very well to talk about us being flexible - and we do try to be as far as we can - but to allow something like that could open the floodgates to all sorts of 'innovative' ways of expressing ideas many of which would not be direct answers to the question as such.  Plus, I suspect that _relatively_ few members would be able to compose that sort of sentence.

Bottom line: I don't think the EO forum is equipped to handle threads like that: it's the wrong venue for them in my opinion.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

New question, same topic (well, more or less): Can one post the same question in more than one forum?


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## DonnyB

ain'ttranslationfun? said:


> New question, same topic (well, more or less): Can one post the same question in more than one forum?


It could possibly depend on what the question was, but as a general proposition it's something which is actively discouraged.

It inevitably tends to cause confusion and is liable to lead to your getting conflicting answers.  Not recommended.


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## elroy

It’s actually forbidden according to the rules.  From Rule 2:

_Do not duplicate threads._


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## Glasguensis

DonnyB said:


> Okay, thank you for that example.


From my perspective, allowing that type of post would require the following rules to be deleted:
Provide a full sentence 
Provide context
Do not ask for lists
No proofreading 

If those changes were made, then the moderation would change to acting only on spam and inappropriate content. The language orientation would be lost, and there would be no point in referencing the results in the dictionary search. I suspect that if those changes were made the vast majority of users who helpfully answer questions would stop, because there would be too many spurious threads to pick through.


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## tunaafi

Glasguensis said:


> I suspect that if those changes were made the vast majority of users who helpfully answer questions would stop, because there would be too many spurious threads to pick through.


I'd probably be among the first. 

When I first signed on here five years ago, I did not participate much - I missed the informal chattiness and meanderings of some of my other forums. However,  I have come to value the restrictions here. I rarely feel that I have wasted my time by looking into a thread. There is almost always something of relevant value to read.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Thank you DonnyB, elroy, and Glasguensis.


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## supermarioutd

Okay. What about this? 

I am looking for an expression in English which means try to seize the opportunities in life. 

One user suggests this : _Strike while the iron is hot_

Another user offers this: _Make hay while the sun shines_

Then a moderator would shut down the thread as it amounts to providing lists. 

Can we maybe be more flexible in such threads? 

Sometimes there are more than one idiom or expression for talking about a certain situation.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

I don't think any mod would think two suggestions would constitute a list, superm; perhaps a mod or three might let us know what they think the the cutoff point is for how many suggestions may be made before they are considered a "list"? (I'll bet it varies, athough probably not widely...and it probably depends on the context, too (technical/specialized language, etc.).)


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## tunaafi

I think Donny's post #41 explained the situation pretty clearly. If you find the rules too inflexible for you, post such questions in one of the forums that permit such things. I am a member of three forums in which discussions range more widely than here. 

One big advantage of this forum for me is that discussions are kept firmly in check. One advantage of some other forums for others is that they allow meanderings.


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## Glasguensis

The problem is that neither of those expressions means exactly « seize the opportunities in life ». Although you might find these answers interesting and enlightening, they are actually problematic for future users who are looking for an expression which means « seize the opportunities in life ». They are also of course completely useless for someone who has come across « seize the opportunities in life » in a sentence and doesn’t understand what it means.
It would be good if you could understand that allowing threads which suit you actually makes the forum less useful for everyone else.


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## Sowka

Glasguensis said:


> The problem is that neither of those expressions means exactly « seize the opportunities in life ». Although you might find these answers interesting and enlightening, they are actually problematic for future users who are looking for an expression which means « seize the opportunities in life ».



This is my problem as a dictionary / forum search user. In my professional life, I'm not logged in. I mostly search for collocations in the English dictionary and English Only forum to see whether these collocations convey what I have to express in my contexts.

When I open a thread with the title "seize the opportunities in life", I expect the thread to discuss these words. It would be useless to me if it was a collection of "more beautiful" descriptions of what the thread title announces. I want to know more about the words that are stated in the thread title.


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## supermarioutd

Sowka said:


> When I open a thread with the title "seize the opportunities in life", I expect the thread to discuss these words. It would be useless to me if it was a collection of "more beautiful" descriptions of what the thread title announces. I want to know more about the words that are stated in the thread title.



You and I are completely different in terms of what we are looking for in the vast ocean of English language (I hope that was not too corny!) 

So, if you come to my thread and don't like what you see, you can go to another thread. 

What I am saying is that why can't we live with each other's differences? People can use English Only section for different purposes. 

I think I will be the only one who would be go for creative discussions and users who do not like that can refrain from visiting my threads. 

*Here's an idea: I can add a "prefix" to my threads saying I am looking for creative discussion in this thread and users who don't like that can simply avoid the thread. *


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## Peterdg

supermarioutd said:


> What I am saying is that why can't we live with each other's differences?


Let me put it this way: If you go to a grocery store, you won't find a chain saw there, no matter how convenient you would find that. I think you will have to live with that restriction.


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## tunaafi

supermarioutd said:


> *Here's an idea: I can add a "prefix" to my threads saying I am looking for creative discussion in this thread and users who don't like that can simply avoid the thread. *


Her's another idea: Accept the rules if you want to post threads here.


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## merquiades

English-only is very restrictive because almost everyone is going on there to use it like Sowka, and I imagine traffic is heavy there.  Without a lot of policing it could become a big mess.

There are other parts of the forum where the discussions are freer and where your search for synonyms might fit in better.

I don't think it will be ever the case for English Only though.  So many people just want practical answers and need to understand sentences they've read somewhere in the first degree.


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## supermarioutd

I see what you mean but I used to be active there and created threads and always got beautiful answers. I honestly do not remember the ENGLISH SECTION machine coming to a halt. And I don't remember anyone leaving or anything like that. 
The users who were interested cooperated and gave me so many great answers and I will always be grateful to them. 

And the sky did not fall!

The problem with other sections of the thread is that they are not active and only a very limited number of users participate in them.


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## Sowka

supermarioutd said:


> And I don't remember anyone leaving or anything like that.


Of course not! You do not see the thousands of dictionary users who do not log in (like me, at work). Whenever I look at the list of forum users, the number of "guests" is around 50 to 100 times the number of "members" (currently 87 active members, 4800 guests).

And so you wouldn't see the number of dictionary users who -- like me -- would be disappointed about threads they read as adjuncts to the *dictionary* that instead of explanations and usage indications for the words written in the thread title contain "beautiful descriptions" of what the thread title says, who would simply stop using WordReference.


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## tunaafi

A very good point, Sowka.


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## supermarioutd

Sowka said:


> Of course not! You do not see the thousands of dictionary users who do not log in (like me, at work). Whenever I look at the list of forum users, the number of "guests" is around 50 to 100 times the number of "members" (currently 87 active members, 4800 guests).
> 
> And so you wouldn't see the number of dictionary users who -- like me -- would be disappointed about threads they read as adjuncts to the *dictionary* that instead of explanations and usage indications for the words written in the thread title contain "beautiful descriptions" of what the thread title says, who would simply stop using WordReference.



I think that is a stretch! You are saying because of my threads lots of people stopped using the forum? With all due respect, that is an overstatement.


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## tunaafi

Sowka did not say that


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## Itisi

I'm talking a out Fr-En/En-Fr here.  Although I can't say I have never, ever strayed from the subject, I really don't like it when people do that.  I don't like it when they get 'creative' and answer stuff that doesn't correspond to the context of the thread, for example, writing how you would say such and such in slang, when the context is formal, that sort of thing...  That's me.  I would like to be a mod now and then just so I had the POWER to nuke some posts !    It's good I'm not a mod!


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## supermarioutd

Itisi said:


> I'm talking a out Fr-En/En-Fr here.  Although I can't say I have never, ever strayed from the subject, I really don't like it when people do that.  I don't like it when they get 'creative' and answer stuff that doesn't correspond to the context of the thread, for example, writing how you would say such and such in slang, when the context is formal, that sort of thing...  That's me.  I would like to be a mod now and then just so I had the POWER to nuke some posts !    It's good I'm not a mod!


Our views are diametrically opposed!
I am an artist by nature. I play the piano and I have never had a problem with creativity and improvisation.


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