# إضافة منتدى للغة السريانية/ Syriac (Aramaic) Forum



## Romeel

السلام عليكم

لقد قرأت شروط إضافة منتدى جديد ومع ذلك أقدم اقتراحي هذا هنا ولو لم تستوفي هذه اللغة الشروط المذكورة.

والسبب أنه لا يوجد موقع أو تطبيق يترجم من وإلى اللغة السريانية (الآرامية).

وهذا المنتدى -لو أضيف- سيساعد الكثير من الناس.

Hello 
I have read the terms of adding a new forum however I make this suggestion here even if this language does not meet the conditions mentioned. 
The reason is that there is no website or application that translates from and into Syriac (Aramaic). 
This forum will help a lot of people.


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## flockhat

If we had an Aramaic forum I would definitely ask questions about Syriac, which is a form of Aramaic.


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## mkellogg

Hello,

I see that there have been a few posts in the Other Languages forum, which is the proper place for that now. You can even bookmark this page as your "virtual forum". Click Watch Tag on that page to get alerts when someone asks a question.


alialikhalid said:


> there is no website or application that translates from and into Syriac (Aramaic)


Do you mean a dictionary? That takes a lot more work, but it could be done someday.


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## Michael Zwingli

The volume would probably be relatively low, but with only two languages represented by forums in the "Semitic" category, a case might be made for consideration. Of course, I don't know all that's involved...


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## Romeel

mkellogg said:


> Hello,
> 
> 
> Do you mean a dictionary? That takes a lot more work, but it could be done someday.


Yes.
What I want to say, because there is no dictionary there will be more needs to ask here.


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## Sharjeel72

We desperately need a Syriac forum. Better yet, we need an Aramaic forum.


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## mkellogg

Sharjeel72 said:


> We desperately need a Syriac forum. Better yet, we need an Aramaic forum.


You do for all practical purposes.

This page would be the forum "home page".
syriac (syriac aramaic)
You can bookmark that page and even subscribe to new posts that have that tag.

You can create threads in the Other Languages forum with the correct tag.

As a side note, many forums today are based on tags, not separate individual sub-forums. The is the same thing. We set up tags that way specifically for this type of situation!

Does the world have a decent Aramaic-English (or Syriac-) dictionary? We can consider making one if we have enough volunteers.


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## Romeel

I do not want to pressure more for this request, but for the sake of fairness and comparison, look at the Italiano-Français forum, the last post in it was January 11/2022, then look at the posts related to Syriac, almost daily there is a post related to Syriac.

Syriac is an ancient language from which several languages have emerged, and I do not want to go into this detail, but there is no doubt that the discussion in a forum dedicated to it will push the speakers of Arabic and Hebrew to link it with their languages.



mkellogg said:


> Does the world have a decent Aramaic-English (or Syriac-) dictionary? We can consider making one if we have enough volunteers.



This is a great suggestion and I think having a Syriac forum would help with that.

Thank you.


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## Aleppan

I think nothing is preventing the creation of a separate Aramaic forum except the lack of moderator(s). If we had an Aramaic forum who would be the moderator? Not only would he have to have the prerequisite expertise but also the time to monitor the forum.


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## zaw

I think radagasty, Drink, and fdb have the requisite expertise. I don't know if they have the time though.


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## mj99

I think it would be great if we could have a separate forum for Aramaic. This would include all varieties of Aramaic, just as the Hebrew forum includes all varieties of Hebrew: Epigraphic, Biblical, Qumran, Mishnaic, and modern.

The Aramaic forum could be used for Old Aramaic, Biblical Aramaic, Imperial Aramaic, Babylonian Aramaic, Palestinian Aramaic, Qumran Aramaic, Targumic Aramaic, Samaritan, Mandaean, Syriac, and Neo-Aramaic.


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## amirsherman

An Aramaic forum is the need of the hour!


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## S1234

There are well over fifty posts related to Aramaic in "Other Languages". Doesn't that call for the creation of a separate forum?


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## zj73

Maybe we could have separate forums for Classical Hebrew, Modern Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac.


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## mkellogg

Again, the pathway for any language to have a separate forum is clear: 

1. Use the Aramaic or Syriac tags in the Other Languages forum.
2. Consider the tag pages to be your homepages (again: Aramaic, Syriac)
3. Create lots of threads. Give it life!

Actually, you seem to be doing a fine job of giving it life now. Keep it up.

I really want the "tag as a forum" concept to work. I'll see what I can do to make the tag page look more like a normal forum homepage. I have added links to the two tag forums to the Other Languages forum for now.


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## Abaye

I support the establishment of an Aramaic forum (or more widely, "Other Semitic Languages" forum to formally cover also Ethiopian, Akkadian, Canaanite, South Arabian, which may become more discussed having a home). Suggested it in the past. Currently Aramaic is divided between the Hebrew forum (when referring to Judeo-Aramaic, there are many mixed Hebrew-Aramaic texts) and Other Languages (when referring to Syriac and other dialects), which is confusing. I hope such a forum will be dedicated to understanding the language and not to esoteric end cases.


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## zaw

Would you be willing to be the Aramaic forum's moderator, Abaye?


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## mkellogg

zaw said:


> Would you be willing to be the Aramaic forum's moderator, Abaye?


Actually, current moderators are the ones who decide who to invite as new moderators.  Till then, just click Report on any problematic posts and our current moderation team will help out.


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## Aleppan

As a result of there not being a separate Aramaic forum when somebody asks a question about a different language it gets buried beneath posts relating to Aramaic.


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## cherine

Don't worry. When a forum member (or a group of members) floods a forum's first page we ask them to wait a few days before posting again, in order to give other people a chance to have their questions answered. So, if you ever feel your thread doesn't get attention, please report it and the moderators will try to help.


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## Romeel

We thank the forum administration and moderators for the wonderful effort they are making. This is a fact and not a compliment, but so far no one has mentioned the reason why there is no Syriac forum until now?!


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## Michael Zwingli

alialikhalid said:


> ...so far no one has mentioned the reason why there is no Syriac forum until now?!


My assumption is because Syriac is not the official language of any nation-state, though from a linguistic perspective, such an excuse holds no water.


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## lauranazario

alialikhalid said:


> We thank the forum administration and moderators for the wonderful effort they are making. This is a fact and not a compliment, but so far no one has mentioned the reason why there is no Syriac forum until now?!





Michael Zwingli said:


> My assumption is because Syriac is not the official language of any nation-state, though from a linguistic perspective, such an excuse holds no water.


In addition to the fact that WR administrator mkellog has said that he really wants to use tags as a way to create virtual forums (see *here*), please refer to the following thread that might answer your questions: FAQ: How New Forums are Created


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## Romeel

Thank you lauranazario



lauranazario said:


> In addition to the fact that WR administrator mkellog has said that he really wants to use tags as a way to create virtual forums (see *here*),


Are you saying that tags will only applied to Syriac?!!



lauranazario said:


> please refer to the following thread that might answer your questions: FAQ: How New Forums are Created



Do you think that these conditions are met by this forum Italiano-Français and all other forums?!


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## Paulfromitaly

alialikhalid said:


> Are you saying that tags will only applied to Syriac?


No.
The use of tags to create virtual forums has already been employed extensively in every WR forum that deals with more than one language (Nordic languages, Slavic languages, Other languages etc) and it works just fine.


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## Romeel

Paulfromitaly said:


> No.
> The use of tags to create virtual forums has already been employed extensively in every WR forum that deals with more than one language (Nordic languages, Slavic languages, Other languages etc) and it works just fine.


So you can't make a separate forum -as the others- and add tags to it?!

Still we got no answer about:
What is the thing that prevents the creation of a Syriac forum that we need, especially with the absence of a dictionary for this language anywhere?


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## Michael Zwingli

Paulfromitaly said:


> The use of tags to create virtual forums has already been employed extensively in every WR forum that deals with more than one language...


What is being recommended, however, seems to be a forum dealing with questions purely of varieties of Aramaic, it being suggested that enough of these questions are currently asked to indicate the existence thereof. Then, said " tags" (with which I am not familiar) could be used for questions pertaining to, say, Judeo-Aramaic, or Arabic-Aramaic, etc., contributing to the creation of "virtual forums" dealing with those questions, from either the Aramaic forum or the Hebrew and Arabic forums, respectively.

It seems to me that the recommendation is well made, the only question being that of the expense attending the necessary increase in server space. Perhaps only Mr. Kellogg can speak to that matter...


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## Paulfromitaly

alialikhalid said:


> Still we got no answer about:
> What is the thing that prevents the creation of a Syriac forum that we need


You have received the same answer a few times:


mkellogg said:


> Again, the pathway for any language to have a separate forum is clear:
> 
> 1. Use the Aramaic or Syriac tags in the Other Languages forum.
> 2. Consider the tag pages to be your homepages (again: Aramaic, Syriac)


FAQ: How New Forums are Created


alialikhalid said:


> So you can't make a separate forum -as the others- and add tags to it


If you add tags and therefore create a virtual forum you don't need a separate forum any more.
Bear in mind that when WR started 18 years ago tags weren't available, so the only way to create new forums was to physically separate them. Now tags are available, they are easy to set up and work well.


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## Romeel

This general conditions I myself mention it in the main thread, but what *specifically *is the thing that prevents the creation of a Syriac forum?
Is it the lack of moderators? Or another reason!


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## Michael Zwingli

Paulfromitaly said:


> If you add tags and therefore create a virtual forum you don't need a separate forum any more


But, is a "virtual forum" identical to a "forum"? I think the hesitation is based upon the idea that it is not. Do the existing virtual forums appear on the homepage, thereby being easily found? (I, for one, am unfamiliar with the virtual forums.)


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## Paulfromitaly

Michael Zwingli said:


> is a "virtual forum" identical to a "forum"?


If it's virtual, it cannot be identical.


Michael Zwingli said:


> Do the existing virtual forums appear on the homepage, thereby being easily found?


Yes. This is the homepage and you can already and easily find the Syriac forum.


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## Michael Zwingli

Paulfromitaly said:


> If it's virtual, it cannot be identical.
> 
> Yes. This is the homepage and you can already and easily find the Syriac forum.
> 
> View attachment 67891


Hmm...as I scroll through the Other Languages Forum, I notice that upwards of 90% of the questions pertain to, and are tagged for, Aramaic/Syriac. I would bet that Aramaic/Syriac has a greater rate of new thread creation than do many languages having their own forums. Is not the Other Languages forum predicated upon the assumption that there will be a relative parity in the questions asked there between relatively "lower-demand" languages? If a user wanted to refer back to a thread he had read, about and tagged for the Galician Language, and he could not find it because it is buried underneath fifty or sixty Aramaic/Syriac threads which have been subsequently created, then is not the user interested in Galician being ill served?

As someone who has only recently become interested in Aramaic (through Hebrew), I am not saying that Word Reference _should_ create an Aramaic forum, as that is, I think, primarily a financial/budgetary decision. I am just indicating that enough demand seems to exist to rationalize it's creation.


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## Romeel

Michael Zwingli said:


> As someone who has only recently become interested in Aramaic (through Hebrew), I am not saying that Word Reference _should_ create an Aramaic forum, as that is, I think, primarily a financial/budgetary decision. I am just *indicating that enough demand seems to exist *to rationalize it's creation.


That way I asked several times what is the reason for not having such forum ?

Imagine also that I want to see a discussion about the feminization of the verb in Syriac!  In any other other forum I would I type “feminine verb” in the top text box to show a list of what is discussed about it , so how would you do this through tags for Syriac ?


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## Paulfromitaly

alialikhalid said:


> so how would you do this through tags for Syriac ?


You type the keyword “feminine verb” and then you add the tag "syriac" in the Advanced search.
PLEASE READ: Forum features - FAQ, search, accented letters, sundry tweaking and quoting



Michael Zwingli said:


> If a user wanted to refer back to a thread he had read, about and tagged for the Galician Language, and he could not find it because it is buried underneath fifty or sixty Aramaic/Syriac threads which have been subsequently created, then is not the user interested in Galician being ill served?


Quite the opposite - this person will search in the virtual Galician forum and find the thread they are looking for very quickly, because all the other threads about different languages don't show in the virtual Galician forum. That's also what tags are for.


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## JAN SHAR

I would definitely be interested in asking questions about Syriac too if a Syriac (i.e. Aramaic) forum existed.


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## USani

Michael Zwingli said:


> Hmm...as I scroll through the Other Languages Forum, I notice that upwards of 90% of the questions pertain to, and are tagged for, Aramaic/Syriac.


Actually, one hundred percent are pertaining to Aramaic and/or Syriac, but six old posts were artificially bumped up by changing their date.


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## Michael Zwingli

I think we all may have to remain satisfied with a virtual Aramaic forum for the present. I have the feeling that the creation of any new forums in the present economic climate might be 'economically contraindicated', which, after all is said and done, is a valid line of reasoning for the administration, it being the job thereof to keep an eye on "the big picture".


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## Romeel

Michael Zwingli said:


> I think we all may have to remain satisfied with a virtual Aramaic forum for the present. I have the feeling that the creation of any new forums in the present economic climate might be 'economically contraindicated', which, after all is said and done, is a valid line of reasoning for the administration, it being the job thereof to keep an eye on "the big picture".


I agree, if they could do it they would.

What I want from this proposal is that there are 4 main Semitic languages that are used today

Arabic

Ethiopian (Abyssinian)

Hebrew

Aramaic

The most used and famous is the Arabic language, but they are all related to each other in their similarity in words, sentences and way of writing, so it will be useful to have all of them.


https://cdn.britannica.com/50/117850-050-42864BA5/Relationships-languages-Semitic.jpg

https://www.almrsal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/اللغات-السامية.gif


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## Michael Zwingli

alialikhalid said:


> Ethiopian (Abyssinian)


Assume you mean Amharic? While most of the languages of Ethiopia are not of the Afro-Asiatic family (there are many Nilotic speaking groups), the main one, Amharic, is, as well as Tigrinya, which is spoken in northern Ethiopia and in Eritrea. I am not sure how closely Amharic and Tigrinya are, from a linguistic perspective. I suspect that they both descended from Ge'ez.


alialikhalid said:


> ...if they could do it they would.


Perhaps someday...when enough of us cheapskates subscribe, and they have more in the slush fund.


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## Romeel

Michael Zwingli said:


> Assume you mean Amharic? While most of the languages of Ethiopia are not of the Afro-Asiatic family (there are many Nilotic speaking groups), the main one, Amharic, is, as well as Tigrinya, which is spoken in northern Ethiopia and in Eritrea. I am not sure how closely Amharic and Tigrinya are, from a linguistic perspective. I suspect that they both descended from Ge'ez.



Yes, I meant Amharic, which descended from Abyssinian according to this chart 

Semitic languages are very close to each other than we imagine, but the problem is that every fanatic about his language says, "Look, they took this from our language" and this fanatic forgets that all of these languages are descended from the same language.

Like this page says Arabic words of Amharic origin 




Michael Zwingli said:


> Perhaps someday...when enough of us cheapskates subscribe, and they have more in the slush fund.


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## Glasguensis

alialikhalid said:


> That way I asked several times what is the reason for not having such forum ?


It is a technological evolution. The current structure of the forums is based on the technology available at the time. Now, virtual forums based on tags are available, and that is the solution which the site owner wants to use, as he has made clear several times now. I wouldn’t be surprised if we convert some of the old forums into virtual forums. It’s not a question of number of questions or number of users, it’s a question of how everything works with search engines and other mechanisms which make the site work.


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## amirsherman

We need an Aramaic forum as soon as possible because all the other languages get buried in a landslide of Aramaic posts, as anyone can see for herself.


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## Glasguensis

amirsherman said:


> We need an Aramaic forum as soon as possible because all the other languages get buried in a landslide of Aramaic posts, as anyone can see for herself.


But that's only important if you're not looking for a particular language. If you are interested in a particular language you use the tag for that language.


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## S1234

48 out of 50 posts on the first page are relating to Aramaic. It's high time we had a separate forum for the language.


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## Glasguensis

Once again, you already have one.


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## Hamster Huey

Can we add an Aramaic dictionary to the forum?


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## alfaalfa

Ciao,


S1234 said:


> 48 out of 50 posts on the first page are relating to Aramaic. It's high time we had a separate forum for the language.


And it's pretty boring for the foreros not interested in Aramaic (I don't mean to be disrespectful  ) and more this could dicourage users to post other languages questions: for sure their posts will be lost and unaswered.


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## Glasguensis

alfaalfa said:


> Ciao,
> 
> And it's pretty boring for the foreros not interested in Aramaic (I don't mean to be disrespectful  ) and more this could dicourage users to post other languages questions: for sure their posts will be lost and unaswered.


Why will their posts be lost and unanswered? People who are interested in Welsh, for example, will look for the Welsh tag. They won’t even see the Aramaic questions.


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## JAN SHAR

In that case let's just merge all the forums into one big forum and let people use tags to look for the languages they want.


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## Stoggler

Glasguensis said:


> Why will their posts be lost and unanswered? People who are interested in Welsh, for example, will look for the Welsh tag. They won’t even see the Aramaic questions.



Some people just like to browse forums, they are necessarily looking for specific languages.  That’s something I do anyway, tags being largely irrelevant to me,  I will open a thread if the language or subject sounds interesting to me, even if I don’t necessarily know much about that language.  I’ve stopped looking in the Other Languages forum now though (other than an odd cursory look to see if anything has changed) because it has become monopolised by Aramaic and Syriac queries.


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## alfaalfa

Stoggler said:


> Some people just like to browse forums, they are necessarily looking for specific languages.  That’s something I do anyway, tags being largely irrelevant to me,  I will open a thread if the language or subject sounds interesting to me, even if I don’t necessarily know much about that language.  I’ve stopped looking in the Other Languages forum now though (other than an odd cursory look to see if anything has changed) because it has become monopolised by Aramaic and Syriac queries.


That's exactly the same to me.


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## Glasguensis

With all due respect, people who browse random threads aren’t generally the people who answer questions : most people who answer only look at the languages they know. There are always exceptions, but I don’t think that the presence of Aramaic questions will lead to the absence of answers to others.


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## Stoggler

With all due respect, I do answer questions.  I might not have done in the last year but I have done a lot before that.


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## amirsherman

Dear mkellogg, What are you waiting for? Make an Aramaic forum already!


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## Glasguensis

He already has. If the form of the Aramaic forum doesn’t suit the small group of enthusiasts, nothing is stopping you finding another venue.


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## munz123

Glasguensis said:


> He already has. If the form of the Aramaic forum doesn’t suit the small group of enthusiasts, nothing is stopping you finding another venue.


Would it make more sense for the Aramaic and Hebrew forums to be one and the same? They are quite similar to each other, are they not?


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## zj73

munz123 said:


> Would it make more sense for the Aramaic and Hebrew forums to be one and the same? They are quite similar to each other, are they not?


Absolutely not. They are so different that they cannot be mutually understood. However, Phoenician and Hebrew can be mutually understood.


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## Paulfromitaly

S1234 said:


> There are well over fifty posts related to Aramaic in "Other Languages". Doesn't that call for the creation of a separate forum?


Let's crunch the numbers.
At the moment there are 196 threads in the Aramaic forum:
66 of which have ZERO replies -* 34% *(to make a comparison, in any other WR forum threads that, after days, have received no replies are roughly 1%)
38 of which have 1 reply (most of which posted by the same user) -* 20%*
23 of which have 5 or more replies - *12%*

Those figures show that over 50% of the threads in the Aramaic forum have 0 or  1 reply.
You can draw your own conclusions.


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## Abaye

I believe that if there was a simple way to specify which of the languages (tags) of the Other Languages forum one wants to see in the usual view, everybody would be happy. Requires configuration maybe or even programming so might cost time and/or money to the site owner.


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## Paulfromitaly

It simply requires _one click_ on *ARAMAIC* or any of the listed virtual forums.


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## Abaye

The need is to exclude Aramaic (or any language) from the view, not to include it, so everybody except the very few who care about Aramaic will be able to see the forum contents as it was until recently in terms of a multi-lingual arena in which no language suffocates the others.
And it would be nicer to see the threads in the usual manner, not in search result format as when clicking ARAMAIC.


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## Paulfromitaly

Abaye said:


> The need is to exclude Aramaic (or any language) from the view, not to include it, so everybody except the very few who care about Aramaic will be able to see the forum contents as it was until recently in terms of a multi-lingual arena in which no language suffocates the others.


That can be easily done too

All languages threads without Aramaic and Syriac


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## Romeel

Then remove all forums and make them just tags!!

Specially this one Italiano-Français because the last post in it was on January 11th


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## Paulfromitaly

Romeel said:


> Specially this one Italiano-Français


The FR-IT was created back in 2009, when the virtual forum option wasn't available.
There are about 3700 threads in the IT-FR forum, only 11 of which have 0 replies - *0,003%*
In comparison, the unanswered thread rate of the Aramaic forum is 10000 worse.


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## Glasguensis

Romeel said:


> Then remove all forums and make them just tags!!
> 
> Specially this one Italiano-Français because the last post in it was on January 11th


That may happen. Making changes like that involves work. The site owner needs to prioritise, and changes which have no actual benefit but just make things more consistent are not necessarily high on the list.


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## Abaye

Paulfromitaly said:


> That can be easily done too
> 
> All languages threads without Aramaic and Syriac


Very nice indeed... although hard to remember lacking intuitive user interface.
Would be better if the results are shown as in the main forum and not as search results.

To clarify: it is the site owner's site and we're only users. Yet when the site becomes less useable, the users community may dwindle. A large number of threads that are interesting for a small number of enthusiastic users is bad for many other users. The Hebrew forum was harmed by this wave, the Other Languages forum seems to follow. It may be favorable for the site thus for the site owner to cope with this issue and I'm sure many users, including those who discuss Aramaic, would be thankful.


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## Romeel

Glasguensis said:


> That may happen. Making changes like that involves work. The site owner needs to prioritise, and changes which have no actual benefit but just make things more consistent are not necessarily high on the list.


I hope he don't change the forums to just tags, it will be a disaster!
Forget about tag characteristics and features it won't be as easy as what it is now, Don't change what works...
And if you ask members, I'm sure they'll tell you not to change anything.


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## Paulfromitaly

Abaye said:


> although hard to remember lacking intuitive user interface.


You just need to bookmark this link in your browser and then it's just a click.


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## Abaye

Paulfromitaly said:


> You just need to bookmark this link in your browser and then it's just a click.


I know the secret now and continued to the full "search" page that allows include and exclude tags, and I also noticed the way you limited the results to a specific forum (who needs docs when there's internal know-how ). Thanks a lot for this.

But this is not only for me, every user may experience the same in Other Languages, maybe some kind of public message could help.


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## JAN SHAR

There are now over two hundred Aramaic threads. We definitely need a separate Aramaic forum.


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## Bevj

JAN SHAR said:


> There are now over two hundred Aramaic threads. We definitely need a separate Aramaic forum.


If it's so popular and necessary, how come nearly all the threads have no replies at all?


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## Madeeha719

Now that abaye has proven himself capable of moderating the Aramaic forum, it should be created asap.


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## Glasguensis

Madeeha719 said:


> Now that abaye has proven himself capable of moderating the Aramaic forum, it should be created asap.


You seem to have misunderstood what the function of a moderator is. Moderators are not there to answer questions (although of course they can, like anyone else). Their main function is to ensure that the rules of the forum are followed, and to perform administrative functions such as adding tags and modifying titles. Abaye has been answering Aramaic questions but has not been moderating.


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## Romeel

Glasguensis said:


> You seem to have misunderstood what the function of a moderator is. Moderators are not there to answer questions (although of course they can, like anyone else). Their main function is to ensure that the rules of the forum are followed, and to perform administrative functions such as adding tags and modifying titles. Abaye has been answering Aramaic questions but has not been moderating.


How can he moderate if he don't understand the language?!


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## cherine

Dear all,

This thread has gone for longer than necessary. Maybe because we, the moderators, failed to make things clear enough. So, please allow me to give you these two links, I hope they answer your (plural) questions.
FAQ: How New Forums are Created
FAQ about Moderators

This thread is now closed to avoid further unnecessary repetitions.


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