# Fewer and fewer questions asked in the forums?



## machadinho

Moderator note: This discussion has been moved the WRF Comments & Suggestions Forum, where members are welcome to discuss the WR Forums and suggest new ideas.


Do you feel like fewer and fewer questions are asked in your favorite forums lately? The Portuguese forum seems to be dying a slow death, and I was wondering if anything like this is going on in other forums or even if this is a general trend on WR.


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## ilocas2

It's not my favourite forum, not even remotely, but I can say that Czech forum is definitely less active in 2015 (except January and February when one member started many threads) than it was before.


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## Encolpius

Blame the policy of the website....too many moderators and little freedom... if it goes like that it will soon end....there are many more similar website (like yahoo) where chatting is not banned...what I have also noticed there are more and more banned members who had had intelligent and fascinating comments...well the WR just reflects the perfect politically correct Western policy...  I have stopped asking questions because there is little participation and in some forums the moderators are so unpleasant I don't visit them..


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## machadinho

Thank you both. Encolpius, I'm sorry to hear about your experience here. Website policy may well be a problem sometimes, especially when it peremptorily prevents people from asking questions, which is never a good thing. Questions, any questions, should at all times be encouraged, not discouraged. I'm not sure I would hold the same view as to answers, though, as there are no shortage of posts that don't even qualify as answers at all nor minimally as relevant comments.

That said, I feel that blaming moderators can hardly apply to all cases (on the assumption that there are any other cases in addition to the Portuguese and Czech forums).
At least I truly doubt it applies to the Portuguese forum, as Vanda, our one only moderator there, is not only definitely easygoing but actually esteemed among us.


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## Stoggler

I can recall when I first joined these forums that I was rather shocked at the level of moderation - it made you feel that you weren't welcome. After a few posts I stayed away for a few months. I eventually dipped my toes in again, but I could have easily never come back again.

Sorry, not sure if that helps on this topic, but if levels of moderation are overly strict, then many new members won't stick around and you run the risk of a lack of new blood to maintain overall numbers.


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## Encolpius

[...]

unfortunately this is not the USA Senate and we cannot elect moderators we want....my worst experience is with the Italian forum, too bad, I am quite interested on that language....on the other hand there are forums where there seem to be no moderators at all...real chaos and anarchy...

Moderator note: Please refrain from making public comments on individuals moderating the Forum. Your feedback to them is welcome via private conversation.


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## ernest_

I definitely noticed much less activity in the Catalan forum this year, but I don't think it's because people are put off by the moderators. (I don't even know if we have a moderator, to be honest.) I think a lot of questions have already been asked and answered, and since they pop up in Internet searches people don't need to ask them again. That seems a plausible explanation.


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## mkellogg

Many forums like ours have experienced the same thing.  I personally think Facebook has pulled a lot of people away who used to spend time in forums like this.  Also, as ernest_ says, many people are getting better at doing a Google search or search of our forum before asking here.

I've got a plan to encourage more questions. It might have to wait till after the holidays, but I have high hopes for it.


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## Peterdg

I spend most of my time in the Spanish forums (Spanish-English grammar, Spanish Only, Spanish-German)  and in the Dutch forum and I don't see a substantial decrease in questions (I'm here since 2009). So, it may be specific to some forums.


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## wildan1

The other reality is that after 11 years' existence, there are literally hundreds of thousands of discussions across our Forums. Happily, people coming here can find many answers to their questions by just searching for past discussions, and possibly adding a new question or context to an existing discussion. They don't need to ask a new question so much anymore.

I think that is a sign of the site's maturity and success, and it is thanks to all the members who participate here and provide so much useful information that others can enjoy.

Remember, the WR Forums are an adjunct to the WR Dictionary. The rules that were set up and followed by the moderators reflect that mission.

Of course Yahoo or other sites that are more open-ended will allow for more informal chatting. If that is what you seek, of course you should go there and enjoy it!

wildan1, FR-EN Moderator


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## Peterdg

Wildan,

I absolutely agree with everything you say. 

One of the strong points of the forum is that it is to the point (most of the time) and you don't have to work through a lengthy list of off-topic side conversations before you can find relevant information.


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## Encolpius

Encolpius said:


> [...] ...Moderator note: Please refrain from making public comments on individuals moderating the Forum. Your feedback to them is welcome via private conversation.



individuals??? -- it makes me feel they are only avatars
even in Hungary you have the right to make comments about "state officials", even in Hungary the freedom of speech is respected 
are moderators something like Gods who have only rights? do they have any duties??


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## Peterdg

Encolpius said:


> individuals??? -- it makes me feel they are only avatars
> even in Hungary you have the right to make comments about "state officials", even in Hungary the freedom of speech is respected
> are moderators something like Gods who have only rights? do they have any duties??


What makes you think that this forum is a democracy?

This is a place that is owned by someone and you are a guest. In my country, when you are a guest in someone's house, you follow the rules of that house.


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## machadinho

In my country, federal law and state law override house rules.

We follow house rules by politeness.


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## Nino83

Speaking about the initial question, I agree with Peterdg. It depends on the forum.



Encolpius said:


> my worst experience is with the Italian forum, too bad



I noted that some forums (EN-ES, EN-IT, EN-FR) have stricter rules, probably because there are many threads (if it weren't so, there would be some anarchy) while in other forums there is more freedom.  
About moderators, I can say that if some decision is not so right, the report function works well (for example if a thread was closed instead of being moved to the right forum).


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## Encolpius

Peterdg said:


> What makes you think that this forum is a democracy?
> 
> This is a place that is owned by someone and you are a guest. In my country, when you are a guest in someone's house, you follow the rules of that house.



This placed is owned by someone and created by participants...if you have few participants, customers the owner might close his shop...

Exactly, and if you do not like it, you go away, I have done in some forums.....although I'd have many questions...
But while I liked WR 5 years ago I do not like it any longer.... my observation is participants are less active and moderators feel bored...


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## Loob

Like Peter, I agree with wildan.

I do worry, though, that the forums may, in practice, become a victim of their own success. If someone has a question on  a "popular" topic, it's getting harder and harder to search previous threads for an answer, simply because - at least in EO, the forum I'm most familiar with - there are vast numbers of them.

I don't know what the solution is, though.


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## machadinho

A possible solution would be to allow users to vote threads, not particular posts, up and down.


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## CyrusSH

Why should I waste my time posting when a moderator delete it immediately? The interesting thing is that there is no way to complain against a moderator here!


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## osa_menor

I agree with the opinion of Ernest and Loob. Almost all questions I would have are answered by someone yet. It's only a matter of "search and find".



> 1. *Search first. *Use the search box at the top of this page. Below the dictionary definitions, there is a list of forum threads. If you don’t find the answer to your question, you can open a new thread.


With this rule not much new questions will emerge.


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## machadinho

osa_menor said:


> With this rule not much new questions will emerge.


I doubt it, unless it is only *popular* topics you have in mind.


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## osa_menor

machadinho said:


> I doubt it, unless it is only *popular* topics you have in mind.


Maybe you are right. Since I am still learning, all my questions are presumably popular ones .


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## machadinho

I didn't say you only have popular questions to ask. What I said is that your rule holds for popular questions only.


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## mkellogg

Encolpius said:


> individuals??? -- it makes me feel they are only avatars
> even in Hungary you have the right to make comments about "state officials", even in Hungary the freedom of speech is respected
> are moderators something like Gods who have only rights? do they have any duties??


I understand what you are saying, but there are a few problems with freewheeling criticism of moderators in public.
1. Such emotional issues are best handled in private. 
2. The moderators are volunteers.  We try to minimize the abuse that they get. Keeping it out of public eyes is a big part of it. If these discussions were public, many moderators would quit. Nobody would want to moderate these forums.
3. Seeing a bunch of people complaining really makes for a bad atmosphere.

Discussion of the rules is quite welcome in this Comments and Suggestions forum.  No problem, but let's keep discussion of moderators behind closed doors.



Nino83 said:


> About moderators, I can say that if some decision is not so right, the report function works well


This is true.  If you think a moderator did something wrong, click the Report link.  The other moderators will see it.

And you can always write me (best done through the Contact Us link).  If a moderator is causing problems, I will be very motivated to fix the issue.

One final note: I want people to find the answers in previous threads instead of asking new questions.  Ideally, in the largest forums with many existing threads, there would be very few questions!


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## osa_menor

machadinho said:


> I didn't say you only have popular questions to ask. What I said is that your rule holds for popular questions only.


I did understand your post. What I really meant to say was: with that this forum would be one from experts for experts.


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## Encolpius

machadinho said:


> A possible solution would be to allow users to vote threads, not particular posts, up and down.



I think there has been such a discussion about that issue her...and I still think it would be a good idea....there are many passive, lazy visitors and the trend in internet is now to vote, to rate with one click...young people prefer clicking...


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## JustKate

mkellogg said:


> I understand what you are saying, but there are a few problems with freewheeling criticism of moderators in public.
> 1. Such emotional issues are best handled in private.
> 2. The moderators are volunteers.  We try to minimize the abuse that they get. Keeping it out of public eyes is a big part of it. If these discussions were public, many moderators would quit. Nobody would want to moderate these forums.
> 3. Seeing a bunch of people complaining really makes for a bad atmosphere.



The other problem with posting complaints about a moderator in a thread is that those complaints can have the same effect as *any* personal comment about *anybody*: They can completely derail the thread. A thread about, for example, whether to capitalize _president_ in a particular sentence is not helped if someone decides to declare his support or opposition to a particular president, and complaints about the moderator who deletes those posts don't help either.

Just think about the poor OP wading through a whole series of posts - usually written in a language that is not the OP's native language - about things that have nothing to do with his question, simply to find out whether _president_ should be capped or not. It doesn't matter to the OP whether those off-topic comments are directed at a moderator or another member. To the person who just wants an answer to his question, they are simply distractions and sources of confusion.


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## Encolpius

By the way, I named a moderator with positive comments but after all I did not mention any particular moderator with bad comment...  Do moderators have any feedback how they work? Is that not a sort of work? Have been moderators banned, degraded? Or is that a function like the Italian Senators?


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## CyrusSH

Is it a big request that I say this word has this meaning in my native language and a moderator who knows almost nothing about this language doesn't delete it?


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## Kelly B

I agree with Ernest_ - a lot of my own questions have been asked and answered in earlier threads, and I'm delighted when I can find them without wading through a lot of noise. I rarely need to open a thread, yet I'm still a very active user and participant.

Many of us use the forums as a resource, a supplement to the dictionary, which cannot cover all the possible uses of words and expressions.
The more quickly I can get an answer to my question, the happier I am, and the rules are designed to facilitate that. 

If you start a new thread, you are depending on the availability of people to answer it. Maybe the person who knows the best answer to your question is sleeping, or on vacation, or stopped answering threads in 2011. But if the forum is easy to search, you don't have to wait for a knowledgeable person to answer. You've got a decade's worth of accumulated knowledge right here at your fingertips.

The moderators are members, first and foremost, so they work to make the searching system work smoothly for everybody's benefit. 

The other day I wanted to give someone a link to a thread that has excellent explanations. I had a terrible time finding it. So I took note of the search terms that didn't work. When I finally did find it, I reported it and suggested the search terms I thought of first, the ones that didn't work. A moderator added those terms to the title for me. If you think a title is poorly chosen, or inadequate, use the report function to offer specific suggestions. Then you, or someone else, will be able to find it later. 

If you think an old thread is useless as a resource, report it to say so. We can help the moderators eliminate the clutter. That makes it easier for everyone to find what they need.


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## Michelvar

I agree with Kelly B, we moderators spend a lot of time trying to make existing threads user-friendly.

Perhaps you didn't note that existing threads are checked a lot by users, much more than the live part of the forum. For instance, Dans l'attente de votre réponse, je vous prie d'agréer etc. is just a two posts thread, but has been read 437.087 times, so hundreds of thousands of people have found the answer of this question without having to ask again.



Encolpius said:


> Do moderators have any feedback how they work?


Yes we do. A lot of people ask us (by private message), to justify our actions, and we explain (by private message). And when they don't agree, they can tell us (by private message).

But, at the end of the day, this is not the right place for trolls or for Internet fights. One owner, some regulations, a handful of trained moderators, and a useful, quiet place for people in need of help about languages. For people looking for something else, well, the rest of the Internet is large enough...


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## Peterdg

CyrusSH said:


> Is it a big request that I say this word has this meaning in my native language and a moderator who knows almost nothing about this language doesn't delete it?


As I don't know the thread, nor its contents, it's hard to comment on this. But there are a number of very good reasons why posts get deleted by moderation, even if they do not contain incorrections. One of the more common ones is that the post is off-topic.

Suppose a thread deals with a certain expression/structure A. In the course of the answers, a completely different expression/structure B pops up and in the following posts, this expression/structure B is discussed instead of the original expression/structure A. While all the following posts may be relevant to expression/structure B and everything that is said may be correct, it remains off-topic and should be deleted from the thread.


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## JamesM

Encolpius said:


> are moderators something like Gods who have only rights? do they have any duties??



This is in our FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section.  There is a link at the top of each page.  If you want to know more about moderators you'll find a lot of answers here:

FAQ about Moderators | WordReference Forums

The duties include:

- Reading threads to ensure that posts are cordial, collegial, on-topic and not chatty, and that they follow rules of punctuation and capitalization;
- Merging or deleting duplicate posts and threads;
- Responding to report-a-post messages from members;
- Moving misplaced threads to the appropriate forum;
- Closing or removing threads that are outside the scope of a forum;
- Changing thread titles for clarity;
- Deleting advertising and “spam” posts;
- Editing posts as necessary, to fulfill the mission of the forums;
- Banning members, when necessary;
- Asking posters for context and complete sentences;
- Sending private messages to members;
- Answering threads like any other member.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Shoud moderators identify themselves when suppressing/deleting post? (Or should I have asked this question as a thread opener ?)


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## JamesM

Any edits or deletions show the name of the person below the post who performed the action.  The system automatically lets you know which moderator took the action.  Usually there is a follow-up private message from the moderator, unless the issue has been discussed before.

Spam messages are moved to a "trash can", so you won't see them in the regular forum.


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## Peterdg

JamesM said:


> Any edits or deletions show the name of the person below the post who performed the action.  The system automatically lets you know which moderator took the action.
> 
> Spam messages are moved to a "trash can", so you won't see them in the regular forum.


James,
This used to be true in VBulletin, but it is not entirely true for XenForo. Xenforo tells you who deleted a post, but it does not tell you anymore who modified a post. In the latter case, it just says: "modified by a moderator".


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## JamesM

Oh!  I didn't know that.  That's interesting.  I wonder how we should work around that.  Thanks for the information, Peterdg.


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## PaulQ

machadinho said:


> Do you feel like fewer and fewer questions are asked in your favorite forums lately? The Portuguese forum seems to be dying a slow death,


The only way to know would be to combine the stats for questions asked per week/month/etc and the number of page views (excluding bots). These stats are available from the server.


Kelly B said:


> Many of us use the forums as a resource, a supplement to the dictionary, which cannot cover all the possible uses of words and expressions.


This is a category that visits the forums whether they are logged in or not and will not show up as posts but nevertheless, the purpose of WRF is being served and...





mkellogg said:


> One final note: I want people to find the answers in previous threads instead of asking new questions. Ideally, in the largest forums with many existing threads, there would be very few questions!


If I understand correctly, WRF is heading towards being a reference work of record.

I have noted that some topics have hundreds of threads and others a few. They address all types of question from all areas of language. It is a huge task, but I have often thought that from the many topics on recurring themes, some definitive threads might be created. As examples from the English Only Forum, the use of the definite and indefinite articles; how to say numbers and dates; the -ing form, etc., etc. This would reduce the number of questions and move more towards the reference side. I'm sure other languages will have similar recurring topics.

PS, the topic is drifting... where's a Mod when you want one?


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## Peterdg

JamesM said:


> I wonder how we should work around that.


In the Spanish-English (or English-Spanish, if you want) forums, some moderators (not all), when they edit a post, leave a note in the post (usually in a different color) why they edited the post and sign with their forum name.


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## JamesM

Yes, I often leave an in-post remark (in italics) but I'm not in the habit of including my forum name because I thought it was recorded automatically.  I'll add that habit, I guess.


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## Loob

machadinho said:


> A possible solution would be to allow users to vote threads, not particular posts, up and down.


I think that's rather a good idea, machadinho.  I'm 100% against "likes" for posts; but  for threads could be useful.

I wonder, too, if there might be a way of indicating closed threads in a_ Dictionary and thread title _search?


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## siares

That is a recurring conversation..


mkellogg said:


> I agree that _someday _we will probably need to somehow start allowing people to mark threads that are not useful as links in the dictionaries. I'm not convinced that we have reached that point yet, though we probably will get there in the next two to three years.


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## Loob

Siares, I see that that post of Mike's you quote dates from 2007.

I think that there was, for a while, an option for people to suggest that a particular thread should be removed from the database.  I'm not sure that's as good as a  system, though....


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## wildan1

We already get such suggestions from members who simply use the existing Report function at the bottom of the page. 

That gives us only a one-person opinion, however, but such feedback is always welcome.


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## siares

Loob said:


> dates from 2007


Yes that is why I posted it. Anytime likes are proposed there are so many reasons against them quoted that I feel hopeless when I see the same topic again. (not that Mikes's was post was directly about likes; it was converse)
I am very keen on thread likes, but having seen all the defeats I have no fight left in me. The only more demoralising (for me) rehashed topic is: appending questions to old threads.


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## Loob

I don't recall a discussion on thread "likes" as distinct from post "likes", siares.

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*Later EDIT*:
I've just remembered this 2011 thread by EStjarn, which discusses a similar idea:
Was this thread useful?


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## siares

Loob said:


> thread "likes" as distinct from post "likes"


Many posts are interspersed in 'thanks button' or other discussions. Mostly about how people who get their answer would be undiscerningly like-happy and do we really need that in our totally non-elitist forum?
Since you quoted EStjarn's thread on the likes, here's his on appending to old threads: here.


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## ilocas2

Nobody made a post in the Other Slavic languages subforum in last 9 days. 

Czech subforum is much less active than Polish subforum and there was time when they were comparable.


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