Although I completely get what you’re going for here, @ianblandford , I’m afraid I can see an issue with this. Because I agree with you in my own case, I have used my own name; however, there may be some people on here for whom this might not be the best choice. I’m thinking particularly of our more vulnerable members (for instance, some of our fairly young).
Being in IT professionally, I just can’t help thinking constantly about security implications. 
Me, too, @Richmountart. I’m really NOT a huge fan of crawling through forums; but I popped onto this one some time ago to see if I could find the answer to a question, and I’ve been here ever since. LOVE the people here and how helpful they can be!
I don’t have a lot of time to be able to contribute to the forum, or to read long threads upon it. But as far as welcoming goes - if I had a question about the language, or needed some encouragement for my hit and miss attempts to become a natural welsh speaker, then this is the place I would come. I would always be able to rely on support from fellow learners and speakers here (whatever their political or religious leanings… 
)
I would always be able to rely on support from fellow learners and speakers here (whatever their political or religious leanings…
I totally agree @robscully. 
My point is that I don’t need or want to know what “their political or religious leanings are” .
On your point here, I’d like to emphasise that this post is for everyone! Personally I see this thread as embodying Aran and Iestyn’s repeated mantra about mistakes. It’s is not a place to be scared of mistakes but a chance to make them in peace and comfort 
Everyone in there will make mistakes, just as we all make slips in English on this forum. So please don’t feel you can’t write in that post. I’m directing this at everyone Tatjana, not just you
Yes, but some of us used a pseudonym until the new forum came in and our pseudonym was replaced with our real name without any choice being involved.
Hmmm … If I remember correctly, I was on the old forum too, but I wasn’t automatically trnsferred on here though. I had to choose username and PW separately for the forum and for the site and the name also if I still remember well.
For all: there was oldold forum based on phpBB, then there was old forum (I’m not quite sure on what based that one but I know it looked a bit different) and then there was new forum which was some time ago updated with new version of software aswell. I believe it depends on which of them you’ve signed first.
And, to be honest, I requested of changing my name also because I misslooked that part where you can put in another username before submiting the signin form so it was rather silly NameSurnamePseudonim thingy.
And besides … I just have written my thoughts not to “demand” from anyone to do as I say (hope I am not missunderstood (as I was numerous times before)).
Well, @AnthonyCusack I didn’t want to point out things about mistakes but just that one who has practically zero knowledge of the language yet and sees only Welsh posts might be scarred off, not because one would do mistakes but because they can’t understand a thing (yet). This was my issue too. I could guess/googletranslate/searching for words to be able to understand one or two sentences or expressions but surely not the whole post as such so I rather didn’t try to enter at all. That’s the point I wanted to make here.
It’s also not the thing that I don’t post in “Be’ dach chi’n gwneud” topic because I might make a mistake. I finally have learnt to mostly ignore them or notice them and go further. But I simply have nothing interesting to tell so why burden this forum with my uninteresting posts … (oh, boy, they’re always too long anyway ).
I know this, don’t worry. I understand you perfectly. (at least one thing I really understand these days. )
Personally, I quite like the extra stuff (Posts written in the Welsh language, opinions, etymology, grammar, learning progress, pictures whatever) as being complementary / secondary to the main forum on lesson questions. I’m totally ok on politics, religion, even cats as it keeps me off Facebook. However, I fully appreciate that the extra stuff may need to tucked away into a separate “discussion lounge/members unleashed” section and that participants we will need to be sensitive.
Completely agree that the Welsh only posts should be additions and not te bulk of the forum
Sorry about that, Raymond - it certainly wasn’t deliberate from our side of things - sounds like a hiccup in terms of which field the forum used for your username. But I can change it for you if you like…
Having tried but not altogether succeeded in ploughing through all the posts on this thread. I have one or two comments which I hope will be taken in a constructive manner, because there may be something which could be construed as a criticism. I’ll come to that in a while.
First of all we need to get back to the basic question of what the forum is for. There may have been a guiding principle when it was set up and I would imagine it was that the forum should help and encourage learners and to answer their questions as they work their way through the three levels and to enable more experienced speakers to offer help and advice.
To do this it does need to be welcoming, simple to navigate and overall, true to its purpose. So, and here I come to my first point of , not exactly criticism, but of observation. If I had come onto the forum in my early days of learning and had seen often fairly long posts, some of them in Welsh, I would perhaps have been put off, thinking it to be rather elitist. So, first suggestion, how about banning all posts in Welsh (Counter-intuitive I know but important) I know this has been the intention but I have seen a few in the recent past
Secondly, having, as I said failed to work my way all through this thread, I haven’t seen a great deal of useful guidance as to how the forum should evolve but very many over long posts.So, as an aid to niceness and reduce the tedium, how about limiting each post to say five hundred characters, and each thread to twenty five posts? Should anything useful come out of any particular thread which needs further discussion it could go into a new thread.
I believe that such a format would mean that more people would be inclined to read more thoroughly the threads that interest them than perhaps they do now.
Sorry that’s a lot more than five hundred characters, so you see my point?
I understand your point about limiting posts. However, that could cause a few things: people being put off asking, because a post has closed but they don’t feel the question is answered. They could start a new post but that’s more intimidating. Secondly, it looses some of the community development. Yes the primary reason for this Forum is to help people learning. Part of that goes hand in hand with community development. People feel more connected to the language if they feel they have friends and an emotional attachment. This is enhanced by the forum. If you feel part of the community here you’re more likely to ask for help. Otherwise this would simply be an FAQ page.
Some of this is mentioned above, so consider this a vote for/against
A political discussion section will likely lead to more discussion that needs to be actively moderated
Real names and user pictures make a forum feel less anonymous, and hence more welcoming
For people with security concerns, at least pick a human name. It just feels nicer to say Hi Bill, rather than Hi bumblingbadger55
I would like a little more structure e.g. the lesson specific topics that used to exist
There is good stuff that happens at the moment when it comes to welcoming people - there are often “welcome to the forum” messages posted by a number of users. Perhaps recognise and reward that behaviour to encourage other users to get involved in a similar way.
I completely agree with these points James.
We always welcome comments offered in a polite and friendly manner - diolch yn fawr iawn for your input, which is hugely helpful as we work through some of these ideas…
I’ve got a bit of a backlog at the moment, but I’m hoping to do a summary of this thread before the end of the week, and see what sort of overall look we’ve got…
I miss her, she was a really big help sometimes. 
@gruntius - did you see that? PM if for any reason you’re not comfortable discussing it on the forum?
Done.
Ja … I … guilty … (however that’s what I am, sorry, all one loooooooong post … ).
I see really big problem with that.
The discussion only really starts properly within about 25 posts so it would be broken in the middle of the very beginning and proper answer to whatever (for example) the question might not be even given not to point out that not even all regular posters would have the chance to participate what those who just decided to make a contribution. Also “late birds” to the party would miss all out too. If you start the new thread it’s never the same as it was previous one and never the feeling is the same about the theme/question either.
There would be too many threads, some even one after another, with the same subject/question in which might happen one could simply not find the desired answer just because previous mentioned limitation. Even now it happens too many times that there are all of a sudden two (or more) new threads with the exactly the same subject and if you search a bit more you could easily find two or three older more. With many same topics in a very short time to one newcomer to the forum it might appear as though moderators don’t do their work well (which we all know is not true). So such thing might put false feeling and view of the forum to those who appear on here for the first time.
As for the long posts … (once again) I’m sorry. Maybe only I should be limited to 500 characters as I never am able to write short post unless being angry ( ) or too lazy to say more, especially when there’s something nice to be posted.
Well, just my point of view (hopefully friendly enough).
I like this idea.[quote=“bryanroberts, post:51, topic:7867”]
and each thread to twenty five posts
[/quote]
This one not so much.