Does anybody else feel like italki has lost the community side that it had before?
It seems a little ironic that it's changed to be more of a social media platform but lost that side of itself. I feel like before the change there were some interesting discussions about language and culture. The questions section led to some fascinating exchanges about syntax and idiom. It was often the same with notebook entries.
Very few of the people that I follow post now (probably because it's difficult to type on a phone). Questions either seem to be ignored or get 1000 replies, which are often wrong. The whole site feels much more anonymous now.
I didn't actually like the downvote option we had before, but now I find a lot of incorrect answers are up-voted, which is unhelpful to people. I wonder if it actually helped the community.
I actually think that, perhaps, a lot of the issues could be fixed if a language exchange section was provided again. Every part of the site seems to be 80% language partner requests and I guess nobody can see much else through that background noise.
I know that italki's main aim is to get people to take lessons, but it seems to me that having all of the other parts helped that. There are many sites that you can find tutors on, but not many that provide the other options alongside; cultural discussions, writing corrections, answers to language questions. The reasons you need to stay here and use italki as a tutor platform.
I hope that some of the feedback is listened to. I for one don't feel as inclined to be here as much, writing and correcting, as I did before. From watching my following feed, I assume it is the case with others as well?