Our update today includes some brand new features and a few changes to the membership structure.
LingQ Exchange
The Exchange is a new page where you can request different services from tutors and other members in the LingQ community. You will now be able to request translation, transcription and more all through this page. Submit requests publicly for everyone to see or privately for only a specific person to see.
The Teach page has been moved into the menu underneath Exchange, and there is also a new page called Find a Tutor. This page allows you to search for tutors more easily, and provides a better interface for viewing the conversation times and lessons related to that specific tutor.
The membership plans available on the site have seen some changes with this latest update. We reduced the number of options available and changed the names to provide more clarity. The new plans are Free, Premium and Premium Plus. Premium is the former Basic, and Premium Plus is the former Plus. The old Premium plan has been discontinued, but any existing old Premium plans will continue as normal.
In addition, we have reduced the number of LingQs for Free accounts to 20, and added a way to increase this limit up to 500 by referring friends. Your LingQ limit will increase by 20 each time a friend signs up.
Lastly, LingQ no longer takes a commission on points used within the site. Instead, the commission will be taken if points are cashed out. We hope this encourages more activity on the site and through the new Exchange.
This new exchange section looks great. I can’t wait to try it out. With regards to submitting text for being recorded, what are the rules for submitting copyrighted material, especially when it is submitted to the entire community?
@ColinPhilipJohnstone - Glad to hear it! We’re excited to see how our users take advantage of the new features.
With regard to copyrighted content, we never advise copyrighted content to be shared publicly through our site. Please see our Terms of Service for further information regarding our stance on copyright infringement: Terms of Service for LingQ
That is as I thought. I would not share copyrighted material. What about if I want to have some copyrighted text recorded and I submit it to one person individually?
The Exchange function looks interesting. However, I have been alerted about a new submission innzrussian, open to all correctors, but I do not speak Russian! I hope you can easily fix this.
Colin,that should not be a problem. Really problems would arise only if copyrighted material is shared in the Library. No one is going to bother us about personal exchanges.
Thanks Mike, and I am sure there will be a number of bugs, as well as features, that need to be sorted out. Keep providing feedback.
By the way, the infinite spinwheel is gone! Good work. A few other little bugs with the reading interface remain, but I have already reported the ones I know about.
ditto, under exchange - my requests - I see 2 submissions, 1 in russian, and the other in french, lol. No big deal tho.
I do have a query though - why do I only see the stats/flag for one language (instead of two) displayed on my homepage? I have noticed that too with some (not all) other members.
Cheers.
@Le Jr - It’s kinda nice to see them displayed at the same time though. Also, I can’t see what other langs some people are studying and vice versa (whom I know are studying more than one). However, your page shows me you’re studying 2 langs. What does mine show to others?
@Julz611, Le_Jr - The following and flag issues seem to have been related to our interface translation system as well. They seem to be resolved now for me.
sorry, only one L2 flag displays, & only one lang displays in the drop down box under Progress snapshot on my profile page (regardless of which lang I choose to select). (However, my timeline page does display both langs under progress snapshot). Nothing to sweat over, but just nice if resolved eventually.
“LingQ no longer takes a commission on points used within the site. Instead, the commission will be taken if points are cashed out. We hope this encourages more activity on the site and through the new Exchange.”
Actually this is a very intelligent way to discourage users from giving points as gifts for tutoring (if you wanted to avoid Lingq’s commision).
And then, you also add a new commission to the Provider points awards. We didn’t have a commission there but now we do. So actually we’re getting 1/4 less points(=money) from sharing lessons.
For the vast majority of users, LingQ not taking a commision simply makes it easier to have language exchanges with each other. Members can trade tutor services with other members one for one. We want to encourage more interaction between members.
We have decided, however, to continue taking our 25% on languages services for those tutors who cash out. Since the LingQ commision is taken at the time of cashing out, the commission is now applied to all points. We cannot easily distinguish different kinds of points. This change was certainly not designed to target the few users who regularly gift each other points.
I can see, however, that it does affect the income from content provided. It might be possible to do more for outstanding content providers. Let us think about it.
Hi Steve
Actually, taking a commission on providers will affect those who have provided more lessons and those who, for the quality of their lessons have become more active in tutoring. Without them, the Lingq library wouldn’t be the same. By taking a commission on the points they get, you are punishing them instead of rewarding them.
@Julz611 It only shows 1 flag, of which is being Chinese.
I still see why there is an issue with LingQ taking commission off points. After all, they are a business and they need to make money so they can continue providing us new updates and keeping the site up and running.
"We have decided, however, to continue taking our 25% on languages services for those tutors who cash out. "
Does “cash out” include subscription renewals (6 months = 6000 points), or does it only applies to the cash out of points > 10000 (1US$ = 100 points) ?