At the same time, knowledge of and appreciation for related varieties was poor, which stifled cooperation between most of the dialect preservation groups. Instead of forming an organisation to stand together and help one another to improve the status for all the different varieties, fiery discussions arose about whether the long open or open-mid back rounded vowel (pronounced or , depending on the dialect) should be written as either 'oa' or 'ao'. That resulted in little co-operation and no nationwide coordination.