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Forum has become so quiet

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Wd40
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Forum has become so quiet

Post by Wd40 » Sat, 30 May 2015 9:06 pm

I feel the forum has been very quiet off late. We haven't had those 10-20 page threads for sometime now, like we used to.



Anyone else feels the same? Where is everyone?
Last edited by Wd40 on Sat, 30 May 2015 9:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Forum has become so quiet

Post by sundaymorningstaple » Sat, 30 May 2015 9:35 pm

It's Friday night on the beginning of a long weekend. What did you expect!
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

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Re: Forum has become so quiet

Post by JR8 » Sat, 30 May 2015 10:25 pm

Wd40 wrote:Anyone else feels the same? Where is everyone?
Seems quiet to me too, w/e or not. I think a) the teething problems with the new format caused quite a bit of down-time and uncertainty, though I don't question a tech upgrade was probably overdue. I'm still getting the 'MYSQLI' error, on seemingly every other post so don't know if what I write actually goes through or if I'm wasting my time talking to the ether.

b) I think the volume of spam getting through does no favours either. This must put some people off, especially newbies. My impression is that the hurdles to initial sign-up might benefit from being set higher, as onerous as that is often considered.

Just my 2c
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Re: Forum has become so quiet

Post by Pal » Sun, 31 May 2015 3:40 am

It was this quiet during the previous long weekend too ...

Shall we kick start a weekly contest and have a prize for the member with the most posts? Thoughts?

Strangely, I personally didn't encounter the MySQLi error, not even once.
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Re: Forum has become so quiet

Post by Wd40 » Sun, 31 May 2015 9:21 am

Yeah, I am not talking about this week. It's been like this for sometime now. We used to have lots of old regulars contribute a lot. Now some of those old regulars have disappeared may be left SG or lost interest but they haven't been replaced with new regulars.

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Re: Forum has become so quiet

Post by Pal » Sun, 31 May 2015 9:32 am

Wd40 wrote:Yeah, I am not talking this week. It's been like this for sometime now. We used to have lots of old regulars contribute a lot. Now some of those old regulars have disappeared may be left SG or lost interest but they haven't been replaced with new regulars.
Yup, I agree. The new members are not contributing like the old regulars which is a pity [-(

New members should stay in the forum and participate more instead of asking question and leave ....
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Re: Forum has become so quiet

Post by JR8 » Sun, 31 May 2015 11:30 am

Pal wrote: It was this quiet during the previous long weekend too ...
Shall we kick start a weekly contest and have a prize for the member with the most posts? Thoughts?
Strangely, I personally didn't encounter the MySQLi error, not even once.
...
Yup, I agree. The new members are not contributing like the old regulars which is a pity [-(
New members should stay in the forum and participate more instead of asking question and leave ....
A problem that might bring is that is that it would encourage quantity over quality. And quality is what is going to see people returning.
There is another forum I use (a financial one) where you can 'Recommend' others writer's posts. The users name/avatar gets stars and mini-trophies (like earning medals) the more they are Recommended. You can also 'Favourite' someone, and they can get another medal and vie to be in the 'Top Favourites' list. And so on. But it can alter how some people write... into an unnecessarily populist and flamboyant way, 'playing to the audience' to maintain their rankings/medals, rather than focusing on content with value. - So I conclude that approach adds little value.

It'd be interesting to understand the approach and relative performance of the 'other forum' for SG expats. As I recall they require a new members first 5 posts to go via a pre-approval queue, and that keeps out almost all spam. (That said quite a lot of what is posted is pretty 'out there'). I can see that could also be a bit off-putting as newbies tend to have questions, and they seek an answer ASAP. Having those questions held up somewhere in an invisible queue is not ideal.

What other fora are there, re: expatting to and in Singapore? What is their approach, and audience size?
I'm packing up and reposting elsewhere in a while and was looking at what expat-type discussion groups that country has. As a newbie I have the usual macro-type 1.01 newbie questions. The only one I could find is called 'InterNations' [http://www.internations.org/]. It turns out they are German based, but they have sub-fora for all the main countries, sub-sub-fora for cities etc. I've signed up but haven't used it yet; it'll be interesting to see how they go about things. I'll be sure to 'feedbacks' anything of potential value I find.

IIRC only one other person has mentioned the MYSQLI error, so I suspect it must be browser specific. Maybe I'll try writing to this forum via Firefox for a week, rather than Opera and see if that resolves the error for me. It's weird though, sometimes I get it on every post, and then at other times not for days.

It's a good point re: the back-to-back long weekends, I'd not really registered that fact as I don't work according to the SGn calendar, (or even clock - sigh). That's going to have some impact, perhaps not quite on the scale of the mass exodus during JPnese Golden Week, but it's sure to be having an impact on visit/post count. Well fingers crossed.

We keep reading about tightening FT visa quotas and stuff, ... rents are meant to be easing suggesting dropping demand, it could well be that there are simply less people getting posted here. And as the hurdles to get here rise, the kind of people moving here are more experienced/older, and less of the kind of people who hang out on the internet.


- FWIW I think the level of moderation here is good. I've been on sites that have little, and that's off-putting. And then I've been on sites where it is over-moderated (IMO), condescending and 'nannying'. Example: I've just had a post deleted from the 'gongs+trophies' site I referred to above, and it was a long and considered post, and it was deleted on the basis that 'The post to which you were replying was deleted, so we deleted your reply'. In fact when that happens they often delete the entire thread, and you're just left wondering why you bother. And that last instance has decided it for me, I can't be bothered any more. And rather mourning that, as I've posted there for maaaaany years, I realise that pretty much all the useful info I glean there, I can source elsewhere. Perhaps this is where the internet is these days, there's so many resources, that getting people to stick around long-term is increasingly difficult... :-k

ps. edit/add. I'm adding this via Firefox, and I'll use FF for a week+/more, and try and determine if the MYSQLI error is browser specific. FWIW If I don't or forget to revert on this point, you can probably conclude the issue lies in using Opera as a browser on this forum.
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Re: Forum has become so quiet

Post by Pal » Sun, 31 May 2015 1:41 pm

JR8,

We would like to take this chance to thank you for all your contribution all these years. =D> =D> =D> Your posts are always a good read with good quality contents and sometimes entertaining.

We also hope that you can visit this board even if you are away from Singapore. I am sure the rest of the guys here will miss you badly if you are away! [-o< [-o< [-o<
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Re: Forum has become so quiet

Post by JR8 » Sun, 31 May 2015 1:50 pm

Thanks Pal, very kind if you.
You can rest assured that even when we relo I shan't quit the forum. Didn't last time we got posted away, don't plan on doing so this time.
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Re: Forum has become so quiet

Post by Pal » Sun, 31 May 2015 1:53 pm

LIKE x 100!
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Re: Forum has become so quiet

Post by singapore eagle » Sun, 31 May 2015 2:05 pm

OK, I genuinely offer this in a constructive spirit...

Many of you regulars come across as very, shall we say, aggressive. This isn't always the case and there are some notable exceptions - e.g. JR8 and Strong Eagle (most of the time, anyway). I haven't posted very much since I joined, and in part this is because I remember one thread where I contributed some helpful information only to be accused of various different things.

It becomes apparent quite quickly when you join that the board is frequented mainly by older males whose first language is English. It's perhaps not a surprise that this leads to less traffic than you might expect from a Singapore Expats Forum.

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Re: Forum has become so quiet

Post by joop » Sun, 31 May 2015 2:20 pm

Yes, thanks loads to JR8 for your invaluable input and wealth of information that you've shared with the rest of the people here. Your views are always impartial and you take time to respond to each post. Definitely hope to see you around often!
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Re: Forum has become so quiet

Post by Wd40 » Sun, 31 May 2015 2:35 pm

Pal wrote:JR8,

We would like to take this chance to thank you for all your contribution all these years. =D> =D> =D> Your posts are always a good read with good quality contents and sometimes entertaining.

We also hope that you can visit this board even if you are away from Singapore. I am sure the rest of the guys here will miss you badly if you are away! [-o< [-o< [-o<
+100 :)

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Re: RE: Re: Forum has become so quiet

Post by ecureilx » Sun, 31 May 2015 4:59 pm

I have a reasonable excuse ;)

Since I use tapatalk on mobile, I am limiting my keyboard usage ;) not just in this forum ..

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Re: Forum has become so quiet

Post by Brah » Sun, 31 May 2015 7:10 pm

I was thinking this as well even in spite of the few long weekends recently.

As for the off-putting things JR8 mentioned, I don't see these myself as whichever email address I use for notifications I either don't monitor or filter those and don't see them, and makes me think I am missing some useful functionality.

For me, I wax and wane in terms of available time, interest, and things to say, and this seems to has become less over the years though I am still present.

Thankfully some of the more caustic posters are no longer on the forum, I left a few times due to the negativity. Not that I am any ray of sunshine myself...... But most of the posters and lurkers here are pretty good and I like reading what they have to say. Some have become good friends, others have the potential for becoming better friends.
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