15 years ago, this site was a whole lot better.

They can’t move on. They really knew their stuff.
Where did they move on to?
Hartzell ran the legal forum. Almost all his posts had a significant impact on my life. Each new visa, driver’s license info, law change resulted in real actions and improvement. If it wasn’t for him only special foreigners would be able to work freely.

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Are you stupid or what? didn’t you read that he likes the airport?

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But what information is there in an account other than the posts? It’s not like facebook, where you have photos and other things that only certain people are supposed to be able to see.

By default, anything posted here is visible to the world. We have exceptions like the Temp and the Lounge, but anyone can join the site and gain access to those automatically by meeting the requirements of simple algorithms. (The invitation-only secret fora are another story. I mean, uh, if they exist. :zipper_mouth_face:)

If you’ve revealed your real name and location in the public part of your profile, you can remove them.

Would “post volume” include the average length of posts as well as the number of them? I suspect that the move to smartphones has eroded post quality.

In the EU, a site like this would be required to delete all personal information (and perhaps posts as well) on request.

I dunno. Out of curiosity I scrolled way back through the Entertainment section. The R.I.P. George Carlin thread from ten years ago is all very short posts, and you’d think something like that would prompt longer posts. If you compare What (movies) are you watching? (2007) with What Movies Are You Watching —2018—, there don’t seem to be any obvious differences. Except that quote function in those older posts is f’ed up.

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I saw some threads in Legal section. Posts in ARC and visa problems. Please! Suggestions? [ May, 2003 ] were really long, though 5 months later Switching from visitor visa to student visa [Oct. 2003] was not so much different from current threads.

The simple ability to delete your account is pretty much available in all other forum software except Discourse, I’m simplying stating that in this day in age its weird to be not able to delete your account.

This isn’t a data/privacy issue per se, just stating that this is the case.

So @cactusf3ar said that this site is nothing like what an expat site should be and that he can not find useful information at all here.

Out of curiosity I checked his threads and after reading them a bit it was clear to me that what really happened is that the he didn’t like the factual information he was provided, which again was correct. But he didn’t like it. So the information was not good. So this site is not helpful nor good.

And I have the feeling that he has the same problem when it comes to other people’s opinions. He’s very tolerant and open minded but hates people having those backwards opinions, because they are so backwards and so wrong and he’s so right. He’s in his late 20’s and he has to deal with this bunch of old idiots who don’t know anything and are so bad and bigoted and so unhelpful.

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Remember when you were 33 and prayed for the forgiveness for all ignorant people? :wink:

Yeah, well, that was in my past life. Ignorance is forgivable (first time I write that weird word), but angry ignorance… nope.

Did the notifications work 15 years ago? That’ll settle this debate.

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They had to cancel the pre-smartphone notification system; too many of the messenger ravens kept crashing into windows. Big mess, lots of liability costs.

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I just signed up for this forum while searching Google for something. Noticed that people on this forum are so negative and just hating on everything.

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Yep, including you.

Get ‘em, guys!

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I was almost driven away by the attitude here but if you just stay away from some of the more negative threads then it can be kinda fun. Like how dumpster diving can be fun.

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Yes, there’s lots of hatred & anger on this site but I don’t think it was better at all 15 years ago. But there’s no easy objective way to prove it either way.

Oh, you should have been here a couple of years ago. There was a guy (from the US?) who was living in Japan and was married with a Japanese girl, he also had kids. He suddenly had a crush on a young Taiwanese girl and decided to move to Taiwan with her.
His first posts were the standard request for information, suggestions etc etc. But then…
After just a few days she dumped him, and then we had the privilege of witnessing his slow descent into madness. Eventually he’d pop up on any thread about any topic, throwing garbage at Taiwan and calling everyone who showed appreciation for Taiwan a loser. He had nothing to do with Taiwan anymore, but he’d just join any conversation to dump his overflowing bitterness for his own failure. It was truly amazing.

He didn’t stay very long, though, I guess he had some sorting to do with his life.

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That’s fucking hilarious, do you remember his username?

Unfortunately not, and I said “a couple of years ago” but it may have been longer than that, like 3/4/5 years.
My very first interaction with him was in a topic where I mentioned that when I arrived in taiwan years ago the first thing I did was to use some of my savings to enroll at a University to study Chinese because I was planning to settle here long term, while my Taiwanese girlfriend (my wife now) was working. He replied to me implying that I was some kind of failed man who need to be maintained by a woman or something like that, and I was like:“Holy cow where the hell did that come from? I have no idea who this dude is!”, so I went through all his posts and realized he was just filled with bitterness due to his failed romance, so he probably got triggered anytime someone mentioned Taiwanese girlfriends or wives.

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Rule of thumb: whenever someone says you’re a failure out of nowhere and unprompted, it usually means they’re internalizing their own sense of failure and they’re projecting those difficult feelings unto others.

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