I think I see where you’re coming from now bob. However, back in the day when I still needed to market my services I tried your flyer idea, free trials, etc. They didn’t work. Sure, I got lots of silly little things to clean up and give advice on, but those people invariably would shy away if money was involved. They simply felt the “chabudo” English was fine and that it wasn’t worth paying to make sure it was correct.
For most of these small businesses, having English sinage, menus, etc., is purely a matter of face – they don’t actually give much of a shit if its correct or not.
Companies who require professional editing services tend not to pay much attention to flyers, etc. – its very much a question of guanxi initially, followed by word of mouth.
Most – sorry – ALL of my clients now are multinationals and ALL of my new business comes from word of mouth or by HR and upper management executives jumping from one company to another and taking my namecard with them – you’d be amazed at how incestuous this market is.
YC, he’s right. There is plenty of room for TW business sites. Webspace is cheap, which is why there are so many failed taiwan-related ventures already floating around. Personally I think there is room, but no real profit to be hed.
Jefferson, you misunderstand me. I’m not advocating turning forumosa into a money-making site. I’m advocating keeping THIS site pretty much as it is. It’s a community of reasonably like-minded people, who (in most cases) also work for a living.
Facilitating the exchange of goods and services is a central service, it’s essential to any community, even if it’s done on a not-for profit basis. I think that job ads and a ‘directory’ of what our members can do is a helpful thing to have. I think that a calendar of events is useful. I think that offering some language help may also be something that some people would be happy with doing, and there has been some support for the idea even if not enough to make it worth trying now. Like you said, most people are against it, and that’s that as far as I can see.
So what’s the problem? I only see two.
One problem is that if you have classified ads they’re either going to be unused or they’re going to attract a lot of the wrong sort of people to the site. I’ve spoken out against classifieds in the past for exactly that reason, but it’s going ahead so I’m trying to anticipate problems in advance and discuss solutions. One solution is the one taken, to have a seperate site which is partially integrated. The ‘forumosa friends’ thing was a similar experiment, and one that I personally oppose, but you are obviously not aware that I campaign very hard to prevent over-commercialism or a loss of focus on the core mission.
The other problem is that you seem to think I’m trying to turn this site into some kind of money machine for my personal benefit. By suggesting we have a learner’s corner - for free?!?! Or was it because I think that if people are going to pay tealit for advertising then we might as well offer the same better service. Do you really think that forumosans will object to having more jobs advertised here? I won’t make any money out of that, even if/when it becomes a paid service.
So where do I get mine? I have too many projects on the go already to be involved with forumosa’s “business”. I’m just airing ideas for discussion, and in some cases accepting the arguments against them.
Now calm down. You’ve won the argument about the learner’s corner thing, not that there ever was one really. Can you at least let bob speculate about how he would proceed if he made the decisions around here? Believe it or not sometimes people do make good suggestions that are taken up, and sometimes they come up with compelling reasons not to. I don’t have an agenda here beyond discussing possibilities, and I hope that people will keep them coming.
Sandman’s post is a perfect example of what I mean.
Bravo Loretta :bravo: and thank you sandman 
. I was beginning feel like the retarded cousin or something around here. Loretta’s proposal and the discussion that came from it gave me an idea that I hoped could be developed with some people who are a little more “in the know” than myself and that seems to be happening now. Thanks again.
I guess the main question I have for you sandman at this point is do you think that we could perhaps develop a larger customer base, perhaps among middle management types (I take it the guys at the top have already arranged this kind of service) and if it were possible how would we go about developing it?
Oh don’t worry – you are indeed the retarded cousin – we’re just humouring you. 
If I knew that I’d have been doing it years ago – there are far more middle than upper management, and therefore a far larger potential customer base. Problem is, in my experience most middle management types other than HR don’t have the authority to allocate budget.
I see. IOW, it’s not viable. A business site that doesn’t have the potential to make real profits is not a sensible business investment.
Loretta - sometimes you can be extremely annoying.
First, you’ve changed your stance on the issue multiple times. You wanted it to be housed in Forumosa, then that idea had as much popularity as changing Taiwan’s national anthem to “God save the queen,” so you changed your stance to make it off site, but closely integrated to Forumosa. That wasn’t popular either. Now, you’re talking about a separate site that’s just barely linked to Forumosa, which I stated as going in the right direction.
My comments had nothing to do with Bob’s idea, which is well and fine in itself but A) Has nothing to do with this thread and B) Isn’t even related to Forumosa. So don’t make me sound like I’m dissing Bob, which I’m not.
Your annoying habit is twisting what people say and then trying to make other people (me in this case) look like the heavy. You’ve done it in other past threads. The thing is you slime and weave around, changing your stance sometimes drastically and sometimes subtlely, so at the end of the day no one’s really sure what you stand for, but people feel like they’ve just been gutted.
I don’t want to get in a back and forth with you - I just want to make an observation that might help you understand why people have a tendency to get frustrated with your posting style and ideas(such as in this thread). Personally, I think you’re an OK guy that has some good ideas and a heart in the right place. But you might want to give a thought or two to your on-line persona and the way you come across.
That’s all. 
[quote=“Jefferson”]Loretta - sometimes you can be extremely annoying.
First, you’ve changed your stance on the issue multiple times.[/quote]
That’s a woman’s prerogative, dear 
One word sandman one word… aluminum. No just kidding… advertising. Getting the idea out there by hook or by crook. I don’t know how many middle managers I have taught who have come to me with mangled business letters that they most likely spent loads of company time on. It isn’t efficient labor cost wise and it makes the company look unprofesional. As it happens I help them on a once or twice a week basis but it is frequently “after” the e-mail has been sent 
. What they need obviously is someone who is available to check their e-mail before they send it off. I’ve done this for a couple of people and to perfectly honest I’ve never cracked the cover of a business text book. Bores the shit out of me. I do help them to communicate back and forth though, that’s obvious, and the people on the other end are often quite appreciative.
I suppose you are familiar with this sort of scenario already but I’m wondering if it hasn’t been quite awhile since you were actively searching for this kind of work and if perhaps the circumstances have changed a bit since then. For example I am suprised how many of the better educated Taiwanese have at least heard of forumosa. And perhaps there are more people now who are cognizant of the value of this kind of service, or who could perhaps be easily convinced of it were a forumosa advert. to arrive at their office…
But then your only way would be to get your office ladies to pester their bosses about hiring an editor, and bottom-up is not popular here – they don’t want to rock the boat, as “the boss knows best.” It does happen sometimes, but seldom. So you’d have to get the individuals themselves to pay out of their own pockets, which is just a hassle, assuming that they’d even be prepared to do it.
Ain’t that the truth!
Still though there must be some way to catch the ear of upper management and let them know that they are wasting valuable company time producing documents of dubious quality.
Very funny Jefferson but just for the record I think/thought Loretta’s idea was pretty good. Sure it changed a bit but isn’t that what discussion is for, to take an idea, find it’s strengths and weaknesses and move forward from there?
The real problem with his idea is that it would put a real strain on the moderators, but heck, I’m not a moderator anyway so what do I care!
Guys,
First, let’s speak to demand for an English-checking service.
99.99% of Taiwanese DO NOT CARE whether their English is good or not. They enjoy believing it is good. Most seem to labor under the misapprehension that their English is better than a native English speaker’s English. And, as has been pointed out, the more senior the person believing his English is good, the less chance that anyone will point it out to him (other than a meddling foreigner, of course) or that he will take action if anyone did.
Organizations with huge budgets and multiple foreigners (qualified ones, too, in many cases!) on staff STILL put out dross in English. Small organizations could care less. English for communication, okay. English to get orders, okay. English to promote a business image – not yet on the radar screen.
You can provide “English checking” for free via Forumosa, but I fail to see how it would improve the site or offer better services for the users. It’s like shareware: what proportion of the population would buy the shareware, if there is a way to get around the copy protection? (Or, in women’s terms, why buy the whole pig just to get that little piece of sausage? )
Now, as for a Web site offering these services – I had one for several years. I did direct e-mails to a number of “target” organizations for the type of service I provided (the URL has now lapsed and I don’t think I’ll renew it, but I won’t cite it anyway). Did I get work? Some. Was it hugely lucrative? I suppose it made a profit well over the cost of the site (I put it up myself and the hosting fees were minimal). The only real expense was my time. The problems were a) getting paid (usually they paid but only after a good long period of time, certainly no “instant PayPal” type thing) and b) weeding out the students and dross. There are people out there whose English sucks so badly that I don’t want to waste my youth…er, my middle age…on it.
Read the reminder to the right. “This is a message board for people interested in expat life in Taiwan.” Interested in. Expat life. A directory of services might be nice, but I think you will get into trouble with that one, too. Let’s say I offer editing for NT$1000 an hour. Then someone FOB comes onto Forumosa, posts 3 times, and puts up an ad for NT$500 an hour. Both of us are supposedly native speakers of English. Who is a prospective employer going to hire? IN TAIWAN – obviously the NT$500 an hour candidate.
The same thing has happened in the translation industry at a site called proz.com It started out with the lofty ambition of bringing users and translators together directly. Then, its numbers swelled, the quality plummeted, and the prices followed. It is now not uncommon to get bids for a job from Chinese > English offering US$0.02 per word (market in the US is US$0.16-20 these days). Even the “answers” supplied in their “language question” fora are very uneven in quality – non-native speakers and people who have little experience chime right in, and no one has the power to edit them. Result: garbage.
(MOD: how about splitting this thread into “Learner’ Forum for Forumosa” and “Starting a Taiwan-Oriented Editing Web Business” or something like that? seems like we’re talking at cross-purposes to some degree.)
You can always count on Ironlady for a good dose of reality unfortunately 
.
In my simple universe I saw a bunch of us at forumosa with time to kill apparently, and I thought there must be some way to put us together with the tens of thousands of poor Taiwanese office workers out there struggling over their written corespondance.
I guess I done thunk wrong…
Well, bob, it’s a nice thought, I’ll give you that. 
Seriously.
They do struggle, and I’m sure they’d love to have free help, but I just don’t think it fits into Forumosa.com, and even separately, very few of 'em want to pay for it, and the ones who are willing to pay usually have such poor English that they couldn’t pay ENOUGH. 
I suppose there may be people on Forumosa with time to kill and a willingness to answer English questions. I’d suggest that those so inclined might visit some of the other English bbs schemes on the Internet and answer questions. I used to do it myself as I said earlier in this thread, on a USENET .tw English group. They might have fun doing that. It was okay at the time – I fit the description of having free time and being bored. Now, I prefer to get paid if I’m going to spend time answering English questions for the 20 millionth time (“How to say…”) and arguing with people who claim their incorrect answer (I mean wildly incorrect, not just a point of view or stylistic consideration) is actually Right. Wait, I still get to do that with translation clients. Whoopee!
Or someone could run with my “English Taxi” scheme: a couple of foreigners get hack licenses and paint our cars a distinctive color, then charge double fares because we chat in English with the passengers. Anyone? Anyone?
Hey I like that idea! Throw in a CD player with a big booming sound system, stock up on condoms and beer and we’ll make a fortune!
[quote=“Jefferson”]Loretta - sometimes you can be extremely annoying.
First, you’ve changed your stance on the issue multiple times. You wanted it to be housed in Forumosa, then that idea had as much popularity as changing Taiwan’s national anthem to “God save the queen,” so you changed your stance to make it off site, but closely integrated to Forumosa. That wasn’t popular either. Now, you’re talking about a separate site …
Your annoying habit is twisting what people say and then trying to make other people (me in this case) look like the heavy. You’ve done it in other past threads. The thing is you slime and weave around, changing your stance sometimes drastically and sometimes subtlely, so at the end of the day no one’s really sure what you stand for, but people feel like they’ve just been gutted
… people have a tendency to get frustrated with your posting style and ideas(such as in this thread). [/quote]
That’s actually quite an insulting post, and we’ll probably get chopped out and put in the flounder bin. Hopefully you’ll get time to see this and reply first.
Jefferson, I never said I wanted anything. What I want is for you to understand that I advanced a theory about what is happening, gave a little evidence, proposed an idea, and asked how people thought about it.
As the discussion progressed new ideas popped up, some of them were mine, some belonged to others. So the ‘concept’ evolved.
And ultimately, nothing much is going to be done.
But somehow this means that I’m changing my stance? Are you competing in some kind of stupidity competition today? I don’t have a stance, other than that we potentially have a problem and I’m interested in knowing what other people think about it. But you keep arguing about what I said, not about the situation. I think you genuinely cannot follow a simple discussion. Perhaps I, and everyone else, needs to take writing classes from you?
Take the ‘will you be my friend’ issue. Everyone else understood the OPs complaint, but you argued on and on about a different topic until everyone got fed up with you. I’ll type this very slowly, in the hope that you can spell it out:
Making friends with people you meet is not the same as following complete strangers with the intention of asking them to be your friend.
Dealing with the fact that people do wander in here is not the same as inviting people to come here, and even if it was you apparently see nothing wrong with being friendly towards everyone no matter how inappropriate their presence is.
As for the ‘in forumosa’ and ‘related to forumosa’ rubbish, I’m simply describing the situation AS IT IS. The advertising site will, from the perspective of the locals, be a totally seperate entity and they can advertise without ever knowing about forumosa. But if you’re starting from forumosa it’s embedded in, so it’s part of the site.
You have noticed the dating ads, haven’t you? That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about, and it’s none of my doing. I’m not advocating it, I’m simply aware that it’s happening. Instead of attacking me for what you think I want I very strongly recommend that you read what I actually said, and then open your eyes to see the truth of what is actually happening here.
The ‘learners corner’ thing would be on-site because it’s specifically to deal with the issue of learners who have found forumosa, but I don’t want to be involved with it and no-one sees a need for it yet. So it’s a non-issue. Forget it.
And while we’re talking about how people perceive you, perhaps you should give a thought to how you come across - as an overbearing nitwit who can’t understand English. You write pretty well, so that would be a harsh interpretation, but you don’t seem to be following arguments too well recently.
You say that I slime and weave, and that no one knows what I stand for. I say you’re clinging to your point of view without bothering to understand what it is you’re opposing. You come across as having your own agenda, possibly tainted by the fact that you’ve now taken a dislike to me? Whatever, it’s your problem.
Hey I like that idea! Throw in a CD player with a big booming sound system, stock up on condoms and beer and we’ll make a fortune![/quote]
Good ideas…but we will also need one of those dashboard-mounted DVD player/TV things, for “movie night”!
Of course the ultimate Irony here (Hey that would be a good name too - Ironylady!) is that we are joking about a venture that WOULD make a fortune if only you could get away with it!
Loretta - The two people at Forumosa who have the best idea of whether what I was suggesting would work or not came back with a resounding “well maybe but probably not very well and I’m not exactly sure how.” That’s not a bad start in my books. Anyway we both put our ideas out there and I’m sure the brightest and the best forumosans have seen what we suggested. I still have hope that it will percolate eventually into something actual and that I will be around to contribute if that happens. For sure I don’t have the skill or the resources to do it myself but maybe somebody else will see a way through the problems alluded to by Ironlady and Sandman. This is about the only hope left to me since the people I need are either ignoring this idea, or have said it is kinda goofy which, originally, it was I admit.
Not to drag this up from the dead, but those who participated in this thread may want to check out Learn English for free. Live online help from volunteer teachers all over the world.
YMMV, Caveat Emptor etc 