New forum thread

These are great suggestions.

Just a thought on one of the things you said: [quote=“Loretta”]… in recent months I’ve met an awful lot of Taiwanese people who read occasionally. Most have trouble following the discussions and are unwilling to post, which is probably very wise of them, but if they’re there and reading the site then they represent a market segment that could be better served[/quote]
We do not track Native Mandarin speakers who regularly read Forumosa. I can only infer what I see from our Google Analytics - which tells us how many Chinese encoded browsers and Chinese Windows are being used to view the website.

When I lived in Taipei, I normally used Chinese Windows and sometimes left my browser’s encoding at Big-5 Chinese, even though my Chinese reading and writing is barely basic level. So to me, it seems our readership among native Mandarin speakers is relatively small - less than 20%. This also represents the greatest growth opportunity for the website - with less than 500,000 foreigners of all stripes in Taiwan, it behooves us to engage the other 22.5M somehow.

I would like to get a better understanding of what they think of the website and how we could make things easier for them - apart from everyone switch to using Chinese :wink: And of course, I would really like to get a deep understanding of what Forumosan Regulars think of the website, who they are so we can tailor things to them, and how can we improve things going forward

I wouldn’t expect any major changes to accomodate non-Native English speakers, however.

  1. I am totally pro to Lorreta’s suggestion to establish a Science forum.
    I have been here for few months, it is great that I can join in some dicussions.
    I have more interests in Science, but I can’t find a right forum to have discussion.

  2. I am a Taiwanese user who is not able to represent the Taiwanese users of Forumosa,
    but I would like to give my feedback to the administration.
    2.1 How did I know Forumosa?
    One of my foreign friends introduced forumosa to me.
    I think I would never find the right keyword to search for Forumosa if I just looked for
    information related to learning English.
    2.2 The impressions of Forumosa:
    2.2.1 20/80 priciple does work here. (My own observation)
    Tons of users are here, but the contributions are from 20% users and most of the
    contributors are foreigners.
    The information here is really usful for foreigners, but not for Taiwanese.
    Taiwanses users have alternative choices online when they need information.
    2.2.2 A website for foreign community
    2.2.3 Hard to follow
    It is hard to follow some of the dicussion. It is not because my English reading ability
    is not good enough, but Forumosa has history, newbies could miss a lot because
    they don’t get involved in the Forumosa development.
    2.3 The reasons I stay
    2.3.1 Thanks for some users sharing their ideas with me. :smiley:
    2.3.2 I have many insterests that Taiwanese doesn’t care or even never hear of
    I found I can share some ideas here with some users.

P.S. I still can express most of the ideas well, I will try to give another reply when I have more
free time. It is time to a meeting.

The flob should have guest mods who run their own ‘sub-forum of the month’.

Buttercup’s forum would be dark.

What are the requirments that we have to fulfill to open a new forum?

Science forum seems far away from me.

[quote=“kate.lin”]What are the requirments that we have to fulfill to open a new forum?

Science forum seems far away from me.[/quote]

Essentially, we need a “Demonstrated Interest” and a moderator to justify a new forum. By demonstrated interest, we mean at least 30 discussion threads that could be moved instantly to seed the forum. The moderator could be an existing one, or a new volunteer that Maoman agrees would be a worthwhile addition to the team

As I have way too many useful things I should be doing today, I’ll spend a little time poking around and see what I come up with.

Not bad. 2.5 hours including time out to make a curry, and 88 mostly-relevant threads.

I looked at ten pages of Technology first. It’s overwhelmingly about consumer electronics: computers, gaming, music, etc. Plus a bunch of threads about other stuff that looks a bit lost, such as discussions about airliners or kite-powered ships, and one thread about ‘wall cancer’.

The health forum contains plenty of stuff about research, which is technically science but is probably fine where it is. I didn’t bother looking very hard or listing anything from there.

10 pages of the motoring forum turned up a few threads about alternative fuels and energy sources, plus a lot of interesting material for any psychologists out there.

Living in Taiwan contains a pile of stuff, mostly about environmental issues and related solutions. eg air filters, dehumidifiers, etc. Some of the discussions about weather, earthquakes and so on get quite technical and the culprits would probably enjoy continuing away from the banter but I didn’t list those threads. Also, a (disappointingly) few questions about flors and fauna, including the sticky about gardening.

Teaching occasionally descends into psychological issues rather than practicalities, so there is obviously interest in the more scientific aspects among a hardcore group. Prolly not worth moving any threads though. I didn’t bother looking in detal or listing anything.

Some discussion in food about technical/health issues that likewise probably doesn’t need to be redistributed.

Lotsa stuff in open, some more technical than others. I guess it depends on how ‘serious’ the forum wanted to be.

D&R contains a lot of discussion about how stupid SO’s really are for their scientific beliefs in which various 'mosuns expose themselves as being spectacularly uninformed. As with a lot of other discusssions, when one topic wanders into science for a while it doesn’t count and is not listed below. There are also bits of research about why all men are bastards, etc., but I was too hungry to bother with them either.

I got a bit lost with categorizing stuff. I only made the effort at first to try and get a sense for what the scope of any new forum would be. (Science and nature? Science and Tech? Natural Philosophy? The Tainan Cowboy Appreciation Forum?) It all fell apart after a while, so it’s not a very good division. Anyway:

General
[Things you can't see but you KNOW exist. (Discussion.)
[Does hot food have more calories?
[Does Talking to Your Plants Really Help?
[Double-helix nebula discovered near center of our galaxy
[Flame First, Think Later: New Clues to E-Mail Misbehavior
[Former Ariz. governor says he saw UFO
[Metric Help for Americans
[Not sure: Philosophy? Theory? Scholarship?
[Cantor, Cohen, Set Theory
[Derrida
[Deleuze, Hallward
[Birth Order and Your Personality
[What metal is this?
[Green Taiwanese Car Driver
[Dust storm warning! - weather discussion
[At last! Some REAL science
[Taiwan's Awesome Fruit!
[Everyday Mysteries?
[Is religious belief a result of evolution?
[January 4th - Meteor Shower
[Rongorongo: the other mystery of Easter Island
[Dragonbabe's Comet

Science/tech to do with home/environment (includes fixing things):
[How to look after a coriander plant?
[Cleaning mildew off leather jacket?
[Phantom Tremors
[Artists: How do you dispose of your dangerous chemicals?
[Plumbing Problems
[Eco/Self Sufficient Living
[Global Warming = Moving Towards Metrosexuals
[What is it about rainy days that just make me so tired?
[Jalapeno plant
[Beer Talk - Scientific
[I think every electrical appliance in my house hates me
[Mould on clothes
[I need help with my lawn
[Fixin' the *&%$ Bathtub
[Any Experience with Dehumudifier?
[Heavy smog last couple of days
[Activated Carbon Filter Face Masks: Any Good?
[Water in the breaker box. help
[Air quality readings: what are they monitoring?
["Wall cancer"
[Vacuum cleaners

engineering/making stuff
[Big banana over Texas
[Selling the moon
[Space recovery,the new venture to make zillions
[Tanker truck fire causes amazing highway collapse in Calif
[Considering buying airbrush/compressor setup
[Taipei 101 - World's Tallest (Part 2)
[FedEx Dumps A380, to Buy 15 Boeing 777s
[tw.forumosa.com/t/taipei-101s-construction-documentary-on-discovery-channel/35766/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/making-your-own-guitar-pedals-stomp-boxes/34191/1

Energy/fuel
[tw.forumosa.com/t/what-is-this-anti-flying-nonsense/37355/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/r-d-in-the-oil-sands/35198/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/fuel-cell-motorbike-as-seen-on-tv/31742/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/the-r-car-lithium-battery-powered-car/30966/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/electric-car-0-to-60-mph-4-secs/30168/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/want-fries-with-that-biodiesel-fuel-story/25404/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/honda-unveils-diesel-system-to-rival-gasoline-cars/32048/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/the-car-which-runs-on-air/36596/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/anyone-drive-an-electric-scooter/34635/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/china-claims-fusion-reactor-test-a-success/32250/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/chinese-automakers-showcase-eco-cars/37389/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/alternative-vehicles/37059/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/biodiesel-and-petrodiesel-in-taipei/36765/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/ethanol-in-taiwan/37530/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/german-cargo-ship-to-be-propelled-by-kite-power/34568/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/australia-working-on-beer-power/37645/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/germanys-cheap-beer-tradition-under-threat-from-biofuels/37403/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/cloud-seeding-and-free-energy/35802/1

Research/new stuff
[tw.forumosa.com/t/end-of-aging-is-near-new-drug-for-kids-with-aging-disorder/36071/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/ufo-science-key-to-halting-climate-change/36095/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/huge-ocean-discovered-inside-earth/36144/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/female-sexual-preference-flexibility-is-genetic/37081/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/of-beer-and-bubbles-the-formula-for-a-perfect-pint/37470/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/why-beer-can-have-different-tastes/36200/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/taiwan-researchers-retract-dna-paper/34826/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/liquid-armour-tires-cant-be-punctured-body-cant-be-cut/29006/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/scientists-create-invisibility-cloak/32710/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/us-to-fund-man-made-lightning-raygun-tech/37489/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/new-technology-removes-viruses-from-drinking-water/36171/1

Bunnies, flowers, etc
[tw.forumosa.com/t/fat-german-rabbits-to-feed-poor/35024/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/bird-brained-china-scientists-learn-to-fly-pigeons/36079/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/whats-the-name-of-those-pointsettia-like-flowers/36251/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/ants-ants-ants-how-to-get-rid-of-them/12864/1
forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.php?t=14439
[tw.forumosa.com/t/texas-squirrels-in-space-program/37026/1
[tw.forumosa.com/t/toothpick-fish-crazy-beyond-crazy/35489/1

[quote=“Loretta”]10 pages of the motoring forum turned up a few threads about alternative fuels and energy sources, plus a lot of interesting material for any psychologists out there.[/quote]Personally, I’d prefer to keep those threads in C&M. I like the overlap between sexy muscle vehicles, alternative energy, and practical transport. Better to keep them in a forum about vehicles than in a more abstract science forum.

Same with the teaching forum. The whole point about research, for me at least, is that it has a direct practical bearing on what we do in the classroom.

A science forum could be interesting but for the two forums I help to moderate, I’d prefer to keep things where they are.

I’m sure you would, but others would prefer not to have to trawl through pages of petrol-head drivel in search of interesting things to talk about. Throughout the forums we see discussions of substance being drowned out in the general noise of chat.

This is being a bit unnecessarily harsh on those who are more enthusiastic than me about their motoring, or any other subject, and many of them are fine chaps and chappesses. I exaggerate purely for the sake of drama, but the point remains. Most people aren’t interested in science and thread about science tend to get dumbed-down very quickly. And sometimes they don’t, especially in the open forum, which suggests that there is interest in the issues at stake from people who are not participating in the specialised fora.

So, to explore the relationship between biofuels, emissions, the price of corn, the impact of the price of corn on the global economy, environmental destruction, transport policy, farm subsidies, etc. where would you propose that one goes? The various specialised fora are fine for single-issue topics, but tend to each appeal to people with specific interests. Those people don’t seem very keen to discuss the wider issues, just as people who are interested in the big picture may not spend a lot of time in fora that they only have a passing interest in.

Science is, by nature, about understanding everything rather than simply talking about how one particular aspect of it affects you.

Case in point: A recent attempt at discussion about an air “powered” car that allegedly produces no pollution. Attempts to introduce the wider questions, such as where the power to compress the air comes from and how it is produced, got nowhere because some of the people concerned believe that ‘electricity is free’ and sending pollution elsewhere is the same as not producing pollution. You want to limit the discussion to local emissions and things car-related, or accept that there are wider issues which are deserving of discussion and which are not, strictly speaking, about cars and motorcycles?

I’m not arguing that there is no room for technical discussion in any forum. In fact I think I said that the psychology-related stuff in Teaching is probably best left where it is. And there are plenty of issues relating to the above topic which the C&M guys would be hgappy to discuss. But there are times when the scope of the discussion takes it beyond the limitations of any one forum, and that is usually because of the complexity. And that turns off the people who are visiting that forum because it’s about something they’re interested in.

Almost everything becomes, at some point, about science so it’s good to try and keep the science in every forum. But if 90% of the people looking aren’t interested in anything more than a superficial understanding then where do the other 10% go? The answer is they can go nowhere because the mods want to hang on to their threads.

Yes, I was annoyed at the lack of understanding shown by certain people in a recent discussion and wish there was a place where it was appropriate to turn around and state that there was a whole lot more to the argument than they seemed able to recognise.

Anyway, back on-topic…

The original suggestion was for the Tech forum to be renamed to reflect the fact that 95% of it was about consumer electronics, and some other place be created for the remainder.

That’s a mix of odd or cool inventions, developments, and bits of research, and there’s a fair amount of similar stuff also turns up the open forum. Another stray topic is dealing with the environment in Taiwan and technical problems arising. Air filters, wall cancer, wiring and plumbing problems, etc. Generally speaking, to solve these problems requires an understanding of how things work so you have a common theme here - which for want of a better word you could call applied science.

In among the chat about typhoons and earthquakes you get some fairly detailed explanations of the processes at work, but there’s no obvious place to ask if you have questions and who wants to wade through twenty pages of “it’s still raining here” in the hope of learning something useful? Having an obvious place to ask technical questions would be a good idea, which broadens the scope further. So it’s a science forum.

And if you’re feeling daring there is also various nature-related stuff that could possible also go in other places too. The article about radio-controlled pigeons could go in the pets and animals forum, where it can be roundly condemned but may not be noticed by the people who want to know how electronics can interface with living brains. And the stuff about research into genetic predispositions could go into D&R to provide fodder for those endlessly entertaining threads about why women are different from men, or it could go into a science and nature forum which is read by people who have an interest in whether the human genome project was worth all the time and money involved.

A science/nature forum would include topics which could also be placed in other fora. In fact they are placed there now, for want of somewhere more suitable. But the fact that those thread found a home of sorts doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t be better served somewhere else.

Anyway, it was just a thought. Somebody else thought of it first (in the other thread) and I figured it was worth repeating. It’s only the internet, so I’m not going to be getting all upset if it doesn’t appear.

[quote=“Loretta”]So, to explore the relationship between biofuels, emissions, the price of corn, the impact of the price of corn on the global economy, environmental destruction, transport policy, farm subsidies, etc. where would you propose that one goes? The various specialised fora are fine for single-issue topics, but tend to each appeal to people with specific interests. Those people don’t seem very keen to discuss the wider issues, just as people who are interested in the big picture may not spend a lot of time in fora that they only have a passing interest in.

Almost everything becomes, at some point, about science so it’s good to try and keep the science in every forum. But if 90% of the people looking aren’t interested in anything more than a superficial understanding then where do the other 10% go? The answer is they can go nowhere because the mods want to hang on to their threads.[/quote]If you want use C&M to talk about the wider issues behind alternative energy vehicles that’s fine with me. I’m not convinced that a separate forum will encourage the “10%” you talk of. Anyway, I don’t think there’s such a wide gulf between scienceheads and non-scienceheads. And maybe if the scienceheads posted more in the existing forums, that would narrow whatever gap there may be.

But is it fine with the people who just want to talk about cars and motorcycles? And is it fine with the people that don’t look in the cars and motorcyces forum because they prefer to talk about the economics, social issues, environment, etc? If I recall correctly, the thread about compressed-air cars started in Open and was moved to C&M. I had to go looking for it, but it became impossible to talk about the wider issues because some people only wanted to talk about their pet topics. A thread that starts out with a limited scope in a particular forum could reasonably be limited in nature, but insisting that threads be limited to one area of a topic and kept in one forum is not helpful.

If you’re adamant that threads about, for instance, ethanol should be reserved for C&M then perhaps the thread on this topic in Technology should be moved? I don’t think so, but I think that the thread would get more response if it was in a general science forum. And what about the quotes in a ‘what are you reading’ thread about corn prices? I think that a general science forum is a good place to discuss ethanol, because it’s not only about cars and motorbikes. That doesn’t mean that people who are into cars and motorbikes can’t also discuss the topic in the C&M forum, or that you can’t use the food forum to ask about how to grow chilis.

But I suspect you’re not adamant about this. You just don’t feel that the threads, as they are now, are suitable candidates for a move. You may be right, but Gus asked for a list of stuff which demonstrates interest. Even if those particular discussions have been limited to C&M issues, in your opinion, that doesn’t mean that there couldn’t be wider discussion on those topics in a science forum.

If such a forum were to be created, Gus apparently feels it would need to be ‘seeded’ and that means omving at least some of those threads across. I disagree. I think it would fill up fast enough anyway, but it’s not my website so I did as suggested and made a list of suitable stuff. I also categorised the stuff, not by origin but by content.

We could just as easily end up with a ‘how stuff works’ forum, or an ‘alternative living/emerging technologies’ forum, or an ‘environment’ forum, but as others had already suggested science that’s what I went with.

Perhaps I should have suggested that C&M become officially an ‘about Taiwan’ forum, as the blurb already gives that impression anyway. After all, a vehicle produced in Europe that is not available in Taiwan is not really a good candidate for a Taiwan discussion site. The people in the Business and Money forum may want to discuss why it hasn’t been successful, or how you would go about becoming the local distributor, and those discussions would be more relevant to Taiwan than the one in C&M, except for the bits where posters discussed issues that weren’t actually to do with C&M, such as how the Taiwanese generate electricity. Surely they’re topics for the tech forum or the living in Taiwan forum? Or you can discuss the various sciences of economics, energy generation and storage, traffic management, etc in a science forum.

Your points are reasonable though perhaps a bit hypothetical. Regarding the proposal for a science forum in general; it could be interesting. I’m not so sure that it would encourage more science-related posts but it’s worth a try I guess.

Regarding C&M specifically:[quote=“Loretta”][quote=“joesax”]If you want use C&M to talk about the wider issues behind alternative energy vehicles that’s fine with me. [/quote]
But is it fine with the people who just want to talk about cars and motorcycles? And is it fine with the people that don’t look in the cars and motorcyces forum because they prefer to talk about the economics, social issues, environment, etc? If I recall correctly, the thread about compressed-air cars started in Open and was moved to C&M. I had to go looking for it, but it became impossible to talk about the wider issues because some people only wanted to talk about their pet topics.[/quote]The thread’s not locked.

[quote=“Loretta”]But I suspect you’re not adamant about this. You just don’t feel that the threads, as they are now, are suitable candidates for a move.[/quote]I like it when there’s a direct connection made between science/ideas and practical applications. I think that C&M forum is a good place for talking about science in connection with transport. And I think it would be a shame if people felt discouraged from posting relevant opinions and research. Is there something I can do to make you feel more welcome to post about that on C&M? I’ve already posted a few times in general support of threads about alternative vehicles. Do you think I should be more active in encouraging the scientific stuff?

Loretta give me a few days to look at the threads you collected, ok? I’m as sick as a stray dog right now, and not in the mood to do much thinking.

Joe, I don’t think we’re really in disagreement here and I have no complaints about the way you mod the forum.

A science forum is a good idea, I think, and when I started poking around I found a lot of stuff supporting that. Most of it is fine where it is, most of it could also be moved to a new forum if the admins thought it was necessary. Conversations tend to pop up all over the site that could equally well have gone in another forum, and they tend to go in directions specific to the forum they’re in, reflecting the interests of the majority of people visiting that forum.

The reason for a science forum is to discourage the automatic classification of things into one or other category when in fact they are of interest and relevance to people who are not interested in that specific category.

C&M is a fine place to discuss science as it relates to transport, just as every other forum is a fine place to discuss developments in that field. But most developments encompass more than one area of interest, so if you’re in a forum dedicated to just one issue then it’s not the best place to discuss the big picture. In other words, discussions about food riots in Mexico due to the rising price of corn as ethanol suddenly becomes fashionable are not really suitable for C&M, but they are part of the discussion about ethanol. You can discuss the availability of the stuff in Taiwan in a C&M thread, but a proper wide-ranging discussion about the subject includes a great many other topics. Some of those topics may not be interesting to some people who frequent C&M, but may be interesting to some people who don’t use that forum.

A science forum would be the logical place to start a thread if you were interested in the wider implications of a move to ethanol, not C&M, not IP, not B&M, because it includes all these topics. Or it could just stay in open, depending on whether there really is a demand for a science forum and whether some mod chooses to put it somewhere else, as happened with the discussion about alternative means of producing and storing energy that some idiot erroneously decided was related to the internal combustion engine and or driving in Taiwan.

Fair points. It’s worth a try, anyway.

Sure. Whatever. You’d best take at the old ‘new forums’ thread to see who’s idea it was originally too.

And this one: [How to colonize Venus! - someone trying to have a serious discussion which is immediately spoiled by yet another stupid comment from someone who should know better. :unamused:

Hope you get better. Nothing worse than being like Stray Dog.

Joe, sorry for ranting mate. I’ll PM Maoman and tell him you’re a decent bloke really and he shouldn’t fine you for daring to argue with me. Of course, after he’s read the thread about implants in pigeon brains he might think of another way to deal with you. Remember the discussion about the forumosa obedience chip a few years ago? :smiling_imp:

[Conflict Management Difference - in open and looks like another ‘living in taiwan’ issue but is actually about how science is done.

I nominate Tom Hill to moderate any putative science/nature forum. It’ll shut him up.

How you feeling?

kate.lin is starting new sciencey threads on an almost daily basis. She needs a sandbox.

I am not a scientific maniac, so far it is fine to post in Open Forum.