This thread is for all of you to suggest, complain, or whatever it is about ORIENTED and specifically the “Living in Taiwan” Forum. Recently I have become very busy and I need your help and your feedback as to how you want this forum, “Living in Taiwan,” to be moderated and organized. For example, language, post content, rules for this forum, etc. I am open for sugguestions and feedback from YOU, the users at ORIENTED.
Thanks,
Jeff
jeff@oriented.org
Well, much as I hate to say anything nice about Angst, you could do worse than follow the guidelines he uses.
A bit more rational and balanced IMO. He seems to be able to keep things level while still refraining from treating the posters like little children (except for ABCGuy, of course, but he IS a child, so it doesn’t really count.)
Before wading in, I would like to know how much time you feel you ought to devote to moderating, how much time you realistically can give, how often you look at all the posts, and if you have a secular bias. I say the last part because I have heard from several corners that you have a severe…er…problem with anything stronger than “gosh” and that may stem from your religion, which, in turn, may color your moderating.
I would also like to know how long you have lived in Taiwan.
Thanks.
All the words for which my mother washed out my mouth with soap should be banned. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what they are because I’m afraid she’ll find out through some telepathic means and show up with the Ivory.
You mean, Miss Tai, when you were a child. So you wish to remain in your childhood and use childlike vocabulary? As an adult, I have left childish things behind, including my mother’s bar of soap. Words should be used in context and for a valid reason, whatever they are. If it happens to be an adult word, so be it.
The moderators are doing a fine job. Foul language should be banned and hateful references should be deleted. Vulgar language has no place in the forums. Keep up the good work, moderators!
Professor Plecostumous
I would agree with “Professor Plecostumous”, keep the hate, foul language, abuse etc. I would tend to count ‘name calling’ directed at other members in the abuse category.
Also please, please, please have zero tolerance for spam. It has ruined many fine Web resources, Usenet probably being the prime example. If people want to promote products & services I’m sure they can contact your advertising dept!
I have added a few clarifying words to my original post, but I will add some stuff here too. I appreciate your feedback thus far and I’d like to encourage you to continue to make comments.
I would like to add that the reason I started this thread was to aslso ask all of you for your comments and sugguestions about how you want the
“Living in Taiwan” forum organized. Let me
give you a little sneak preview of what’s coming. I cannot tell you much, so you’ll have to be patient. There are going to be some new features added to ORIENTED soon. These features will allow us moderators to organize some of discussion threads in each of our forums. For you there will be an added search feature, recommending popular topics, and more. Basically it will become easier for you to find information you want quickly.
I cannot tell you when this will be introduced
so please don’t ask. I am personally pretty excited about this. Don’t worry the basic format on ORIENTED WILL NOT be changed, just some added things to help YOU! Ok I know I didn’t tell you much, but maybe you can use your imagination a bit.
Okay now let me answer some of the questions that were proposed earlier in this thread.
quote:
wolf_reinhold Before wading in, I would like to know how much time you feel you ought to devote to moderating, how much time you realistically can give, how often you look at all the posts, and if you have a secular bias. I say the last part because I have heard from several corners that you have a severe...er...problem with anything stronger than "gosh" and that may stem from your religion, which, in turn, may color your moderating. I would also like to know how long you have lived in Taiwan. Thanks.
Wolf as far as how much time one should spend to be a moderator depends totally upon the person moderating. Because I am not allowed to use the I
Internet at work for personal stuff I do all my stuff at home. Some of you have the freedom at work to do personal stuff. I look at the posts at least once a day.
I do not have a bias, and not wanting foul language in my Forum is my rule. Each moderator has there own style. If you heard me in a pub with my friends I think you’d be surprised what words I use. However, in a public forum I’d prefer you avoid using them. Recently I have been more relaxed about the language simply because it takes too much time to edit all that junk out of the posts. After reading some of the comments above I am getting a general sense that people would prefer not to see foul language on the boards.
And how long I have lived in Taiwan is
irrelevant to being a moderator. But just for the record I have been here more than one year but less than 10.
Okay keep your comments coming!! When I am able to get more infomration to you about the new features, I will.
Thanks,
Jeff
jeff@oriented.org
I am not sure if it is your forum or someone elses, but I do not like people re-editing the posts to change the romanization to HanYu PinYin.
I’m using Hanyu Pinyin in all of my posts, and I encourage others to do the same - especially in the restaurants, bars and clubs forum where Chinese place names are frequently romanized - for a few reasons:
[ul][li]Nobody I know advocates Wade-Giles romanization[/li][li]The Wade-Giles previously used in Taipei was corrupt and inconsistent[/li][li]The city gov’t has declared Hanyu Pinyin to be the new standard[/li][li]The city gov’t has been very diligent in replacing old signs with Hanyu Pinyin signs[/li][li]Somehow, a lot of FOB (fresh-off-the-boat) foreigners end up pronouncing “Hoping” as the gerund form of hope. Drives me crazy.[/li][/ul]Any one of these reasons alone maybe wouldn’t be a linguistic hill to die on, but together they provide a compelling argument. Add to that the fact that the poll that our very own JeffG conducted indicates an overwhelming preference for Hanyu Pinyin, and, well, you’ve got a standard. If you still want to spell place names in an outdated, inconsistent, universally unappreciated, non-standard format, please feel free. Maybe you could post your reasons here… 
Maoman says:
quote[quote]I'm using Hanyu Pinyin in all of my posts, and I encourage others to do the same.... [/quote]And considering he is the moderator of the Open Forum, you better behave!
Jeff,
I suggested to have a specific “Living in Taiwan” Forum or thread for the Spanish-speaking community in Taiwan, in Spanish. I posted my suggestion in the Visitors Feedback Section… have a look and anyone let me know what you think.
Apart from that, I love Oriented. We just need some tool of communication for the Spanish speakers!
Gracias
Susana
Susana,
Acutally you had posted your message in my forum, I moved it to the visitors feedback forum. Please see http://oriented.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=30&t=000076 Also please email gus@oriented.org if you have further questions about a Spanish forum. I am only a moderator, I don’t have this kind of authority.
Thanks,
Jeff
jeff@oriented.org
Hey Maoman, go ahead and use HanYu PinYin, but should I have to? I prefer to refer to the town I live in and Taiwan surnames, according to the present spelling, not HanYu pinyin as no one would know what I am talking about. You can use whatever you want. Can’t we have the freedom not to have our posts edited?
Wolfie,
Look again! Maoman is the Restaurant Moderator, ANGST is the Open forum-ator.
quote:
Originally posted by sandman: (except for ABCGuy, of course, but he IS a child, so it doesn't really count.)
Oh wow anything to get that last pathetic shot in eh. Who’s being puerile here…
Careful, laddie, you forgot to include any reference to anti-Asian racism in your post. What’s happened to you? I do hope you’re not beginning to mellow out!
quote:
Wolfie, Look again! Maoman is the Restaurant Moderator, ANGST is the Open forum-ator.
Did it occur to you that they are the same person?..is the coin dropping yet?
quote[quote] according to the present spelling [/quote]There is no present spelling - just a bunch of different systems and misspellings.
I think if the moderators want to add hanyu pinyin to make addresses clearer etc they should but maybe they could put it in brackets afterwards eg - Hoping (Heping - ed) - and then ‘purists’ wouldn’t feel that the integrity of their messages and their right to free speech were being tampered with.
Bri
I was just reading a thread where someone referred to Lee TengHui as Li Denghui. It took me a second to figure out what he was saying even. It would be going too far IMHO if the moderators change the way people are spelling the romanized name of famous Taiwanese political figures when the political figures themselves haven’t changed their official romanized names. Not sure if something this extreme has happened yet.