Re: New free classifieds–another category.
The new classifieds design looks good. How about an “Seeking activity partner” category, for people looking for a tennis partner, biking partner, wanting to start a reading group, or whatever.
Thanks!
To the person who posted a question about maps of Taipei County:
Have you checked out this website?
http://www.taiwan-map.com/
Re: “LURKERS”
It doesnt seem very inviting, or perhaps it is even insulting, to newcomers to identify them as lurkers. Perhaps you could just call them visitors. You do want more and more people to check out the site, right?
Thanks
(I tried to start a new topic, but couldn’t)
Has this site been fixed so that REGISTERED users can post? It is truly annoying that everytime I try to post in a more interesting forum, I’m told that I’m an UN-registerd user when I’m actually REGISTERED and that they wont let me post. This is truly annoying. If this is fixed I’d like an email telling me its OK now. I just have to say I am getting less and less enthusiastic about oriented after 3 weeks waiting for it to be fixed cuz I see other people getting access to this and I dont. So whats the point of registering onto oriented as a member if you cant use the functions that require registration? I’m actully considering deleting my membership registration
There is too much bureaucracy on this site (see last post). I myself had a helluva time trying to sort out e-mail changes and password b.s. It is really quite unappealling. In fact, in light of recent events, I must say that I am also considering just walking away from this site.
I guess no matter how hard you try, you just can’t teach monkeys to drive taxicabs.
As an aside: Fulong Beach Party Canada Day! Get off your computers and get on the good foot baby!
maximum rocknroll murphy
Hiya Christine, Rich’s coz here. F Hsu…? Think about it…hehe. Well, just want to say glad to see the site seemed to get its quirk fixed. I was looking at how lotsa forums are starting to seem like people are holding “BBS conversations”. So I thought, “hm…I don’t think I’ve noticed a chatroom applet or some such thingy” Does oriented have one? if not, is it something you plan to have?
Posted by V and zhongwen.com
For people who have been to oriented.org (and I know the founders will just love me mentioning their website
), what do you think the founders’ motives are? Public spiritedness? They are spending their valuable time on a webiste just to make you and me happy? They will take certain posts and sell it as a book? They will make a comprehensive guide to Taiwan composed of, among other things, posts from oriented .org? And is HeyChristine.com trying to sell anything? Somehow Gus and Chistine strike me and very shrewd and xian4shi2- out to make a buck. Which is all well and good. They just seem sneaky is all.-v
I care because there is good reason to believe they want to make a buck out of the posts that unsuspecting people put up on oriented. They say that anything posted on oriented is their property, but they don’t say what they are going to do with it. Someone came out and asked them about this in a post, and christine and gus just said that they would answer that question at a later time. I have to take back what I said about Christine being sneaky, though. On her website heychristine.com she comes right out and says in a section I think is entitled ‘motives’ that she wants to find some way to generate ‘revenue’ out of oriented.org and turn it into oriented.com. I read that after my first post on this topic. So, even though oriented.org is a great place to ‘talk’ to people, I think I’ll stick to my other forums when I want to write something and just go to oriented to read and invite people to go to zhongwen.com or www.delphi.com/chinatopics if they want to talk with me about something. At least I know the other forums I visit won’t try to make money off my writing or the writings of others. Anyway, so you see, I was cynical but accurate in assessing Christine’s motives based on what she herself says on her website. Go read it. You’ll love the pictures she has of herself all over it.
Dapangzi and v
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for opening my eyes. I admit it. I am a very naive and gullible person. I even believe there are people who want to give something back to the community, to society. So when I read Christine and Gus’s rationale for putting so much time effort, and their personal money into ORIENTED and Hey Christine, well . . . what the hell. I admit it. I believed them. Sounded noble but reasonable to me.
When they were talking about hopefully being able to make ORIENTED.ORG into a money-making venture, I naively assumed they were talking about selling advertising on the site. This, I thought, was why they were so excited about getting the larger sidebars on the site – so that potential customers would be impressed and buy space.
Now, thanks to you, I and all the others out there in cyberspace know the truth. Christine and Gus are copying out the more intelligent and profound postings and collecting them for publication. Wow!
See? That’s why I’m not rich!. I would never think of something like that to make money. Not only am I naive and gullible, I am rather slow on the uptake. Even though you have put it right here in front of my face, I STILL cannot figure out how to make money from the postings that I have seen on ORIENTED.
Rants and Raves, now in suspended animation, is/was for the most part just that – ranting and raving. Now you’re going to tell me that there is a market for that – er–uh – stuff? People would actually pay real money to read that?
The other discussion forums are pretty good, but simple-minded me, I can’t figure out how I would make a coherent text out of any or all of those postings. Many of them seem to depend on one living in, or having lived in Taiwan to be understood.
Now see? If I just had the profound insight of Dapangzi and v, or if I could be as sneaky as Christine and Gus, I would be rolling in money now.
Oh, hey!! Duhh. I just had an idea (oh, pain)! I know how I could make money selling the “stuff” that appears on ORIENTED’s Rants and Raves. Designer toilet paper! Now that would give a whole new meaning to the term “recycle” – some of the stuff that appears on R&R going full circle and being used to help clean up the stuff that comes from the opposite end of those same people’s mouths – if they can figure out which end is up. No matter. It would work just as well at either end, wouldn’t it?
BTW, I went to zongwen.com. Their forum advises, " This forum is provided for the exclusive use of people interested in Chinese characters and Chinese culture.
Of course Christine is Chinese, and she is most definitely a character, but I think the people at zhongwen.com had a different sort of character in mind. Gus is from the Philippines. Is he Chinese? I don’t think so.
I couldn’t find anything by v concerning ORIENTED there. Ah, but hope still lingers. zongwen.com advises,
For non-language topics try Chinatopics.
I did. Nothing there, either. However, they did advise that
By posting on message boards, participating in chat rooms, or creating any other content,
you will be deemed to have granted Delphi.com perpetual, non-exclusive permission to redistribute by transmission the information or materials worldwide without charge or liability.
Dapangzi and v, thank you so much for enlightening me as to the ulterior motives of Christine and Gus.
Please excuse me for a moment . . . . .
Hey Christine!! Yo! Gus! Please refer to my designer toilet paper idea above. I will arrive in Taipei on July 16. Do you think that we might get together to discuss a mutually profitable business venture along these lines? If we could find a good chemist, maybe we could also come up with a toilet paper that “melts in the bowl and not in your hand.” Then we wouldn’t have to worry about clogging the sewage systems and using the little buckets at the side of the toilets.
I’m on a roll! Fame and fortune, here we come!!
So what if Christine & Gus want to recoup some of the money they spend on this site? They deserve it, and I certainly don’t care, unless of course she refuses to buy me an expensive cocktail when we eventually have an offline gathering
In any case, I can’t imagine that they’re planning a book of these posts – it would take so much work, not to mention the fact that once the dross was edited out, it would be little more than a pamphlet. Let’s not kid ourselves. The postings here are BORING in the extreme to most everyone who doesn’t post here.
Does anyone know why you can’t see ppl when they’re on-line anymore? Anyways, I can understand. It must be embarrassing to go from such highs on hits and then to such lows when R&R is taken out. (if no one else has noticed, June 18 had a high of 18 ppl on at once, most I’ve ever seen is 23.)
Hey! What happened to all those friends who said they were going to stop coming if there wasn’t some decorum on R&R? Once it was closed, looks like they went elsewhere and not to Oriented.
Hey, it’s been almost a month now. Bring back the Rants and Raves or this place is going to become a virtual ghost town! After all, to quote a former habitual user, “How many times can you look at the “Housing” section before you just get bored to tears and move on?” Seriously, Christine, Gus, Oriented will start to lose relevance and credibility sooner or later without a more freewheeling, anonymous section in which to post. I still think Rants and Raves ought to have light moderation, to control the stupid “Musasa/Ultimate Lurker” hissy fits, or the “kick-a-Mormon-in-the-gut” types; this does not mean that you have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Come on - pretty soon I will be forced to spend my time at the computer doing company-related work! Horrors!
good luck with your R&R
Trying to gasp make money!!! I’m shocked an horrified and I’ll … I’ll … I’ll continue to use the free resource exactly as I did before I found out these dastardly motives.
Sincere thanks to the creators for building a site where people can exchange information, ideas and insults.
If you can somehow figure out a way of selling the material that I wrote then please do so with my blessing!
To my simple mind the site needs no new features/functions or new software. Does the job nicely.
double yawn
At first I was excited about this site and the connections and resources that it seemed to offer. But then I realized that most of the posts are from boring and immature dweebs.
You have all these bad word filters and editor patrolling for nasty comments; can’t you come up with geek filter? It would be nice to separate the men and women from the boys and girls, and the intelligent human beings from the lower forms of life.
I’ve tried, really, to engage and participate, but have lost interest in playing in a kindergarten. You’re losing me folks. But then again, you probably care, and are please to be also known as www.englishteacher.org
Come on, fool, it’s not that bad. And some people like dum my poop and rocky are really funny. Anyway, if you find a better chatroom whether it has to do with Taiwan or not, let me know. Your kindergarten comment reminded me of wiley e coyote saying to bugs bunny: “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is wile e coyote-genius.” Then he said something like “I am a genius while you could hardly pass the entrance examination to kindergarten.” I memorized it because I watched that tape about 1 trillion times with my little uns. PS- Helly if you are posting, what name are you posting under now? PPS my name is mud.
Vera, Helly is easy to spot. He was Rocky and is now <[{()}]> before that he was Big Dork.
Bri
Thanks bu
Duh…I’m zdubid.
I went to the new Rants and Raves and it was blank.
I also went to englishteacher.org and nothing was there…I’m zdubid…
But anyway, , if you live in Taiwan and you don’t know Chinese, then you might as well be in a kindergarten - as a student, I mean. There’s nothing to be ashamed about. Each to his own time.
Like I always overreact but what am I supposed to do? When I’m having a conversation with the cashier about the price of the Bacardi and he says I don’t need to go check because he’ll get somebody else to go check the price and I say, well, why don’t you help the guy behind me first and the guy behind me has to say his English “I CAN WAIT,” I mean, the guy just switched languages like a social judo flip. The atmosphere was all Chinese and then he rang his big English GONGGGGGGG - of course I’m going to have a reaction because I know that he rang his big English gong because I’m a white guy speaking Chinese, right? But but but when I speak Chinese I’m not ringing my gong but I guess that old guy behind me thought I was. And yes, it would have been different if he smiled like he was in Disney World and said cheerfully "I can wait “, but he DIDN’T. He just looked like, well “I CAN WAIT.” So all I can think is as soon as I calm down and get my qi back in balance I can turn around and smile and say”
you know when strangers in Taiwan speak English to me I admire them on one hand, and on the other hand I feel like they’re looking down on me
ha ha, silly me
" but I’ll have to do that next time, maybe. Because, of course he wasn’t looking down on me. He just wanted to ring his English gonggggggggggggg for the supermarket to hear. I wasn’t speaking Chinese very loudly and I certainly don’t have the “hey hey hey, look who’s speakin’ the lingo, folks!” attitude like that weirdo “Jeff the Wonder******” and especially that embarrassment in the mainland “大山”. Well, they’re both OK, I’m probably just jealous because I have a big thespian side to me and all I’m doing is reading about sex shops in Next Magazine. Whatever.