I’ve asked a ton of questions about the whole process of getting from nothing all the way to an ARC. Having finished that process, with it fresh in my mind, I want to post a “how to” message in some forum for new people to find and use. My thought is that it might save a lot of people posting time and give better info to searchers for a time.
We do not have a Newbie forum (I am of two minds on that issue), so I wasn’t sure where to post it. My top options seem to be the “Teaching English” forum and the “Visa” etc. forum.
Here’s an idea – draft up your guide and e-mail it to me: gus (at) forumosa.com
I’ll discuss with Maoman and the rest of the team how we might use it on the website: as static content, as a sticky at the top of appropriate forums, as the first of a long awaited (now forgotten?) forum archive, …
However we use it, I would make sure that: you are properly credited – real name? login ID?? e-mail address??? (up to you)
Taking this thougt a little further, maybe we can have a link to a page on Forumosa that outlines what New Arrivals to Taiwan should review first when they get here. This would niclude links back to the threads that are most relevant
The same could be done as a Newbie’s guide to Forumosa.com
I’m stuck between your suggestions. My contribution won’t be a polished manual, but it also isn’t a rambling disjointed memoir.
Half of me wants to just post the silly thing and not get stuck in 3 months of multiple-people reviews where it might get lost in the shuffle. The other half says that it would be nice to see something take shape for newbies. That is actually a discussion that I’d like to have.
I know the subject has been opened here before with mixed reactions. If you push newbies off into their own forum only, few of the experienced people will ever go there and interact. If you have no newbie forum, the same questions will keep getting asked and answered over and over in the main forums. Hmmmm…what to do? Maybe a newbie forum that is not an interactive forum, similar to job postings. Things only get posted there, but no one answers questions there. After reading the stuff in the Newbie forum (like a FAQ), if someone has questions, then they go to the appropriate forum (English teaching, or Visa/ARC, etc) to get answers.
It might work. Let me know your thoughts when you have time. I’m still typing the thing anyway, on and off, as I get time.
One of the modifications I hope to make here (after we moved to the new server) is to add a “CMS”. In the past, we’ve called this Content Management System our “Archive”
Depending on what system we ultimately install, there will be a system that is linked to the forum database that people can refer to for “static” articles – so they will not get lost in the shuffle of people’s replies
Until then, we can see how such “Guides” are received by setting them up as simple static web pages. Send me your content, and I’ll show you and Maoman how it might look before we roll it out.
Btw, performance testing of the new server began today, so we are that much closer to modifying forumosa again