englishforum.ch

Complaints Corner
1
Back again after a break of weeks, I was faced with this message....

Hello Naps it appears that you have not posted on our forums in several weeks, why not take a few moments to ask a question, help provide a solution or just engage in a conversation with another member in any one of our forums?

To be honest, I didn't feel very welcome after I placed my first few postings on the forum - my intro. was ignored until I mentioned it on a different thread, and the two questions which I did pose received no response at all.

Worse than that are the "This question has been covered many times, don't waste our time, use the search facility' blunt replies.

Ok, so this isn't a complaint, more of a gripe - I'm sure there's a mine of information amongst the members, but I'm for one am a little to scared to ask.

Anyone else feeling the same, or am I alone?

2
Use the search facility this has been covered before.

joke.

3
Thanks for either proving the point, or having a wicked sense of humour

4
am pretty sure it was the latter ... admittedly there are some cynics with a "seen it all before" attitude ... but mostly folks will point you in the right direction ... so post / ask away ....

5
Heya

This one is pretty much a standard thing. I get it too when I have been off the forum for a while.

It seems to me to be more a polite way of prompting you to contribute to the forums than anything else. Its automatic - the computer cannot know why you have not posted anything on the forum. Its a prompt, nothing more.

As for no replies to posts, its a big forum and growing bigger everyday. I remember when I joined last summer and there were maybe 30 new threads per day instead of the hundreds that we have now. The most traffic on the forum is also through the working day so forgive people for being a little preoccupied with bigger priorities.

But stick around - look around - there will be something on here that will be just what you need....

Enjoy

kt

6
chuckle.

I don't know what questions you asked, but maybe you needed to include more detail, or maybe no one knew the answers.

Don't be put off, people will help if they can.

7
Naps, I share your feelings entirely.

I've lived almost all my life abroad and seen lots of forums like this one - english and russian forums in China, Taiwan, Mongolia; Russian and Chinese forums in UK; Russian forum in Switzerland... Never posted anything, perhaps because never actually liked any of them, and then I've seen englishforum.ch

BUT - am pathologically shy with zero experience of sharing my oppinions with a virtual cummunity. as a result, all my posts (let alone my clumsy, pompose, plane silly introduction!) seem extremely akward even to myself.

add to this my broken English and you get the picture!

ah, i'll better stop writing alltogether...

8
Living in Switzerland, working for UK Co.

Which questions should we ask?

Those are the 2 questions I think you are referring too with zero answers.

I have no idea about how to answer either of the questions myself, but maybe someone will have a second look.

9
I find the " Which questions should we ask? " post quite ironic

I had a quick look at the postings you had made, and you have asked a particular specialist question concerning UK/France/switzerland which I suspect only very few people could answer.

So don't give up hope ! Especially with factual questions rather than emotive ones, most questions get useful answers and most people endeavour to help.

dave

10
I guess I'm making a straight comparison to the replies which I've had on other forums.

No problems that we didn't get any replies any longer though, we've been to CH, seen the tax guy, asked our own questions and if we've missed something obvious we'll find out when we get there. Fingers crossed we didn't.

As for the "jump in, make a post" point - I realised that it was automated, it just made me wonder WHY I hadn't actually been back to the forum, once I'd thought about it, I let my fingers do the talking.

Nice to see I'm not alone in the feeling though and if it's only brought one more member out to post, then it's been worth highlighting.

11
I reviewed your initial posts and the one about working in france, UK and switzerland did not make sense to me so could not reply to it.

The "which questions should I ask" is too open ended, you do not really give enough information about your intentions for us to know what you are seeking.

If you have a look around you will see many many many threads get answered with helpful answers, and sometimes you have to do a little legwork to get the answer you want. I know that does not sound helpful but that is how life is on the internet.

12
I must admit there have been many times when I've open the "post response" and then closed it again as the input I could give really didn't seem that valuable at the time. Also being new to the forum I'm trying to get a feel for it first by reading the posts and familiarising myself with the forum as a whole. Must say though the advice people have on here is so good and knowledgable!!!

13

Should you feel the info you gleaned would be of interest to others on the Forum, you would let us know, right?

14
to summarise - if you want a good welcome, post during a workday. Same goes for any question you want a potentially rapid reply to. I don't visit the forum as much for example at nights (sleeping) and during weekends (doing other things) and there can be several hundred threads to look at.

there are times when someone will look at a question and ask themselves if you used search. It's very good and don't be offended by someone saying that. Me? I'll merge your post for which you did no searching into the best match (most likely).

And take a pinch of salt before biting on certain replies

15

Of course I would.

Well, it just goes to show that first impressions are not always right, you guys (and girls) seem a whole lot friendlier than I first thought.

Will do my best to contribute to the knowledge pool!

16

just beware of the shallow end ...

17
Just wanted to tack something onto this thread. Many other members have already given some valuable insight to this thread, so just wanted to add a couple more points.

I'm always asking people to THINK a little when they write subject lines - they should be honest and informative. Take the subject line of this thread for example - I had absolutely no idea what I was going to find - I usually ignore subject lines which are vague, it was an accident that I even looked into this thread.

Those that have been here a long time and have contributed are simply going to tune out the many requests asking for the same information they've already typed 100 times. Getting a snotty reply about using search is one up from being ignored entirely.

Too often people find englishforum and think not about what they can do for the community, but what can the community do for them. I can't count the number of PMs I get that say "I want to live in Switzerland, please tell me everything I need to know about permits". I see many posts along the same lines - "I can't be bothered to ask specific questions, or even demonstrate that I've tried to find the information elsewhere, so just tell me everything so that I can disappear and then you'll never see me again".

Learning to use a forum effectively takes time, one has to consider that there is a mass of information flowing into it every day, and your question gets just a few seconds attention (at that). Effective spelling, a friendly and appreciative attitude and good subject lines all go a long way to increasing your "forum IQ". People demonstrating low forum IQ might not find it a very useful tool.

And finally, I often hear it said that "this didn't happen on the other forums I've been on". That's correct - because this place is different than other forums - I think many people already realise that, which could possibly why the traffic seems to double every three to four months.

My personal wish is for (some) people to realise that the internet is not one giant free consultancy service - behind it are people who give their time for free to answer the questions of others, and this is not an automatic right. Unfortunately, judging by the number of PMs, emails and even calls at home (yes) I get from strangers many people feel that the internet somehow owes them something.

I believe that deep-down everybody is friendly, it's just that sometimes their patience may be stretched a little thin. I think I also wrote a little on this subject on this thread .

18
Mark speaks words of wisdom. I'm a moderator on other forums and we do tick off people for just turning up and asking the most predictable of questions without bothering to search a bit, sometimes the answers sits just a page before the post has been made in the thread.

I don't think it's specific to internet, with the growth of "concierge" style companies that seem to offer to do anything and everything, people in general, confronted with the mass of information at our disposition, simply choose the easy option and rely on the goodwill/paying services that other provide.

19
hi naps,

i agree that the forum can sometimes seem a little intimidating. there are a lot of 'old hands' with some fabulous advice, but occasionally one or two may seem a little intolerant/short tempered of those finding their feet. however i feel the only way to change that is to contribute. it's hard, especially since we're still in the uk waiting to move - i have little practical experience/advice to offer. but forums generally, are what you make them. us newbies just need to stick around - if only to welcome other newbies!

kate

20
don't be shy kate - name names.

if you name me, btw, I'll ban you