Stimulate the Forum

[steveandpenny]

T

I like the idea. I admit that I am not very interested to know what Donald has had for breakfast or what is last or next silly thing he has/will say. Quite a few World News threads are interesting but should perhaps be kept in their own channel, separated from News strictly concerning Indonesia. If I were a fresh off the boat expat I surely would like to have a specific channel about politics and general affairs which concern the country I am about to live in. Matters concerning security for example, matters concerning next to come elections and the impact it may have on my life...etc. We need to make these threads, which are essential, easily available for readers.

Totally agree with you but I was thinking of the soon to be expats or at least thinking about it. I remember wanting to get a feel for Indonesia and needing info about how to do it. I ended up being a expat and enjoying the other stuff. Again I realize I'm looking at things a lot different from most of our esteem members seeing both me and my wife are both from the states and on a retirement Visa. Where most all others are either on work Visa or spouse visas.

 

[steveandpenny]

My bad, I'm in one of those defensive moods today and jumped to fast.

 

[dafluff]

This is the 2nd forum I have joined. I initially joined the old, or other forum. I clicked the old forum lately and there were over 1000 people viewing but no real recent posts.

I am reasonably certain that the other forum's stat of "people viewing" is actually just poor SEO practice. Indexing bots from Google and other search engines (called crawlers) visit every thread on the forum (actually every link on the internet). Because they have a limited "budget" per site to index, good SEO practice is to tell them not to index useless stuff. Further good practice is to tell crappy search engines and other malicious bots to just not bother at all. If you don't do this, among other things you will get tons of bots connected at all times. I suppose there is a tiny chance that there are actually 1000s of lurkers on a site with no real posts continuously every day, but I doubt it. For a forum, having a ratio of 1:100+ logged in members vs guests is very unusual. Most legitimate forums I have visited usually have between 1:1 to 1:5 ratio for logged in users vs guests. 1:10 would already be very high. They have almost 1:500 as of right now. Those bots consume bandwidth and resources for no good reason.

One way to reduce the impact of bots, among other things, is via a file called robots.txt. You can see ours at https://forum.expatindo.org/robots.txt. It's been a while since I looked at it, but just a quick inspection reminds me that we are blocking maybe 3-4 dozen malicious bots, and limiting all other to relevant links. Technically sound sites should have this precaution at the very minimum. You can check other sites on the internet as well. The format is always the same <url>/robots.txt

For example:
http://edition.cnn.com/robots.txt
https://en.wikipedia.org/robots.txt
https://www.amazon.com/robots.txt

You can also quickly confirm that the other forum doesn't have one.

Further more, our forum software is able to distinguish between a guest and a bot, and they are reported differently. Because of the rules we have set out for the bots, you can see that only 9 are connected as of right now.

 

[William King]

Forums are going, just like blogs had their day in the sun, and before that MySpace.

 

[Fred]

save for cases where a member would be involved in a serious crime (murder, sexual crimes, robbery...etc).

Oh, hell's bells

 

[Bad_azz]

OK, so what do we debate?

...
- Is Bad_azz in reality some fat old geezer, sitting in front of his web-connected PC, in his ketchup-stained skivvies and knee-deep in empty beer cans and pizza cartons?
- yada, yada, yada ...

Oi!
I have a vagina!
It might be a bit dusty & full of cobwebs but it was still there last time I looked

 

[Bad_azz]

...

And while I'm on a soapbox I'm a bit sick of the personal attacks that are thinly veiled with hurmour. Case in point the comments about badass...I've had the honor to meet her and she's a strong beautiful women who will go out of her way to help you...she did for us and would for anyone how asked for help.
Now I've tossed a few stones that should have been done in the cage but that doesn't mean it was right. Let's keep it in the cage.

Yep- That's me Strong as an ox & twice as beautiful

If any of my comments (ab)using the Bad_azz name were seen as personal attacks, then I assure you that they definitely were not. And I unreservedly apologize if they inadvertently came over as such.

Forgiven - wasn't offended in the first place- I have thick skin- refer to ox comment above.

You may have gotten that wrong, Steve. If you refer to this post and the subsequent, none are personal attacks in my opinion, but are tongue-in-cheek. I also doubt that BA would see them as personal attacks.

I can't talk on behalf of BA and Gratilla but if memory serves well they have barely interacted in the old forum and it was 7 or 8 years ago. One ended his participation in the forum when the other registered. I think it was in the very same period.

kisses- big boy


I hadn't seen this thread before until I did a search for Fastpitch (cos much as you profess to "love me" Davita, I have you under "ignore" cos I find you to be a pain in the arse), thinking hadn't heard a peep for a while & it made me laugh out loud- (not a silly "lol" , a proper one)

Stimulating the forum... hmmm not that easy- in the age of instant gratification we have Twitter... I won't say fb although many use those fb expat groups.
Personally for me FB had become a right royal pain in the arse too full of ads and shite I just don't want to read, yet barely any personal posts showing up from friends- they sold out to the advertisers big time (and just as I was about to ditch it- my dad signs up & now uses it as his way to communicate with me. Haha, his timing sucks!).

Anyhow, if a forum is used and full of good quality information and advice then I believe it will survive and be respected as the go to place for sensible answers.

If it is just full of shite and ads then it does not stand out from the rest of the things on offer.

Personally I visit this place & comment when I have time/ inclination and do what I can to help out people who have questions that I might be able to answer.
I also do that elsewhere, but I feel that the quality here is better.
I am not interested really in the 900th question of how do I get my boyfriend a visa to go to Australia. Or looking at a million pics of Bali, I am however interested in looking at odd pics, and daily life pics- there are only so many Bali sunsets/beaches one can stomach on an Indonesian related page.

Daily life pics- get posting peeps.
Help & advice about daily life/ bureaucracy/ housing etc.
Funny daily life stories - get posting peeps.
This is content people enjoy reading- they aren't interested in sniping and bitching. Especially by what many of the younger generations think of as moaning old geezers with a bad attitude... it is just not cool.
Unless it is in a niche bitching thread... then they have the option of ignoring it.

 

[El_Goretto]

Daily life pics- get posting peeps.

Spoiler: coming soon!

 

[Bad_azz]

I want mod porn too- pics of you all in pony's dungeon with the censors off

 

[Daniel50]

Stimulating the forum... not that easy- in the age of instant gratification we have Twitter...hmmm looking at a million pics of Bal.

Good idea I am looking forward to returning, at some point and I will start my Million Pics of Bali thread. I think it will attract a lot of people.

If not maybe dinners at.....


Or perhaps Warung Cocounut Tree Sanur


What do you think?

 

[harryopal1]

I have found this and the Bali Forum both very useful when looking for information when I was preparing to come and settle in Bali. The intricacies of visa applications and all those abbreviations were rather confusing but thanks to the many contributors we have found our way through to be sitting back and now waiting for the final processing of our Kitap application. (I have my wife to thank for all the tedious stuff of completing forms and spending hours at various offices to get to this point. We haven't used any agents but I can understand why people do use agents as an alternative to all the tedium involved in completing the various procedures.)

Each morning at breakfast I open these forums to see what the latest postings are and who is sticking it to who. I guess people have to be intrinsically unhappy with themselves or generally disenchanted with life to find pleasure in dishing out insults or deriding other contributions. In the main there is a lot of goodwill and genuine effort made by many posters to try and help steer people towards their objectives or just help out with useful information.

So thank you to the contributors who have responded to my many enquiries over the last few years and thank you to the moderators and Atlantis in particular for keeping this forum together. Long may it continue.

 

[Balifrog]

Same as Harry, as a newbie I found and still find a lot of usefull information on here, and people willing to answer stupid newbie questions.
Thanks gentlemen (and Madame)

 

[drbrucepk]

I just found this forum after looking for it for a while; I used to post on the other forum from time to time. I'm interested in what's going on around the world because it all affects us here in one way or another. So, I'm looking forward to taking part in a few discussions as time permits. (I thought that retirement would give me more time to do things, but little did I know that becoming a full-time grandpa was in the books.)

The phone comment is a good one; I logged on with my phone and with my old, stubby fingers, typing a long post is a pain. So, I can see where that would make me less likely to reply to a lot of things. But, generally I use the laptop so I'm up for a few good discussions.

 

[El_Goretto]

Welcome @drbrucepk!

We may also have a solution soon to make the forum more usable on mobile. Stay tuned!

 

[atlantis]

I just found this forum after looking for it for a while; I used to post on the other forum from time to time.

Hey! Welcome back drbruce! Your comments were always appreciated and I look forward to reading you here. Still in the East of Indonesia?

 

[drbrucepk]

Thanks El_Goretto, good news because I can check up on things in bed then.

Thanks too Atlantis. Hope to add something interesting or useful from time to time. We left Sumbawa nine years ago, sold the house and most of the land (still have a small 25 are plot left) and moved back to the house in Bali. The oldest was starting high school and the new principal, being extremely honest from one educator to another, told me that my oldest daughter would be better off in high school back in Bali. Amazing how quickly time passes.

 

[Missnaughty]

If the Forum has become boring, perhaps it's because the Provocateur in Chief is falling down on the job.

Hahaha.. so true. we need the Donald join the forum..

 

[brian@bekasi]

I have been on holidays in UK and Europe and have read the thread with interest on return.My comments are probably a little behind the current status of the thread.

From my perspective the forum plays an important part in my life. It provides information on laws and other information essential to life in Indonesia as well as providing an opportunity to interact with other contributors in English.

To me the opportunity to to interact and contribute in English is important as I live a fairly isolated life while we are are in Jakarta /Bekasi. The isolation is not the same when I am in other parts of Indonesia such as Manado.

I do not speak Bahasa well despite trying and indeed employing tutors and choose to stay at home rather than spending hours in Jakarta traffic in search of interaction with English speaking people..So my social interactions are generally restricted to my extended Indonesian family where Banasa and Banasa Manado are the prime languages.

Saying that I live a good life in Indonesia and do not regret the decission to live here. However, without this forum and others that I contribute to primarily in Australia, I certainly would have a communications void in my life.

As for the content I believe that within reason the forum should be open to all topics as International as well as local issues impact on our life in Indonesia. The more interesting and varied the better.

I think the main aim of the forum should be to attract and retain more new members while at the same time making the topics interesting enough to retain long term members as well as the new members. I know that is easier said than done and therefore we who want the forum have the destiny of the forum in our own hands.

 

[vocalneal]

The problem I find with a lot of forums is that "International" becomes "American" and them it become tedious and repetitive. As an example the NZ Prime Minister is giving birth so will take maternity leave from office.
Now whilst not enthralling it is certainly more interesting than videos of children actors pretending to be split from their Mexican parents.

This might not be the best example but Americans tend to think everyone is interested in their sh1t when most other nationalities couldn't give a damn. Now it may have something to do with taxes that most others don't pay but still...

Example 2 Thailand just executed some 26 year old guy who stabbed someone 24 time in order to steal a mobile phone. Foreign observers and do-gooders are up in arms. Most Thai people in my street think good riddance. So while it seems like a big story and we could all pontificate about what happens to the same criminals in Uruguay/Andora et al. It simply doesn't matter. "Daily Life" goes on...

 

[William King]

Example 2 Thailand just executed some 26 year old guy who stabbed someone 24 time in order to steal a mobile phone. Foreign observers and do-gooders are up in arms. Most Thai people in my street think good riddance. So while it seems like a big story and we could all pontificate about what happens to the same criminals in Uruguay/Andora et al. It simply doesn't matter. "Daily Life" goes on...

Not sure I agree with you there. I do find international news interesting.