Send A Message

The "Send a Message" option under the avatar  won't work for ordinary members since not everyone can send private messages. You seem to be forgetting that PM priviledges must be activated each member by participating in the forums. One click or two clicks I really don't see much advantage in changing the way things are now, especially if it means doing away with the Anti-Spam protections that the activation process for messaging provides everyone. That would be the end result of the way you suggest.

Also the whole idea of Expat-blog is to SHARE our experiences with everybody in the open forums, not just communicate through private messages.

I find it amusing to say the very least that almost all of the people who want to make radical changes to Expat-blog are ones who have just recently joined and have really no clear idea of what the blog's purpose, history and evolution is. There are always changes, but those changes have always been, and will continue to be FOR THE BETTER, not just to suit any given individual.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil & Canada Expert, Expat-blog Team

Tran, a lot of people have spent a long time doing a lot of work to make this site what it is today.  Constructive criticism is appreciated in small doses.  Big ideas will only alienate you from people you probably don't want to alienate.  Believe me.

I've been here 3 years and people shit bricks when I suggest changes.  You've been here 3 months.  No matter how good or bad your ideas might be, you're going to piss people off.  If I spent years building a website, I'd probably feel the same way.  We all get territorial with our hard work.

HaileyinHongKong wrote:

Tran, a lot of people have spent a long time doing a lot of work to make this site what it is today.  Constructive criticism is appreciated in small doses.  Big ideas will only alienate you from people you probably don't want to alienate.  Believe me.

I've been here 3 years and people shit bricks when I suggest changes.  You've been here 3 months.  No matter how good or bad your ideas might be, you're going to piss people off.  If I spent years building a website, I'd probably feel the same way.  We all get territorial with our hard work.

So what's the purpose of the "Help us improve the website" if ideas ONLY come from people who've been here forever?  That's very Microsoft thinking.  And it's like the "suggest a comment" boxes we find in the Walmart stores.  No one will use it if they know management just laughs when they read through it.  Then the suggestion box becomes irrelevant.

THIS account is only 3 months but I've actually been here before...I don't use the old ID because a troll kept attacking me and I had to abandon the old ID.  I have since learned to share my ideas, not my personal information.

Even if you've been here a long time, too many suggestions will only annoy people.  How many is too many?  There's only one way to find out.  I'm not telling you not to make suggestions.  I'm only telling what's going to happen.

Hello,

sorry guys I've been away for a few days. I'll now reply to all your messages, suggestions and concerns.

Before everything, I will say that all your suggestions and ideas are really appreciated. We may not be able to change things very quickly as we're always working on something else, but we often include good ideas and suggestion to our development road map.

Actually, there was a "send a message" link exactly where THD inserted it, until last year.

We participated to a pilot with a company (whose name starts with G), regarding user experience and design. And we learned a lot of things. One of our issues was that a lot of members don't make a difference between replying in public and replying in private. All expats are not techies as you and I are

Eg: I ask a question about driving in China, and I receive a reply in my private mailbox, which is fine, but wouldn't it be better for everyone if the answer was shared publicly, so that it could help many more people ?

Of course it is slightly more complicated (one click) to send a private message now, but we now received many more replies to questions asked on the forum ... on the forum

This said, maybe we could provide this option to all our active members