How can we make Ajarn Forum a better place for teachers, expats and all posters?

[Eric]

There was a thread in the Ice Box recently about how the forum presents itself. Here's some background reading...

Now what should the forum reflect? Well first off it's a site for teachers. Teaching is a position in the community that is respected and as a teacher you instantly are trusted with the most precious asset a community has, their children. With that trust comes responsibility to do what is moral, ethical, and to be a positive role model for the kids who are watching your every move. So, teaching has been called a noble profession. I think of it a bit like cops, fire fighters and paramedics. All of whom also also serve the community and set examples.

So with this in mind, a forum for teachers should set the same example that the teachers themselves are expected to set and therefore should hold itself to the highest standards possible. A forum for teachers should set the standard.

We don't want new people to stumble onto this site and be confronted with posts from people (all of whom are assumed to be teachers) flaming each other, posting racy pictures, slagging off the profession, etc, etc... I could write a dictionary of examples. We should be a place where people might find inspiration and think "Hey, after reading here maybe I could make myself a better teacher, maybe I could do more in class with some of the ideas from here."

I think the reason the forum presents itself in a way that doesn't truly reflect the state of teaching in Thailand is because we're trying to set an example and improve it. People don't have to read too deeply here to figure out what teaching in Thailand is really like but they shouldn't be clobbered over the head with it at the front door either or they will never bother reading this forum and another potential good poster moves on.

What I would be interested in is some constructive criticisms about how to improve it. I can't promise that all the ideas put forth will be implemented but I can promise that every one will be considered with an open mind and taken to heart.

So, what specific changes would you like to see on Ajarn Forum to make it better?

(Please let's not have snarky comments that use this as an opportunity to get in a jab about what you don't like here. Frame it in a constructive way or just don't participate. Thanks.)

[been there done that]

be careful when people start talking about change .

usually it turns out not to be a good thing .

[sunasiafash]

A forum for teachers only. Moderators would need to check message history of user before allowing a poster to be able to post messages(not sure if its possible) and maybe a minimun number of posts before they can use(as with other forum categories),but could certainly remove any poster who are just offensive, and by offensive , foul language and impolite. Moderator would have to decide. I think it would need a great deal of moderating . Alas though anonymity on the internet always brings the worst out of some. Writing what they would never speak...well generally , there are exceptions

[Eric]

be careful when people start talking about change .

usually it turns out not to be a good thing .

Well, if people don't think it's broken we won't fix it but I thought it would be good to solicit input from the community. Give the people who have spent their time here and now have a vested interest a chance to have input.

sunasiafash, Good satire there but I know what you're getting at. No one wants to sanitize the forum to teaching issues only. I know the bit I quoted was primarily about a board for teachers but obviously the social side of the board is very important too. They compliment each other. It is primarily a forum for teachers though so when we consider the bigger picture and making changes it's with that in mind. Please, tell us what you really think.

[reinvented]

its a forum for teachers but not necessarily a forum about teaching (in entirety)
as soon as the non teaching narrow minded admin realise that and stop trying to enforce restrictions on people who dont wish to be restricted, maybe things could settle doen no?

without trolling and faction wars
this site has practically nothing going on at the moment
be careful what you wish for eric is a peral of old wisdom sometimes

[Sciacca]

I think everything is fine the way it is.

[zeitgeist]

I find the comments that glorify or condone prostitution out of place here. It sends a very negative message about the professionalism of teachers in Thailand.

[Farangrakthai]

there've been dozens of threads like this, even since the short time i've been here. the more things change the more they stay the same.


IMO, mods should just let the forum grow naturally. stay out of the way as much as possible, with mods making 99% of their posts about normal stuff that other posters post about and only 1% about mod stuff.

do some heavy modding in the staffroom and classroom, though let the other subforums have fun and get a bit crazy. simply split off flame wars (x vs y) to the ice box when necessary. simple.

and when you ban someone, notify other posters on a thread that only mods can post on and give the reason. that way, it is transparent and other posters don't wonder what the heck is going on. a fellow poster can just disappear without a word? like they were picked up by the secret police and nobody knows what happened. better to find out through gossip and the chinese whispers grapevine?

[russellsimpson]

a fellow poster can just disappear without a word?

The argument here being that a poster who is banned may not want others to know he/she is banned.

I appreciate your intentions here Eric but this suggestion thing is ongoing and probably doesn't need a dedicated thread.

And as FRT say, there have been literally dozens of this kind of thread over the past two months.

And come on Eric. You know damned well that decisions aren't reached by consensus here.
Never been the style and never will be the style.

[ScorpioPower]

Ban trolls that have a habit of making "on the cusp" comments in serious threads.

[AGareth2]

I think this is a very useful site for serious teachers, at least I have found it helpful on many occasions.
The question is whether it should be solely about teaching or a broad church.
(Teachers do have lives outside the classroom afterall.)

[Hollow]

Ajarn forum: Living and Teaching in Thailand. It should reflect the good and bad of both. I also think that the newbie forum could do with some work. I outlined some ideas on another thread and I can't be bothered to repeat them. Will try and search them out and re-post them here.

Here it is... It was in the current batch of Newbies thread that was boxed:

I know very little about forum politics and don't particularly want to get involved. I'll stick my oar in occasionally for a bit of a laugh, but that's about it. So coming from a position of relative ignorance, I have to say that it's apparent, even to me, that a large percentage of our recent new members are not new members at all. Just the way in which they go about introducing themselves just doesn't seem genuine. However, that's by-the-by.

I pop into the newbie forum occasionally and once every so often I'll take a chance that it is genuine and try and offer up some advice. I type a decent length response to some inane question that's been asked a hundred times before and most of the time the response is "Thanks" if there's even a response at all. I agree with you whole-heatedly that a lot (not all) of the new additions are "takers". They want info and they want it now! They don't want to use the search feature, they don't want to read other forums, they type 'TEFL Thailand forum' into Google, come here, sign up, ask a question and when they get what they need, they fook off! Never to be seen again.

Now perhaps some people might put this down to "aggressive" established posters scaring them off, but I don't buy it. It's wearing to see people come and go, get what they need and leave, take, take, take.

My response to this would be, (And I direct it to LDMA) why not over-hall the newbie forum? I would suggest that you invite a few established posters (I'd volunteer for one) to write a series of short, clear and concise articles that could be stickied at the top of the page and newbies could be referred to them. Titles could include -

What you need to get work in Thailand?

It could have a clear, no nonsense list of what documentation is generally needed to gain employment, a visa, WP and TL and a caveat at the bottom explaining that this isn't set in stone, with an internal link to the Paperwork forum.

Where in Thailand do you want to go?

A quick run down of various locations and there pros and cons, with relevent employment information that again supplies internal links to different parts of the site for greater clarification.

Can I live on 30K a month?

A link to my thread.

What are the different types of employment?

Outlining what the diference is between Government, Private, Language etc and suppliing the links

And other suggestions..

Personally, I think the forum should be putting an emphasis on introducing the person rather than a place that has "No stupid questions" Those questions should be pre-empted and answers supplied or internal links given to where the answer lie. It means that people can concentrate on 'building comunity' and other such things, rather than answering mundane questions. It would help everybody out... Established members could point them to the top of the page as soon as the question was asked... they could then go on to the other forums and it would keep traffic flowing in some of the quieter areas of the forums while being relevant.

[Plan B]

Making it better.


Get rid of all the moderators, have every post okayed by Louise before it appears on the board.

[LDMA]

its a forum for teachers but not necessarily a forum about teaching

There are two forums very specifically about teaching. Attempting to focus on just these two forum to keep them on topic and off-flamewars and nonsense provoked real life hostility to a moderator. Does nobody else see this as very wrong?

stop trying to enforce restrictions on people

Let's get down to specifics here. What kind of content would you like us to permit on Ajarn Forum that we currently 'restrict'?
I have tried on numerous occaisions to get the answer to this question when the whole SZ thing was blowing up, but didn't receive much in the way of specifics.

I think everything is fine the way it is.

Always nice to get input from users who haven't been here as long. I agree with you. Is there a familiarity breeds contempt angle somewhere here?

The question is whether it should be solely about teaching or a broad church.

Absolutely, however the question is how broad should the church be, given the core theme of the site.

Get rid of all the moderators, have every post okayed by Louise before it appears on the board.

I would suggest that you invite a few established posters (I'd volunteer for one) to write a series of short, clear and concise articles that could be stickied at the top of the page and newbies could be referred to them.

We have these already, though no doubt there is room for improvement. Also don't forget we are a part of Ajarn.com that has all of this information and more. The newbie room has it's place as despite the questions being familiar, some people don't want static info, but feel that if they ask a question today and get an answer today then their info is at least up to the minute. Let me give you an example on another forum - Thai Visa.
I don't tend to hang out there, but one thing I do admire about it is their visa section. You can go there and be one of hundreds of users at any one time going on for information about getting a visa in Thailand or to the UK, panicking etc, but they have users who never tire of giving helpful advice to each and every one of them. In that case I felt no one piece of info dealt specifically with me, and I asked my questions, got them answered patiently and it was spot on. That is what we look for in th newbie section...somewhere where they can ask the most basic question and not be seen as a troll, and I will stick by our rule of no flaming, as a forum filled with newbie questions that answers each hypothetical, is far better than getting genuine newbies flamed as trolls and going away with a piss-poor impression of this forum.

[Hollow]

I understand your point about people not wanting static information and especially in LOS static info can become out of date very quickly. What about some Wikipedia style articles that can be edited by all members and kept up to date, as and when changes occur?