Are you volunteering, PEdOriginally Posted by pauleddy
Running a site like that is an impossible task and it's no surprise that Whitey had enough of the mudslinging, brickbats and nonsense after a while. At least he had the balls to give it a go, which is highly commendable.
Money
Too long in Exile, too long not singing my song.
Too long like a rolling stone, Too long in exile
Too long in Exile, baby you just arent my friend.
Too long in Exile my friend, Baby you can never go home again.
As opposed to the mudslinging, brickbats and nonsense that he's posted?
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Originally Posted by LDMA
Not to worry Whitey, we're praying for you.
You can pray for him. I don't. After being a regular contributor to TW, I was invited to stop posting to the site by Whitey, Nemesis or whatever other nicks and imps he created and posted under to keep the site limping along. When I along with other posters gently suggested that TW might be headed for its grave, the admins and mods (or were they all the same person?) responded defensively, usually along the lines of, "If you don't like it, create your own web forum.." or our posts were deleted in their entirety.
Whitey destroyed the credibility of TW through his own bizarre multiple personality approach as site administrator. You reap what you sow.
Oh go on, Guy, you set TW up again - then you can develop a bizarre multiple personality approach of your own
It probably comes with the job.
Hindsight, as they say is 20/20 vision. Looking back now its readily apparent that the site was set up with the premise that all Thai schools were bad, Hence long before the “good vibes room” we got the “Hall of shame” read that how you want. How I read it was that the site was for bitching only.
Read between the lines on Ajarn and , from my perspective we see posters who have been in Thailand 5 years, 10, 15 20 and are still happy, yes we also see those who are pissed off with the idiosyncrasies that are Thai education. Some give up and move on, some find a working fit and stay but still gripe, some find a better fit and stay liking the place. Teflwatch only ever seemed interested in those who fell into the first category with some credence given to those in the second, if you fell into the third category then you were a sellout, a Thai apologist, a scab! I tend to put myself borderline between category 2 & 3. In 6 years in Thailand I can honestly say that I have had 1 truly awful job 3 so-so and 1 (present position) kin great position. It may not stay that way, but there again...
For all its faults, I believe that there is a place for Teflwatch, but it needs a far more balanced administrative function. If my honest opinion were asked, I would have to say the first TSW had the right balance (the gold room, the grey room and the BLACK), well done admin of that entity, you know who you are. Yes, it fell prey to the legal system prevailing in Thailand and had to go.TSW 2 & 3 also tried but fell prey to the powers that be. Whitey for all his faults did stand up to those powers, even if only through smoke and mirrors until, and this is my own personal opinion here, the ability to stand up to them went to his head. However the admin of TSW 1 is no longer in a position of danger and maybe, preys to all the gods, he might think about reinventing what was arguably the best of the bunch.
[FONT='Calibri','sans-serif']Totally agree here![/font]
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And for whats its worth, I don’t believe for one nanosecond that Teflwatch is dead, I think is just another Whitey ploy to gain some affection back that he has driven away! Unless someone take up the reins TW will be back by popular [sic] demand.
ADMIN TSW1 PLEASE,
PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE COME BACK!!!!
Last edited by kidneystone; 25th March 2008 at 21:44. Reason: Automerged Doublepost
Unfortunately, the nature of it is that any site that is set-up to applaud good practice will be met with suspicion that it is positively misrepresenting a bunch of commercial sponsors. Even long-established consumer/government watchdogs and blogs are met with suspicion when they post positive stuff about subjects.
To insist that it is necessary to be balanced to be fair is naive and absolutely flies in the face of empirical reality. Amnesty International doesn't have to balance its pages about warcrimes with pages about integrity shown on battlefields, neither do consumer financial watchdogs need to balance reports on corrupt banking practices with tales of honesty - in fact, in a commercial setting, such stories would probably devalue the site if they were potentially representing a conflict of interests.
The same is true of Teflwatch. The fact that there were few positive stories on there would largely be down to the fact that the majority of folks motivated to post positive tales of employment here in Thailand were motivated by money - that is they want a free advertisement for their school. The problem is then heightened as the cynical readership then assume this to be the case in all positive stories and they were usually loudly sneered at.
Personally I think that it is absolutely unnecessary to provide a balance between bad and good and absolutely OK to have a site that says, "Hey - we're gonna let you slag off bad employers!" But then the site is dependent entirely on the content that gets posted on it. Teflwatch just didn't get the numbers of balanced and objective posters with credible stories to bring in the readers. Too often posts were just silly rants about schools, which seriously put-off the serious reader - unfortunately posters struggled to understand this, often believing that the word "forum" gives them a "right" to post absolutely anything they wish. Then the management of the board gets accused of representing schools and employers.
So you end up with shills wanting to "big up" their businesses for free slagging off the forum publicly because they aren't allowed to post their bullshit. You get angry teachers slagging off the forum because they aren't allowed to post OTT personal stuff about ex-employers. Each side is accusing the admin of being unfair so the admin gets the shits and packs it in. C'est la vie, but a shame nonetheless.
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Another shining example of how the anonymity afforded by web forums encourages a "loud" minority of liars and charlatans, ultimately to the detriment of the well-meaning majority.
Last edited by defender; 25th March 2008 at 22:01. Reason: Automerged Doublepost
Excuse me for not taking this seriously .....
As children, we never grow up-we just get older!!
Bite off more than you can chew, then chew like buggery! (Peter Brock 05)
Lets get one thing straight...the admin of TEFLWatch packed it in because TEFLWatch wasn't making him any money. Shall I quote his original rant where he indicates repeatedly how he's upset that Ajarn is making money off the backs of teachers?
And why did Greg change the rant on the forum page. It seems like he removed all of the nasty things he was saying about the AjarnForum moderation team AFTER Phil agreed to interview him publicly.
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Originally Posted by LDMA
Fair enough I'd say. I can't see where the motivation for doing it for nothing would come from. Organising a web forum, a place for debate and running a few ads is not a crime. Nobody minds as long as there is no conflict of interest.
Just as creating an anonymous persona and pretending to be something you're not is not a crime and neither is using that persona to advertise one's business on a web forum. Unfortunately though, it damages the credibility of any genuine information posted on the forum.
A forum like Teflwatch depends entirely on content written for it by its users. When shills and trolls scare away the genuine users by incessantly promoting their own interests to the detriment of genuine debate then the users stop coming and the admin's income flow from ads dries up.
When those same shills and trolls go out of their way to further damage the site's reputation then it only seems like common-sense that the forum will not be able to survive.
It's not rocket science, it's economics - it needn't be personal either, but unfortunately it becomes so due to egos, different perceptions of the forum's nature and financial interests of certain users.
Excuse me for not taking this seriously .....
The wild west days of libel online are over. Precedents have been set. People are no longer afraid to take action over spurious claims made on websites. You can see this effect on all the major TEFL sites.
They react with stricter policies because they are the ones that naturally attract the lawsuits. More hits equals more people talking in their day to day lives about the online shit-fights equals the chance that the claims will get back to the person in question. A start-up can get away with a lot more but that will change with time as well.
You do have to hand it to the owner of teflwatch, he obviously knows how to get people talking and build up some buzz.
And in a month from now he'll be forgotten...wonder where his little bit of "click" income will come from then.
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Originally Posted by LDMA
Well at least we can all still rely on kidneystone to be totally off his head as usual.
defender, I really do respect you ...but do you really think the admins current comments and his previous comments on the forum page help garner the respect of members. You talk of trolls and shills, but fail to point out that the admin of the site posts many unsubstantiated claims as well.
At what point do you start holding the admin of TEFLWatch responsible for his claims? At what point have you insisted he post proof of his claims.
Remember, there are two sides and neither side has been pretty. To continue to point out the faults of the trolls and shills without acknowledging the part Greg played would be an unfair charactorization of what happened. After all, look at the forum now...look at the accusations posted there and ask yourself when he's proven a word of what he's said.
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Originally Posted by LDMA
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