Greetings to all foreigners

fastjudy

  First and foremost... On behalf of Bikehome Shanghai, Shan Ye and I, the moderators of the English forum would like to extend a warm welcome to all foreigners from all over the world.

The initial intention of the English section is for locals to get a better grip of their English command but I also believe that it can serve its purpose as a communication tool between locals and foreigners. It too can be used as a means for foreigners to get to know China better, to gain local knowledge, ride and trail information. It will be especially useful to those who just arrived in China and are interested to know more about riding here but couldn’t get over the language barrier. Shan ye and I, the English moderators will be more than happy to assist those who seek information or just to say hi so don’t be shy to contact us via email or drop us a line here at the English forums.

Take care and ride on!
Eric Wong a.k.a Monk (forum handle: fastjudy)

calvinsonic

there are quite a lot of foreigner riders around shanghai, i know some teachers from my schools that mountain bikes. But they have trouble finding small biking trips around shanghai (they go to this club call prodigy bike club, but they only offer long distance trips during holidays).
And i don't think foreigners are willing to spend their time in forums

whytoi

Would just like to make one suggestion. To attract quality participants, the forum needs focused discussions. Excessive so called "water posts" or poorly used English slangs is the best way to turn potential participants away. It would be productive for Monk to moderate these posts and maintain the technical standard.

Ride on...

whytoi

引用第1楼calvinsonic于2006-12-11 23:55发表的:
And i don't think foreigners are willing to spend their time in forums

This is untrue. Don't forget, there are more overseas cycling forums than there are on the Mainland. The question is whether this forum has the technical standard as well as valuable local info for riders to remember this site and participate on a regular basis.

fastjudy

引用第2楼whytoi于2006-12-12 04:29发表的:
Would just like to make one suggestion. To attract quality participants, the forum needs focused discussions. Excessive so called "water posts" or poorly used English slangs is the best way to turn potential participants away. It would be productive for Monk to moderate these posts and maintain the technical standard.

Ride on...

Thank you toi, suggestions noted. Currently, the English section is still under tests and it's potential to grow into a full fledge forum is still in it's infancy stage. The "water posts" are unavoidable because folks in China are still learning to use English and it's slang better, i'm pretty sure foreigners will understand. Over moderating to maintain certain english standards at this point will produce a counter effect that will chase away the local users instead, yes i agree that such standards should be made but at this point...encouragement to the locals are much more important. Again, thank you for your input.

E.

fastjudy

引用第3楼whytoi于2006-12-12 04:35发表的:

This is untrue. Don't forget, there are more overseas cycling forums than there are on the Mainland. The question is whether this forum has the technical standard as well as valuable local info for riders to remember this site and participate on a regular basis.

To be honest, it will be a far fetch for a foreigner to actually log on to this site to check for info on rides and trails. When i first came to China, i did my search in English sites, mtbr, Google and so forth... never would i thought such site exisited. It took me 2 years (albeit being busy from work) to actually find bikehome and it's website because i didn't know where to begin in the first place.

The reason why i extend the welcome to all foreigners is because their participation in itself will elevate the standards of the forum. I don't expect regular participation from foreigners let alone any locals so any one from beyond the China borders are more than welcome to drop us a line....someone like you.

E.

whytoi

I think the issue here is one of objective for this forum.

I am not sure if the aim here is to provide a chit-chat place for locals to practice their English, or a serious English forum for discussion of cycling related matters. Based on my experience circulating on Usenet, web forums, email mailing lists and the problems you mentioned, If you guys are serious in building this English forum up, I would suggest,

1) Create a separate forum for people to "water" in English, or go to the hundreds of other English education sites.
2) Maintain a technical English forum, for quality discussion of technical issues, posting of English articles and local ride informations for Shanghai based English speaking cyclists.
3) Advertise the presence of this forum on the internet as well as by word of mouth to the local expat community.

For English speakers to participate, not impossible given the size of expat community in China and the number of them who are isolated and bored socially, this forum needs to be a no-nonsense forum where they can obtain quality information eg. Local cycling clubs, local group rides, local ride directions, reputable local bike shops, local bike bargains, and where all questions can be answered quickly and accurately without meaningless responses.

So yes, I think there's great potential for this English sub-forum to develop into a useful source of info for the expat cycling community. The issue is whether you can see the needs of the local expat cyclists. At the end of the day, out of the major English cycling web sites I frequent, none of them caters for these expats. I know for a fact that there is a need for cycling related info for expats in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Chinese Mainland.

calvinsonic

Than i would suggest moving the english sub-forum to the main cycling section instead of the chit-chat forum.

fastjudy

引用第6楼whytoi于2006-12-12 14:49发表的:
I think the issue here is one of objective for this forum.

I am not sure if the aim here is to provide a chit-chat place for locals to practice their English, or a serious English forum for discussion of cycling related matters. Based on my experience circulating on Usenet, web forums, email mailing lists and the problems you mentioned, If you guys are serious in building this English forum up, I would suggest,

1) Create a separate forum for people to "water" in English, or go to the hundreds of other English education sites.
.......

Again, I appreciate your opinions but I think you are taking this English forum too seriously at the moment. This is a test bed for future expansion into a serious forum or in that matter a fact...if it'll ever be one. I don't think bikehome or we (Shan ye and I) are ready to cater to the mass ex-pat market here in China.... it is just too big and it requires full time moderation and monitoring. I work in an Advertising agency and Shan ye is a Uni student, just the 2 of us with limited time in our hands will do this forum no good if we expand too quickly. Until more people with a substantiate amount of English background who volunteers to be a moderator would we be able to take this section of the forums further.... till then, we do the best we can.

E.

whytoi

Ok, perfectly understandable. I did take it from a more serious angle and thinking that you guys want to expand this forum. Yet again, it's a vicious cycle.