 | Moving to Europe or want too?
Check out www.expatforums.org with its new look for 2005!
Expat Forums is an non-profit website developed through the hard work
of several individuals who, in true cooperation, came together to build
a genuine community online. Our intention was to create a place where
expats and expat wannabees could come together to share ideas and
information, help one another to succeed, and build friendships along
the way.
Although we are focused on the expatriate community, we are open to
everyone. Anyone with an interest in living and working abroad, or
simply a lust for travel and new places, will find a home here. We have
a number of members who are currently living the dream, as well as many
who are not currently working abroad, but intend to someday. There are
also others who have since returned home, as well as travellers who are
on the road and find this site useful for information on places to
visit. Many of us travelled for a while before settling down as
expatriates, and some still travel for business. Travel is a recurrent
theme around here.
Where We've Been - A Little History
We started off as a group of bulletin board refugees who walked away
from a commercial site that clearly did not care about its customers.
We endured years of technical problems, annoying popups and animated
ads, and poor customer support, and the final straw was an unannounced
software "upgrade" which removed many popular features, as well as
deleting over 200,000 posts. We decided to take matters into our own
hands. A small group of us built this site as a form of protest, in
order to lobby to get our old board back, or at least a more functional
version of the new board. Although we were unsuccessful in swaying the
marketing behemoth, we soon realized that we had built something
entirely better.
We polled our users for a new name, and one was chosen from among 15
nominations. ExpatForums.org was born! Our community still makes many
key decisions via polling and user suggestions, allowing membership
input into the growth and direction of the website.
Structure and Rules
Some of the key debates we had as a young community involved freedom of
speech, whether or not to use moderators, and how to guarantee an
unbiased forum which would would be open to members of all political
hues, what kind of rules to have, etc. In the end it was decided that
we would have certain areas which would have minimal restrictions,
while others would be more carefully monitored.
Because our former abode was completely unmonitored, we decided to
preserve certain areas of this site as "Free-Speech" zones, where
little or no moderation takes place. We became used to it at our old
home and still enjoy free expression today. The open areas include
Speaker's Corner (the Soapbox), International News, and The Fight Club.
You need thick skin to venture into these sections. People can get
carried away, so the best rule-of-thumb is simply to ignore that which
offends you.
The rest of the site adheres firmly to what we call the Letter of the
Rules and the Spirit of the Rules (see guidelines thread). These rules
are intended to preserve some semblance of order, and offer as little
restriction as possible. All of the rules which have been put into
place have come about from our experience of how people interrelate in
an online community, and all of them have been necessary at one time or
another. If you have questions or issues with any of our rules, please
tell us. We value your input!
Come Right In, Make Yourself at Home
So if you are lurking in the background, please sign up and come on in.
You will need to register with a valid email address, because you will
receive a confirmation link for validation. Your information will
always remain private, unless you choose to disclose it. If you are new
around here, head for the introduction thread and tell us who you are.
Thanks to all those that helped make this site and thanks to the many
who continue to donate to help keep the site running.
Cheers and welcome!
http://www.expatforums.org
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