Changes at the top

[Luxi]

@roddy Thanks for your many years of looking after this Forum so well. Where many floundered. Chinese-forums persisted helping new and old students, and providing an endless source of references and advice. Job well done! Also, many thanks for your inspiring choice of a successor.

 

@mikelove, welcome to your new role, may it all run smoothly and harmoniously!

[anonymoose]

@roddy Thanks for all the time and effort you've put in over the years, not just maintaining the site, but also the great posts.

 

It's almost 20 years since I signed up to the forum, and I feel like I've been through the full learning Chinese 'life cycle' here. I had a lot of noob questions about grammar and so on answered here when I was starting out in Chinese. In those days of course there were a lot fewer resources on the internet and this was the best place to get answers to some of the more specialist questions.

 

As I was living in China, I relied less on the site for learning Chinese but was a frequent visitor (and contributor) for recreational value. It was great to have a place to connect with other avid learners of Chinese, something that is quite hard to do off line.

 

I reached a pretty high level in Chinese but, alas, since returning to the UK and engaging in a career unrelated to China, the amount of time I have to spend on Chinese and motivation for keeping at it as intensively has dropped off somewhat, so I visit less frequently now.

 

I also feel the forums have changed though. I guess you have the statistics to confirm or deny this, but I feel the forum is generally less active than it used to be, and there seem to be far fewer in depth discussions/debates than there used to be.

 

Anyway, well done for maintaining the forum for so long, and I certainly understand the desire to hand over the reins and relinquish the burden. I will likely pop back occasionally to see how things are going.

 

Thanks again.

[malazann]

I am slightly too young and missed the golden age of internet forums (pre-facebook I suppose), but I had always thought reddit was basically a superior improvement of forums. But I see now that the community aspect of forums never really made it to reddit, and I do wish more (active) niche forums like this existed. Thanks for all the work in keeping this place running, and for all the posters on this forum, past and present.

btw I still have a "new member" tag on my profile that probably restricts me in some way, hope I can graduate to being a regular member soon

[roddy]

On 11/16/2023 at 2:56 AM, malazann said:

btw I still have a "new member" tag on my profile that probably restricts me in some way, hope I can graduate to being a regular member soon

Fixed that.

 

There's no doubt the forums are less active than they once were. Social media has made a big difference, not just in competition for people's time, but, e.g., agencies, businesses and individuals wanting to set up their own hubs. I'm not sure what happens now, but for a while we had active CSC/BLCU application topics every year, which we don't see so much of now. I suspect a lot of that activity got diverted to Facebook groups and the like. Covid-19 simply reduced the number of foreigners in China with questions to ask. Accessible sources of info about China have multiplied: back in 2006, "How do I get to IKEA in Beijing" would have been a legitimate question, now you can tap on an app a couple of times and be driven there.  There's no doubt that could have been slowed or possibly turned around with more active marketing of the site, but it would take real time.

 

It's kind of hard to grasp how much things have changed. We started in 2003, which means we've been around longer than Facebook, Reddit or Twitter, not to mention Snapchat or TikTok. When I started, the nearest equivalent (and something I was trying to improve on) was the Lonely Planet's travel-focused Thorntree forums - which I note with some sadness closed in 2021. I first uploaded this site ON DIAL-UP! I can now count half a dozen 5G/broadband devices in this room, and that's without opening a drawer. We didn't have iPhones, we had Palm handhelds and boy, were they magic. It's a little head-spinning. I almost think there should be a historical note at the top of the site for 18-year-olds who stumble across it, like you might find in a museum of online communities.

 

That all said, there's also no doubt that the forums would be more active if there had been a more engaged admin in place. It would have made more sense to hand the place over to someone else a LONG time ago. It's impossible to say how much difference it would have made, but the right person could have made one.

[tobyiana]

Thanks for everything. Onwards and upwards.

[Jan Finster]

On 11/16/2023 at 11:06 AM, roddy said:

There's no doubt the forums are less active than they once were. Social media has made a big difference, not just in competition for people's time, but, e.g., agencies, businesses and individuals wanting to set up their own hubs. I'm not sure what happens now, but for a while we had active CSC/BLCU application topics every year, which we don't see so much of now. I suspect a lot of that activity got diverted to Facebook groups and the like. Covid-19 simply reduced the number of foreigners in China with questions to ask. Accessible sources of info about China have multiplied: back in 2006, "How do I get to IKEA in Beijing" would have been a legitimate question, now you can tap on an app a couple of times and be driven there.  There's no doubt that could have been slowed or possibly turned around with more active marketing of the site, but it would take real time.

 

I also feel as if all the major and timeless topics have already been answered. When I have a question related to Chinese, I typically google "site:chinese-forums.com [keywords...]" and find lot of infos. Also, now most grammar questions are addressed on one of the million lean Chinese Youtube channels...

 

Here is a short list of things that are most interesting to me currently on this forum:

Study goals and plans of other users used as inspiration

What are you reading/watching/listening to?

Wisdom of the more experienced folks.

 

The last bit is arguably the most valuable and I find it sad that the experienced folks will eventually "move on". What remains of them are some post in the hall of fame of "all time most upvoted posts". It is a bit as if that person died and lots of untapped wisdom died with him/her.

 

 

[Lu]

On 11/16/2023 at 11:06 AM, roddy said:

I almost think there should be a historical note at the top of the site for 18-year-olds who stumble across it, like you might find in a museum of online communities.

OMG there are people going on their university exchange year to BLCU now who were not even born yet when this site started. This is actually amazing. I wonder how that feels for them. (Well, they won't know any different of course.)

 

I guess it's true that many returning questions have already been answered several times, and that some other questions can easily be resolved without asking the forums. Still, I think there is a place in the world, a need even, for a site like this to continue to flourish. There will always be new schools, new textbooks, new developments in China/Chinese to ask questions about and to discuss. Also, group reads.

[realmayo]

On 11/15/2023 at 6:21 PM, roddy said:

He still passes through, but I think like me he's not quite got the time for the site he used to. 

Imron would suggest nuking the forum and starting from fresh.......

[TheWayfarer]

@roddy I'm a new sing-up here, but a long-time lurker. I want say thanks for the hard work! Not only is this place still great, but because it's been around so long it has archived lots of useful information. If I have a question about resources, methods, whatever, I do a search here and usually find something interesting and useful.

 

I hope you can put your feet up and enjoy a good rest. Thanks again!

[Kenny同志]

Thank you for your great work, Roddy. I've been here since 2009. Through Chinese Forums, I've met quite some interesting people, made friends with some of them, and benefited from their advice and/or recommendations. Although I no longer spend as much time here as I used to, I still drop by from time to time.

 

I hope Chinese Forums will continue to be around for many many many years to come. So far, it's been my favourite place on the Internet and I am sure it will remain so in my whole lifetime.

 

 

[dakonglong]

Thank you @roddy for creating one of my favorite places on the internet. I never would have made it this far with Chinese if it weren't for this forum. I love to come here for all of the reasons that @Jan Finster mentioned:

 

On 11/16/2023 at 5:22 AM, Jan Finster said:

Study goals and plans of other users used as inspiration

What are you reading/watching/listening to?

Wisdom of the more experienced folks.

 

But most importantly I love the sense of community here. In my real life, I know exactly zero people that are trying to learn any language, much less Chinese, and I have nobody to turn to for inspiration or support. Thankfully, that's what I get here!

 

When I started to learn Chinese, my end goal was to pass the HSK3. I thought that was the most I could accomplish as a fully employed adult living in a non-Chinese speaking country. This forum inspired me to aim higher and showed me step by step how to climb there. I am extremely grateful for that!

[TaxiAsh]

I've been into forums since about the same as the site, around 2004 type era, and as Roddy said in last post, there was nothing like them before. I admin'd a site for about 10 years (because covid, when I switched to learning Chinese) so I know how much time they need.

 

Thanks for setting it up and all the hardwork involved. I'm glad you've found someone to take it over rather than it fold like many forums (or slowly die). 

 

I wouldn't mind Pleco ads personally. I wish I found pleco when I first started. It's an absolute must for me. I'm currently at Omeida school in Yangshuo, and each week new students arrive and when they ask for advice I tell them get that first. I only use it as a dictionary though, not really ventured into the other things on it. 

 

Good luck for the future! I actually got chatting to someone from here a year or two ago, and when I was up north last month met in person, went out for beers food and practice, and we had a great time! 

 

The only thing I can think of for perhaps the main site, is a complete beginner's section. Might get a few new members in. I know there is a thread somewhere from Roddy about it, but maybe as a main subsection might catch new people's eye.

 

 

[Jan Finster]

On 11/22/2023 at 6:01 PM, TaxiAsh said:

I'm currently at Omeida school in Yangshuo

Do not want to derail the thread, but what is the weather like now? Also, would love to read a report on your experience there.

[TaxiAsh]

On 11/23/2023 at 2:33 AM, Jan Finster said:

Do not want to derail the thread, but what is the weather like now? Also, would love to read a report on your experience there.

Drop me a pm with any questions you have...

[Lu]

On 11/23/2023 at 12:46 PM, TaxiAsh said:

Drop me a pm with any questions you have...

No don't, please just start a new thread! Answering questions per pm is useful to one person, asking & answering on the forums can be useful for many people now and in the future. Not just the answers, but even the questions.

[Flickserve]

On 11/23/2023 at 1:01 AM, TaxiAsh said:

The only thing I can think of for perhaps the main site, is a complete beginner's section.

 

Good idea.