Suggestions for VisaJourney

[rebeccajo 14]

I don't understand all these ideas about making newbies have to do certain things or only let them post x number of times a day or in one certain forum. Just ignore the "dumb" questions.

A lot of these rules wouldn't make sense for people who join after finishing/filing their initial paperwork (as was my situation) or even people who join when they are at the consulate stage/finishing AOS/etc.

*shrugs*

Dunno Alex. Personally for me I'm concerned for the welfare of the members. For them being able to get good guidance.

Let me give you an example of what concerns me. There were questions in a couple of forums last night and today about divorce decrees. One well-intentioned individual suggested going to a website that offers to obtain court documents for a price. This kind of thing is what upsets me.

It's really unfair to refer to any question as 'dumb'. Even for me to have said 'duh' questions. Everybody has questions when starting out. So if I flubbed up there - mea culpa.

Usually when you first come here, your questions are what concern you the most. You aren't really worried about dispensing advice. If post counts would serve to somehow limit people to getting what they first want (their questions answered) then by the time they've gotten to that point they are probably better informed and more able to answer questions.

[Alex+R 0]

Hmmm. I see this board as a place to get guidance only by using others' experiences. I read the guides and if I really can't find an answer I might ask what others have done. But I only use advice from others who have been successful. I see a lot of wrong information given out on VJ but my guess is that most of the people who ask the questions can take those pieces of advice with a grain of salt. If someone doesn't know what they're talking about, then it's usually pretty obvious, IMO.

[Marilyn. 340]

sigh... we were all newbies to this board at one point and time...

I probably asked a bunch of "duh" questions when I first started....

Edited February 4, 2007 by MarilynP

[brnidokiegurl 0]

As fairly new it doesnt take to long to realize those that have (what you tend to feel) as the best advice. Hopefully take what you read, with those that give advice and do what you feel is best for yourself. Then again it depends on the different regions, as to the variances in requirements. Everyone one no matter how experienced will know everthing and should not be expected to answer everything, or be the deciding factor to anyone.

[ELW 5]

Would it be possible to have the date the original thread was started on, showing in the topic index in each forum list or in active topics?Helen

I’d like to have this too. Things get buried soo fast, and anything on the 1st page we know the last post was within the hour anyway. I’d like to have a search feature of “view new posts” by origional date instead of by last post time.

I also agree with not counting OT in post count.

Edited February 4, 2007 by ELW

[ceriserose 1]

I don't understand all these ideas about making newbies have to do certain things or only let them post x number of times a day or in one certain forum. Just ignore the "dumb" questions.

A lot of these rules wouldn't make sense for people who join after finishing/filing their initial paperwork (as was my situation) or even people who join when they are at the consulate stage/finishing AOS/etc.

To be clear, the "post x number of times" was for all members not just newbies...no member had the ability to go over 75 posts (except moderators) in that time period. I think it was implemented because of bandwidth and how much server space the host had. The result was, though, that because it was done with a good amount of moderation, nothing on that board ever escalated much.

And I only brought it up because that is the only board out of many I've been on where I saw that. I didn't know how common it was and as I indicated, I never had technical feedback on it before on this site.

*shrug* Different philosophies.

[sophyie 0]

Would it be possible to have the date the original thread was started on, showing in the topic index in each forum list or in active topics?Helen

I’d like to have this too. Things get buried soo fast, and anything on the 1st page we know the last post was within the hour anyway. I’d like to have a search feature of “view new posts” by origional date instead of by last post time.

I also agree with not counting OT in post count.

Well, I think maybe there could be two buttons: one for "view new posts" and one for "view new threads", this way both ways of searching would be covered and you would find either the threads by the date they were started or the posts...

does that make sense?

[vanee 13]

I'll add my vote for fewer or no pics in sigs. Maybe one photo with a max. size of 200X200px or something like that. We have a "My Photos" link in the postbit. Even for those of us with fast connections, all those photos make for a lot of scrolling. And we don't need to see them every time someone posts.

I'd like to see timelines in signatures be more concise. We don't need to read every time someone posts when a couple first kissed or that kind of thing. We're looking for timelines similar to ours to see what the timing was like between key events. But I might be alone in that thinking.

I feel strongly about keeping the regional forums. A lot of questions are country-specific. The regional forums are also a good place to talk about cultural and lifestyle differences between our countries and the US with people who are experiencing the same differences. The regional forum for my country is the forum that feels most like home to me here.

More moderation gets my vote too. There's bad moderation, and there's good moderation. Good moderation keeps the posts within the rules (BTW, do we have any rules here? I don't see a link to any) and helps steer members in the right direction without (usually) being heavy-handed. Sometimes I report little things such as a mistake in a subject line that the thread starter asked to have corrected, or duplicate posts. Do these things get fixed? More moderators could help with that. Bigger concerns to me are the pettiness and rudeness among some members. More moderators (members who are known to be polite, helpful, and balanced) could help with that too.

Concerning new members, it helps to remember what it's like to be new here. It wasn't that long ago for me, so I remember. There's a lot of information to wade through, and when you read about people getting RFEs for little things or being turned back at the border, it makes you want to check every little detail. We aren't going to find all this information at the official site. And we can't help being emotional when we're working on being reunited with the person we want to spend our lives with. It would be easier to be rational if we were discussing products.

Those are my suggestions. That said, I think this forum is pretty good, and I appreciate all the help I've gotten here.

[ELW 5]

Well, I think maybe there could be two buttons: one for "view new posts" and one for "view new threads", this way both ways of searching would be covered and you would find either the threads by the date they were started or the posts...

Love the idea! And you explained it better than me too.

[marcycat 0]

Hi all - I'm fairly new, so my suggestions might be naive. But, I'm not sure that limiting numbers of posts is a good or helpful idea -- I don't think a newbie floods VJ with a bunch of posts; rather, many newbies flood VJ with jjust a few posts each.

I can think of 2 things that would have helped me a lot:

1. A "Glossary" tab at the top (Forums, News, Guides, FAQ, Glossary.)

It's incredibly hard to figure out what people are talking about when you're first starting the process. (And I'm a native English speaker...)

2. Perhaps a re-arranging/expansion of the FAQs. For instance -- categories called "When you enter the US;" "Social security number" (or whatever the categories are that people keep asking the "dumb" questions about.)

I think having the Guides is REALLY helpful.

I don't know if there's a way to improve the search function, but I've been very frustrated with it. If you don't sort of already have an idea of what you're looking for, it's hard to know how to word your search in a way that gets an answer. And even when you know the right terms, it doesn't always help. For ex., I just did "death of foreign spouse" as a test. I didn't get the FAQ about that topic, I got every post that uses the word "death' "foreign" or "spouse." (If I put my search terms in quotes, I get an error message.)

Finally, it seems like moderation would be too huge a task. But, maybe there's a way to encourage quick (or more?) reporting of rude and agressive or annoying posters, and get them blocked?

[Fandango 1,439]

I don't understand all these ideas about making newbies have to do certain things or only let them post x number of times a day or in one certain forum. Just ignore the "dumb" questions.

A lot of these rules wouldn't make sense for people who join after finishing/filing their initial paperwork (as was my situation) or even people who join when they are at the consulate stage/finishing AOS/etc.

*shrugs*

Dunno Alex. Personally for me I'm concerned for the welfare of the members. For them being able to get good guidance.

Let me give you an example of what concerns me. There were questions in a couple of forums last night and today about divorce decrees. One well-intentioned individual suggested going to a website that offers to obtain court documents for a price. This kind of thing is what upsets me.

It's really unfair to refer to any question as 'dumb'. Even for me to have said 'duh' questions. Everybody has questions when starting out. So if I flubbed up there - mea culpa.

Usually when you first come here, your questions are what concern you the most. You aren't really worried about dispensing advice. If post counts would serve to somehow limit people to getting what they first want (their questions answered) then by the time they've gotten to that point they are probably better informed and more able to answer questions.

Forgive my ignorance, but what's wrong with that? I'm really curious!

[Fandango 1,439]

Meh, I dunno...I don't really see where we're tryin to reinvent the wheel here for the sake of newbies. We were all new at one point, yet we got with it without all these special forums, etc. As I said before, maybe reading the guides before being able to post might eliminate some of the redundant questions, but at the en of the day, the noobs will find their way just like we did.

[UmmSqueakster 54]

One well-intentioned individual suggested going to a website that offers to obtain court documents for a price. This kind of thing is what upsets me.

Forgive my ignorance, but what's wrong with that? I'm really curious!

All the courts I've dealt with here in Minnesota have all the necessary documents on their websites for free. I've browsed through various websites, and see some people selling the same documents for $70+.

Edited February 4, 2007 by rahma

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Ok, I suggest a pilot project. Make me moderator of MENA for one weekend. 2 days in a small regional forum. Have matako start posting on Friday so there's something for me to do. Maybe even drag Layla back from retirement for good measure. And then let me loose. Moderation can work wonders

[KarenCee 3]

Ok, I suggest a pilot project. Make me moderator of MENA for one weekend. 2 days in a small regional forum. Have matako start posting on Friday so there's something for me to do. Maybe even drag Layla back from retirement for good measure. And then let me loose. Moderation can work wonders

I wanna come watch too!