India - British Expat Forum

There aren't many posts and for those that exist, hardly anyone seems to be bothered to respond.

Are there other expat sites for Mumbai that might be more popular? (I'll probably never get an answer to that!!) LOL

No, it's not dead. It was created because there was a demand for it but if people subsequently don't choose to post there's not much we can do about it.

Creating a successful forum is a kind of chicken and egg thing. You need a lot of people to post before it takes off. Some fora - eg Canada, Australia, Spain - get very busy but with the less popular destinations, such as Mumbai, it's an uphill struggle.

Not much we can do about it, and quite honestly questions with the subject heading "Is this forum dead" aren't likely to encourage people to join in. No skin off my nose, it's not me who needs info on Mumbai.

I post replies to questions on the delhi forum, but not here because I don't have much info on life in mumbai.

there is at least one other forum with much more traffic, but there is also some serious misinformation there from time to time as well (together with defensive locals).

fwiw, my experience in delhi is that few expats rely on the internet for information about life, etc. maybe that works against building "community" through online forums. don't know, it's just an idea.

That's an interesting comment, thanks, Fernando. Thanks too for your input on the Delhi forum.

We do our best to make available a place for people to exchange info - but if they don't want to, then what can we do?

What kind of response was that? (It's no skin off my nose) That type of response certainly doesn't encourage a usage of a forum rather it displays a lack of interest...

Teens, I'm not sure whether you've understood Kay's point.

If people want replies to their requests for information, then getting impatient and complaining about the lack of immediate responses with topic titles such as "Is this forum dead?" is at best futile, and at worst counterproductive.

Futile, because impatience isn't going to suddenly make people with the information appear and start posting - especially if, as Fernando suggests, expats aren't in the habit of turning to the Internet for information about local living conditions.

Counterproductive, because if someone does appear, then it's likely to put them off. Say a person who isn't yet a member of the forum but has plenty of information happens to visit; if they see topic titles like this, then they're likely not to bother joining. So the information is lost.

Personally, we have no need for the information on Mumbai that Kris was looking for. So in that sense, it really is no skin off our noses if people seeking information choose to shoot themselves in the foot in this way. But it is rather silly, and a bit annoying too - not to mention rude, when you consider that this forum is a service provided free of charge to the users.

If users of this forum don't like it or don't find it useful, they're free to make constructive suggestions on how to improve it (there are places to discuss this on the main forum - see the IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING board for links) or to go elsewhere. But moaning about it, in a way which could almost be calculated to undermine its effectiveness, suggests that they think we owe them something. We don't.

As I've mentioned in the previous paragraph, discussion of how we run this forum, and the other nine, belongs on the main forum. So I'm locking this topic now.