Should we let foreigners in as members?

[dirge]

If people want to go on a more international community, then there are plenty of international boards out there for them to join.

As Gok said, there are international board. The reason for this boards existance is an Australian focus.

If someone from (say) Canada has a specific reason for joining a forum with an Australian focus, ie they're looking to migrate, they're an expat or they lived here for a while and have a lot of friends within the Australian fandom, that's different to someone who just wants to join our board.

The person who is joining specifically because of the Australian focus has a case - because their inclusion wont dilute the local content.

I don't think we should say "lets allow 5%". What if that 5% are vocal troublemakers banned from international boards?

As for a vote, I'm happy to leave griffin to make the call. I don't know that calling public vote and having someone publicly voted against is the way to go

[GoktimusPrime]

It's not necessarily a matter of prejudice, but the fact that it is a different experience interacting with collectors from other regions because they do have a different outlook/perspective from Australasian fans and as a result interaction with non-Australasian fans is often an entirely different experience.

A person with some degree of "Australasian relevance" would be able to interact on this board that is currently exclusively populated by Australasian users.

Notice that I said "Australasian relevance" rather than just "Australasian." By "Australasian relevance," I mean that a person would need to demonstrate a good reason for why they would want to interact in an online Australasian community - demonstrate that they have some form of appreciation and understanding of Australasian Transfandom or willingness to develop an appreciation/understand of it. I mean, why else should you be allowed to join an online TF community, that has specifically outlined itself as being Australasian, if you didn't have or were willing to develop an appreciation/understanding of our regional fandom??

For example, I've participated in Japanese TF forums, even though I no longer live in Japan, I have an appreciation and understanding for Japanese Transfandom. I like to think that I have some appreciation and understanding for NZ Transfandom - and I've participated in TFNZ too. On the other hand, I have no real appreciation or understanding for Nordic Transfandom (apart from general understanding of overall European Transfandom) - so I would completely understand if I were disallowed from interacting on a Nordic Transformers forum such as the Nordic Transfans Association (NTFA).

And as I've said before, there are plenty of other Transformer fan boards out there which are exclusive in some manner (e.g.: region, language etc). Why can't we also have an Australasian-exclusive forum? How would it make us any more or less "xenophobic" compared to other regional or language exclusive boards?

Transformers New Zealand


TFClub (China)


Hong Kong TF


Secret Deep Space (Japan)

[Soundwarp]

They already do that on other international forums. OzFormers is meant to be an Australasian forum for Australasian fans, and I don't see any problem with keeping it that way.

There are plenty of other board communities which are regionally exclusive such as for Nordic fans, Dutch fans, Transformers New Zealand, Transformers Hong Kong etc. - most Japanese boards have a policy stating that users can only post in Japanese (posts in other languages are expressly disallowed).

If people want to go on a more international community, then there are plenty of international boards out there for them to join.

Ok people i hope your sitting down, I 100% agree with Gok!

What about if it is allowed, but it is recommended against or discouraged unless they really really want to?
And maybe have a maximum quota as well to make sure we keep the discussion local (like 5 or 10% non-local fans)?

What do you think, a quota system, or a vote on each applicant?

Mate i have to say no thanks, if i want to speak with foreigners then i'll post at another site.

As Gok said, there are international board. The reason for this boards existance is an Australian focus.

If someone from (say) Canada has a specific reason for joining a forum with an Australian focus, ie they're looking to migrate, they're an expat or they lived here for a while and have a lot of friends within the Australian fandom, that's different to someone who just wants to join our board.

The person who is joining specifically because of the Australian focus has a case - because their inclusion wont dilute the local content.

I don't think we should say "lets allow 5%". What if that 5% are vocal troublemakers banned from international boards?

As for a vote, I'm happy to leave griffin to make the call. I don't know that calling public vote and having someone publicly voted against is the way to go

Simply put if it opens up to the world then it will not have the appeal that it has for ME now.

[GoktimusPrime]

+1.

There are plenty of international boards out there already, if someone wants to interact with foreign nationals, then go ahead and join an international board. I regularly participate on non-Australian and international boards too - but what attracts me here is the Australian focus.

afaik OzFormers and TAAU are the only boards which are Australia-centric. If we opened ourselves up to becoming an international board, then what would we offer to Transfans that other boards don't? We would essentially be in direct "competition" with the plethora of other international boards out there. Both OzFormers and TAAU are relatively far more civilised places to frequent because they are smaller tight-knit communities that are easier to moderate, and generally better moderated than most international boards. Just look at the amount of anti-social behaviour that's on international boards - it's rife! We've only had a small handful of members who have ever needed to be banned - for every one member who's ever been banned here there would be easily ten times more on international boards!

And all too often admins and mods on these international boards just become slack or give up on moderating members effectively because they feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of board rule violations and anti-social, hostile and aggressive behaviour which occur on a regular basis.

And I'd like to reinforce what dirge said too, the inclusion of more foreigners would dilute the Australian-focused content of this board. Imposing some kind of "Australasian-relevance" expectation would help to prevent such dilution.

[dirge]

It's not _foreigners_ that bothers me - it's the loss of an Australian focus.

Well, that and the fact that we'd probably get a few troublemakers who have been banned from several international boards registering.

[G1Optimal]

I do agree that it should be localized and at the same time, i feel it might be beneficial to have non-localized fans
so IMO, here is one possible option....

another forum just for this task of catering for the entire Australasia region "This region has so many names?"
"with co-operation with the other forums" and leave this and the other forums the way they are now...
Note: you do not have to participate in this forum if you don't want to..

But what do i know ......
"this is probably why, AUS, and probably NZL if not others, doesn't get noticed by Hasbro"

[GoktimusPrime]

It's not _foreigners_ that bothers me - it's the loss of an Australian focus.

hence why I said "Australasian relevance" - foreigners are more than welcome to participate here if they have some appreciation/understanding for Australian Transfandom.

"this is probably why, AUS, and probably NZL if not others, doesn't get noticed by Hasbro"

*cough.cough* erm... yeah, it's more than that, but that's not something I'm going to discuss on a public forum.

[G1Optimal]

hence why I said "Australasian relevance" - foreigners are more than welcome to participate here if they have some appreciation/understanding for Australian Transfandom.


*cough.cough* erm... yeah, it's more than that, but that's not something I'm going to discuss on a public forum.

[Saintly]

just a thought... if we do let foreigners in, we could potentially be opening the flood gates (ie. no admin to moderate in the weeee hours of the morning).

so I say we keep it local or australasian relevance to keep us unique and "not just another TF board"

[GoktimusPrime]

If non-Australasian fans want to join, they could simply be asked "Why do you wish to join a predominantly Australian Transformers community?" - and their application can be judged on an individual basis based on their answer.