Chile Forum

Please add a wish list for topics that do not fall under the current listed forum topics here. Also, any ideas about what you would like to see on the main site.

We are also looking for forum Moderators. Please contact the admin for more information.

I would like to get some ideas about what you would like to see on the main home page of the site. Any input would be great. More or less the sky is the limit. More or less, If you have seen some other site do it I can do it on the frontpage of http://www.allchile.net .

so far my idea are to go with:

a general directory system
a service rating and review directory of some sort
content regarding relocation to Chile
personal blogs for members
photo essays system that allows users to upload photos

It's your site. I am just the guy who takes out the trash and pays the light bills.

admin wrote:content regarding relocation to Chile

These are some types of questions that I have:

Transportation info
Airport arrival tips, places to stay first night, how to get from airport to city hotel to bus/train station for further travel
How to choose a place in Chile to visit (this is a difficult decision for newbs)
When is a tourist agency and tour package a good idea, when is it better to set off on your own
Things to do in various cities, not just touristy things but things that you can do to learn about the the locals
History, description of local lifestyle, how is Chile different than US/Europe, how is it the same
Description and character of different regions, weather, industry/economy, job markets, differences in character of people in different regions
Cost of living, utilities, food costs, clothes, restaurants, rent, etc.
Aspects of living in country vs living in towns or cities
Explain political events
What do Chileans do for fun, festivals, concerts, sports, summer vacation and how can a visitor get in on the fun.

Most of those topics I would put on my very short list of content items. Well done.

We have been trying to do them at http://www.allsouthernchile.com to some extent. We plan to also do a lot more with http://www.allcentralchile.com and http://www.allnorthernchile.com as those sites come online by the end of this year.

I would like to make http://www.allchile.net more of general "all" topics regarding living in Chile. The idea with the other sites is to be region specific, and also more of a get to know Chile for both travel and living. Here however, I would like to make this more of a online home for people after they have either moved to Chile, or have made up their minds to move to Chile. More of a Gringo self-help support community. A kind of place that makes it less scarry to consider moving to Chile, because you know there is a place to find some help.

Mostly our problems right now are shortage of writers. We can't afford to pay our writers very much (e.g. myself), but we are hoping to have things going along in the next couple of months to start paying writers. We may even be able to make some type of reward by next month for articles. Right now almost all content is written myself or by my wife, with a few people that have sent us some articles or other content for http://www.allsouthernchile.com .

We are always open to publish articles, if anyone is up to the challenge. We are also happy to pass on lots of credit and links to any website that you might have that needs a boost in the search engine or traffic for any article we publish. Anyone that would like to publish an article on any of our site, please send me a PM or private message for details.

skyl4rk I like your list, and will put it in the hopper for our article list.

-- Maybe something about you so we can find out a little bit more about you. I didn't notice anything on the main page.

-- Cost of living is a great topic to cover. Maybe I am a bit crazy, but I like to see prices for a grocery basket of items, in local pesos of course. This makes it easier to compare a cost of living between locations. Filling out the list could be as simple as a visit to a supermarket there.

Content is the toughest thing to generate on the web, I battle with it everyday. I don't have any expertise on Chile to lend or else I would happily write articles.

yea, I have touched on those topics around the forum in various post. I was kind of letting things get settled before I started pushing post around to their proper catagories.

Yea, content is always a dog on my heals. The forum seems to be doing ok on its own. With so many sites to keep up, generating content is always an issue. We are working on bringing on board some payed writers. Always the balancing act to keep cost under control.

I haven't read everything on this forum but I'm plowing through a lot of the posts.

As more people start looking into Chile and trying to sort out a myriad of possible living locaitons, perhaps a topic such as "Favorite Locations" or "Traveling through Chile" -- the good, bad and ugly.

People can post their experiences on their new living location or vacation spot. Perhaps later on, content material can be derived for articles.

I'd really like to know WHY people located in certain regions. It could be weather, social lifestyle, remoteness, medical facility, you name it. This could also include a preference for vacationing vs a lifestyle choice. For instance, one gentleman mentioned that he liked the area around Conception (?) because it was more remote or smaller than Santiago. This gave me a good idea about the area and I can relate to this. Although he liked the area I have no idea if he settled there, if not, I'd also like to know why.

Mila expressed that TomBrad (sorry if I have the name wrong, but I know you're Chilean) was instrumental in her & her husband for locating in the north. Although both have their blogs, some of that content on this forum would make a difference in narrowing the locations for newcomers.

I'm not necessarily interested in living in the main city but logistics may make sense. I really don't know. Other things to consider - after a long plane flight, how far away would one have to travel to a location, etc.? Are flights to the south easy or challenging, then how far away does one have to drive?

This kind of information would help us on the "other side of the border" to get a better idea. When we make plans to visit and look around for relocation, we can narrow down prospects to 1-3 regions for consideration. As it stands now, it's still hard to grasp where to start. I love the pictures of the southern region, but I haven't been convinced that this is a place to check out only because I haven't heard any real personal accounts.

I believe that this will help a lot with what you're trying to achieve here.

BTW, how many registered/active users do you have thus far? Perhaps a poll of some sort?

Thanks

Thanks, I am considering adding a blog system for users to post their story. Just issues of time.

As for the number of users, I really do not know. The problem is if I try to cut the spammers by dropping all the people with 0 post, I am sure I will get 100+ emails from people that registered, lurk around the forum reading, but never post. Which is their right, and we welcome them. It just hard to sort them out from the spammers that registered and never got past our various spam filters.

I wish we had a photo album so we could share photos of our adventures and experiences in Chile. Santa????

You got it. This has been in damand for a couple of months now, and I think I will go ahead and set one up for the forum.

I wish we could have a place related to moving companies, with their names and comments, success stories and those that belong in the toilet, how people and belongings were treated at their destination, how customs treated those coming into the country, pitfalls to avoid, overcharges, etc.

Chile forum rss feed is now operational. You can now keep track of the forum with the live feature of your browser by subscribing at this link:
http://www.allchile.net/chileforum/rss.php

it would be cool to have a "view active topics" GUI so we could quickly see what people are posting today or recently.
just a thot
jon

You've got it, jon!

At < http://www.allchile.net/chileforum/index.php >, click "View posts since last visit", which appears immediately above the right-hand column headed "Last Post".

With the rss feed you can create a live bookmark for your browser and see the most recent posts almost as they happen.

If you navigate to this link, your browser should ask you what you want to do with it. I have for instance a button on my tool bar in firefox that I click every once and a while to see what has been posted without needing to visit the site every time I want to see what is going on the forum.

http://www.allchile.net/chileforum/rss.php