General Questions



Do you hate New Zealand?

Some of us who started this site do indeed hate living here, and are trying to leave. Some of us hate living in a particular NZ city. Some wish they could stay, but can't find the work they'd been assured were available. All of us have a problem with NZ government's skilled migrant campaign, which we feel is often at odds with the true picture of the country and far too aggressive.





Why do you need a whole new site to complain about NZ?

It's true that there are plenty of expat-oriented forums and immigration information sites on NZ. However, many of them have vested interest in presenting an overwhelmingly positive picture of the country. Others are open to the full spectrum of expat experience, but do not organize the information in a way that is easy to access. You can find a partial list of other NZ expat community sites below.





What good would it do to hear about this stuff? Wouldn't it just depress and discourage people?

Believe me, actually living this stuff is much more depressing. And if we manage to discourage people who are a very bad match for New Zealand from moving here, we've done well by those people, and Kiwis as well. Our actual experience is that it takes a lot to knock inflated expectations down to realistic level, and people hear what they want to hear anyway. So despite what we might wish, the number of people who migrate on a dream and struggle with the reality will probably hold steady. ExpatExposed can at least bring these migrants together for support and solutions.





Why did you move to NZ if you hate it so much?

All of us founding members came here after a great deal of research, at significant cost, fully expecting to build a life here. Ask any of us how we felt about New Zealand before we became residents, and you'll find out we were much like every other would-be migrants: in love. Many of us have children, and wanted to give them a Kiwi future. But what we found on the ground made us seriously question the motives of the country in inviting in skilled migrants in such numbers. Expat Exposed is the site we wished we had had when we were considering moving to the country.





What happened between you and move2nz?

We the founding members all met on the move2nz forum. We banded together because each of us increasingly found ourselves under attack by the administrators and other members for discussing the negative aspects of life here, despite the fact that we contributed other kinds of posts and took care to observe the rules as well as be sensitive to others' feelings.



We also felt that the admins were verbally abusive and overly controlling, ejecting members for organizing their own meetups, threatening legal action without merit and seemingly taking the view that they owned the very idea of Web-based networking for expats in New Zealand. Most of us founding members are Web/IT professionals, and this type of attitude was particularly dismaying to us. When we were told to go build our own site, we decided that was quite a good idea, and did.





I'm a move2nz member... Am I welcome here?

Absolutely. We utterly reject the "with us or against us" notion, and feel that the more informed a (prospective) migrant is, the better their chances of a healthy, happy future wherever they choose to be. In fact, we encourage you to participate in as many different expat forums as you can. Just be aware that the focus of Expat Exposed is the downside of living here.





Other expats-in-NZ community sites



British Expat: New Zealand Forum. British Expat Magazine, one of the first expat information sites on the Web, is an extensive site with feature articles, country forums, classifieds, property listings, free e-mail and other services. The site is funded through ad sales and retail partnerships. Non-registered visitors have read-only access.



EmigrateNZ. An extensive site with a great deal of useful articles on life in NZ, as well as a well-populated forum. Funding source unknown. Unfortunately, new forum memberships are not being accepted as of date, but visitors have read-only access.



Expat Focus: NZ and Australia. A massive forum for expatriation in general, with a very well-populated section on Australia and NZ that permits a full range of opinions. Funded through branded goods, classified ads, commissions on books etc. and ad sales. Non-registered visitors have read-only access.



move2nz. A smaller-scale site with Christchurch focus. Preference is for human networking instead of hard information, with the shortcomings noted above. Funded by corporate and NZ government sponsorships. You must register to have access to the forum.



(Want to be on this list? PM the Admin.)

Last edited by Admin on Wed Jan 16, 2008 6:17 pm

What does it do?

The reputation itself is not tied to privileges on the site. It is simply a representation of your interaction with other members on the site. This is the reason we chose to display the plus (mod up) and minus (mod down) scores separately. Most users who are active and outspoken will attract both kinds of scores.



What about bans?

Only moderators and the Admin can hand out yellow and red cards. Just like in sports, yellow cards do not limit your ability to post on the site. However, a third yellow card results in a red card, i.e. suspension. While we issue cards based on clear Rule violations, the points meted out by members do help alert us to violations. As a policy, all suspensions are temporary, lasting between 3 and 30 days.



What if someone decides to unfairly come after me?

There are safeguards in place to deter excessive grudge modding. Members must spread out their modding to a certain number of members, and cannot mod the reputation of the same member more than once in a 3-day period.



Also, abuse of the Democracy System is a red-card offense. Because we have yet to see this problem emerge, we have not defined what such an abuse consists of. Rest assured, the process of determining this will be transparent.



What's the point, then?

It is human nature to have opinions about each other, and want to express them. We think it's better to do it this way, rather than fill up the thread itself with mutual congratulations or shoving matches. It's a supplementary record of your actions on the site, available for all to see.



Is there an advantage to having a high + reputation point?

Yes. For every 20 points, your reputation power increases by 1 point. i.e. A person with +20 score will give out +/-2 points every time they mod. As the membership grows, we will introduce a slowdown coefficient to ensure older members do not have excessive advantage.



Is there a disadvantage to having a high - reputation point?

Not as such. But a single yellow card will take away 3 points, and a red 5 points. Ouch.



Who can vote?

- Users who have been registered 14 days and have 10 posts

- Users with unexpired warnings cannot vote



Any changes to the parameters of the Democracy System will be discussed in the Technical Support & Site Steering forum before implementation.

_________________
Please do not email or PM me with support questions. Direct them to the "Technical Support" forum instead.

Last edited by Admin on Wed Jan 16, 2008 5:06 pm

Multiple accounts.

We do log IPs and other information, and have been aware that some members have chosen to post from multiple accounts. Since this is not against our Rules, no action has been taken. We believe people have the right to safeguard their privacy (such as when they want to discuss issues at their workplace). That basic protection is extended to all members regardless of their motivations. However, the use of multiple accounts has been and will be taken into account when handing out yellow and red cards for Rules violations.



Adult-oriented P2P advertising in the Marketplace

The Marketplace forum does not allow adult-oriented goods or services, for 3 reasons. First is that some of our members are minors. The second is that we encourage members to review the seller or the service provider, and reviewing adult-oriented services would conflict with the board policy against sexually explicit postings. The third is that the Web has a vast red-light district already, and there's no need for us allocate our limited resources to the same purpose.



Third-party content in my posts

The Terms of Service you agreed to upon registering with the site specifically binds you to observe Fair Use. The rule of thumb is to clearly state that something is third-party content, keep it short and acknowledge the source with a link. For example, when quoting from a magazine article, enclose a short descriptive paragraph in quote tags along with the title and a link.

Isn't your "Don't join if you don't support our goals" rule unfair? Aren't you suppressing dissent? Where do you get off suspending me just because I don't agree with you?