Topics which should be stickied / highlighted

[roddy]

Putting this here as I figure this is where most people will see it . . .

I'm looking for somewhere between 8 and 15 topics which are particularly valuable and should therefore be made stickies and given a permanent link on the front page of the forums. The ones I've come up with after a quick scan are . . .

How could I get better at tones

The Grammar Sticky which itself links to discussion of major grammar points.

The Glorious Best of Chinese Study Tools

Advice for Beginners

The HSK Advanced

BLCU Accommodation

And also the current BLCU / BNU starters topics

Chinese poetry (must be one of our longest running still-active topics. )

Any other suggestions, or any of those you think should be removed? There's still scope for plenty more.

[kudra]

presumably you have logs of searches done within chinese-forums, and of visits by web crawlers. If you could break out the searches done from members and visitors, by how often they have visited or posted, you might be able to generate a ranked list of the top 10 topics that newbies care about.

If you cared to share that list with us, then we could comment on that too, which might add some insight to the raw rankings of such a machine generated list.

I understand that such a list might be too valuable to post.(sh)

[imron]

Perhaps someone could make a mobile phone sticky? The same questions seem to keep popping up around the start of every semester.

[johnd]

The definitive guide to Chinese visas.

[atitarev]

I would also suggest to make sticky - Chinese computing, input methods, online dictionaries threads.

I don't have the threads handy, though

[heifeng]

The tattoo sticky or what do these characters mean sticky in this picture=)

[roddy]

Thanks for all the suggestions, some good ones.

Re: searches - I have logs of searches done by Google, although not on the internal search engine (although I should look at setting that up). I'll have a look, although many of the top ones are generic stuff like 'Chinese language' and so a bit too broad to be relevant.

Mobile phone and visas are good ones, can anyone think of any topics we've got already that would serve as a kind of beginners guide? Chinese characters display / input for XP and other OS's would be a good one - again, any specific topic? Online dictionaries I think would be covered in the So damned fine it's almost too bright too look at Best of Chinese Study Tools (isn't it?).

Tattoo's and quick "what does this character mean" request - I'm in too minds about what to do with these. Half of me thinks that they are generally kind of trivial and not relevant to studying the language. The other half thinks that they are often amusing (who can forget 呆子) and give rise to interesting linguistic or historical stuff. A specific topic or maybe even sub-forum is definitely a possibility. Thoughts?

One I forgot is the Definitive Guide to Studying in Beijing post - in need of an update though. Oh, and what about the Most Embarassing Moment topic. There are also favorite musician and favorite films topics out there - I don't think they've been active for a while, but if we give them a higher profile they should run and run.

[imron]

Perhaps a sub-forum for tattoos, with a sticky about how English names can't really be translated into Chinese?

[wushijiao]

As far as the HSK, it might be a good idea to have a sticky entitled something like, "Everything you want to know about the HSK", which would provide links to the other threads that already answer most of the common questions related to the five tests (and there might be more tests by the time I finish writing this ).

It could answer things like, "what is the HSK?" "what level should I take?" "do they have a website?" "I just took a practice test and I got 27 out of 40, what score would I get"....etc.

Just an idea.

[roddy]

I added that box to the front page just now. It currently covers . . .

Tones

Chinese Grammar

Study Tools

Advice for Beginners

HSK Advanced

BLCU Accommodation

BLCU Spring 2007

Chinese poetry

Things which are missing:

A visa topic would be great. Ideally this would focus on the X visa application process, from first contact with a university through to having your residence permit in hand and using F visas for short term study. I'm not sure if it should get into the possibilities of Hong Kong / Agency F visas too deeply as that's a fairly changeable field.

A general overview of the HSK exams would be good.

I'm thinking perhaps a 'Practical Beginners' Guide to China' might be useful - covering very basic stuff, such as mobile phones, quick overview of accommodation options, etc.

Anything else?

I have a vague idea I might write these up, one day, in the vague future. Anyone want to beat me to it? Come on, community!

[Luobot]

Along the lines of "Chinese Poetry" -- how about --

Chinese Film & Non-study Book Reviews (includes travel in China, Chinese cooking, Chinese culture, Chinese biographies, Chinese fiction, etc)