Posting Guidelines

[roddy]

Following these guidelines will ensure you get the information you need as quickly as possible.

1) Search. The site has it's own search function, and you have probably already heard of Google.

You can use Google to do searches specific to Chinese-forums.com by using the site: command- Example.

Advanced features of our own search engine allow you to search for posts in specific forums, by certain members, before or after a certain date, etc. If there are too many results try using these to narrow it down. For example:

i) Search for HSK (155 results)

ii) Search for HSK Topics started by me (16 results)

iii) Search for HSK Topics started by me over one year ago (12 results)

You may need to think in more than one language to find what you want - for example, information on Beijing Normal University might be found by searching for 'Beijing Normal University', 'BNU', 'Beishida', '北师大', ‘北京师范大学'.

2) If you can't find the answer you need by searching, then you need to make a new post. To do so, choose the most appropriate forum from here. click on the title and then on the button.

3) When writing your new topic please

a) Give as much information as you have. Asking "What does XX mean?" is not as useful as saying "I found the sentence ABCDEFXXGH in 红楼梦, P523, and I'm not sure what XX means here. Can anyone help?"

B) Tell us what information you've found yourself, and why you still need help. If you've spent an hour with Google and the dictionary trying to figure it out, tell us - otherwise you'll just get told to use Google and the dictionary.

c) Write in a readable manner. Use paragraphs, sentences and punctuation. You're not in a chatroom, so don't rite lik dis, lol!!!!!11111ONEONEONE. Even if you are 15.

d) Be polite. You aren't talking to the internet, you're talking to people, and if you don't say please and thank you, you are less likely to get an answer.

e) Overly general questions - "How can I learn Chinese?", "What's a good school in China?" - are as good as useless. Give relevant background - your language learning experience, how much time you can spend on learning Chinese, which city you are interested in. Again, if you are asking questions like this, you probably haven't read step 1)

[roddy]

I'm putting this here for comments and improvement before I add it to the terms and conditions, which nobody reads anyway. I just typed it up quickly, I'm sure there's more to be done.

Roddy

[stephanhodges]

Would it make sense to link to some sample searches and advanced searches? Sometimes looking for specific chinese phrases, schools, etc. is a bit difficult.

[roddy]

Bulked out the search bit with some example searches and a note about searching in different languages.