Make expat-blog.com invitation based or a community moderated system?

Hi Tina,

Have you actually been a member of any "invitation only" social networks for expats? I have and I soon cancelled my membership to them. While it may sound good in principle, from my own observation they tend to become quite elitist and unless you know somebody much higher up the food chain you really don't count.

Membership based on invitation also is no iron clad guarantee that members still aren't going to get bombarded with unsolicited private messages seeking personal relationships, dates, marriage offers for the purpose of obtaining a visa and the like. I've even received them on other sites. Men aren't immune from those kind of messages, we just don't get them as frequently as female members do. Even on "invitation only" sites one still has to report the offending messages before action can be taken, so I really see no difference here. Once a posting or private message is reported (for whatever reason) Expat-blog Team takes action quickly. Members seeking relationships are banned quite quickly and usually their IP address also gets blocked so they can't come back.

So, while your idea is a good one; and nobody is putting it down there are a number of valid reasons that Expat-blog has chosen a different route. The primary reason for not being an "invitation only" site is to be able to provide the maximum number of people with the information they most need and they can't access on other sites, because they can't join without being invited.

NOTE: Anyone who receives unsolicited, annoying or offensive private messages or who finds a particular posting offensive should report it. You can be assured that the appropriate action will be taken without delay.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, Expat-blog Experts Team

Thanks for the quick response! It was just a suggestion, I am on a invitation only social network too and yes I still do receive unsolicited PMs too but it's significant less than what I receive here. I now understand why expat-blog has chosen this route but coming from a female's POV I do get a bit put off when I come here for help or advice but instead get bombarded with unwanted advances. You are right that the team here does do an awesome job

Report unwanted sexual/dodgy business advances to the mod team.

Such things commonly result in the offending party getting banned.

I think it would be hard to have this site invitation only since we do get people from all corners of the world, and they may have no way to know anyone already on the site.

IME, the admins are pretty quick to handle situatins where new members are posting or sending inappropriate messages. Report and explain the issue and usually within a day, the offending poster is banned.