People joining Expats blog who are very obviously not expats at all

I clearly missed something here. I'm not sure I know what a bumster is,nor do I understand the point about trawling. I certainly don't see the point of a closed group as that defeats entirely the objective of shared experience. How do you manage to work out who are and who are not ex-pats?

I cannot agree your post jim. 
The forum is a public forum open  to everyone just not for expats only. This gives a diverse range of people which you would not get on a closed frum.

I go along with worldywanderer's post.

Hello Jim 

Also bear in mind that locals can bring much more information to expats who are really in need.

Facebook is a good tool, but nothing can beat a nice forum, with well listed topics to help members now and in the future.

If the forum was a closed type..nobody seeking instant help could benefit from it...nor would you even have fallen on this forum through google search or whatever.

Need to reconsider your point of view Jim

Regards

Kenjee

Jim, I am not in Gambia currently, just sorting stuff out in Australia inpreparationfor my return. I still like to stay in touch with expats, findingithard atm without a computer. I have been getting a lot of requests and messages from locals that I'm suspicious of, so been deleting andignoring then. a Facebook group sounds great, but for me personally, I'm giving Facebook a rest. I thought the personmanagingthis group had to approve posters?

Thanks everyone for your replies.
I am choosing not to bothered with obvious trawlers, i am finding the trip advisor Gambian forum site outstandingly more informative and its very rare to have any bumsters/scammers etc on there. They are extremely well monitored and administrated. I highly recommend you see for yourself
So its bye from me.
Cheers
Jim

that'sunfortunate Jim, I guess the more input you have here the better it will be, shouldstickaroundand help make it the forum  you want it to be! worldly wanderer I find it amusingthat you don't know what a bumster is... as for trawling, he means people who are not genuinely on here but are looking for a connection for other purposes, I've had a fair bit of it myself, but just delete themimmediately, that solves that. this is impossiblein a little phone, sport of I'm not making much sense, I can't actuallysee what I'm writing

Thanks Molly, i just don't have the time to invest in helping another group consider making style changes, like i said, the forums on trip advisor are just so extensive, excellent, and about 10 times the size and volume of expat. Why not try it and see.
hope to run into one day at a live rugby broadcast? cheers  jim