The dysfunctional search engine on
Dave's ESL Cafe's Korea forums is---content aside---the biggest complaint among users, with it difficult if not impossible to find information and older threads. Dmitry Volokhov emailed recently to share his new
SearchESLCafe.com site which makes the process a lot easier. You may remember
a couple of years ago he created another version which simplified the process as well, though he writes that the new one
is a prettier, more customizable and easier to remember package for it.
The main page also displays recent searches, and as the FAQ page states,
SearchESLCafe.com searches for the Korean forums also include posts on
Brian in Jeollanam-do and several other big Korea-focused blogs and sites. Maybe we finally have a solution to the weekly "What's Gwangju Like?" threads.
13 comments:
Now even easier to find xenophobia, whining and bloated entitlement! When I'm all riled up over a Korea Times article or a sexist netizen online mob and don't know what to do with my anger, thirty minutes on Dave's usually balances out my outrage and leaves me satisfied that the worst of NS teachers and the worst of Korea deserve each other.
Dave's still gets a lot of inertiatic (sp?) traffic, from people being told it's still the best, and from people a half-decade behind the times.
Users have been asking, and pleading, for years for a search function that actually works. I think it's a couple years too late, though, because Facebook has become a better source for sharing information, and Waygook.org is a better site that houses thousands of lesson plans and thousands of threads with actual useful information and (mostly) constructive dialogue. Plus, it's not as ugly as practically every other teacher-focused forum.
After the moderaters banned all the veteran posters in the past year, Dave's has become noobs asking the same questions over and over, getting advice from "experienced" teachers who have been in-country for three months.
Thanks very much for your post about this, Brian!
I've just added waygook.org to the http://searchESLCafe.com search results.
I believe there's still a trove of useful information and solid advice to be found on Dave's (much of it, perhaps, from pre-2010 posts). However, it couldn't hurt to give it some competition among the search results.
Forget Dave's, it is filled with Korean haters who do not understand what it means to be in a different culture.
By the way, the owner of this site has glossed over the fact that he was doing illegal things in this country and got fined and told to leave. He is a hypocritre with no credibility at all. Any thing he says is moot for he ignores Korean law and writes distorted things to make Korea look bad.
superNET - whether what you claim is true or not, and I'd be strongly inclined to disbelieve anything that comes from your mouth, the owner of the site comes across as a friendly, helpful and intelligent individual. Just a couple of traits you seem to be sorely lacking.
I rarely ever go to Dave's ESL. Pretty much only when someone links to a pertinent post or comment. But I guess there are the occasional gems, so I was thinking it might be nice is someone compiled a list of must-read (or worthwhile-to-read) posts from Dave's. Heck, if someone gives me the links, I'll put 'em up myself.
Stay warm and dry, Brian. I've been watching "The Office" and it looks like Pennsylvania's been getting a lot of snow.
Not really "glossed over," since I did a several-thousand word post on it in April.
I take it from your outburst, superNET, that you were recently banned?
SuperNET wrote:
By the way, the owner of this site has glossed over the fact that he was doing illegal things in this country and got fined and told to leave. He is a hypocritre with no credibility at all. Any thing he says is moot for he ignores Korean law and writes distorted things to make Korea look bad.
Hold on there, SuperNET. You clearly have no evidence whatsoever that Brian was kicked out of the country or forced to leave. While I don't know Brian in person, I am confident I know him well enough to know that simply is not true (if for no other reason than if it were true he would have privately appealed to me and a few other K-blog figures for advice about how to handle such a daunting problem). That didn't happen, his writings gave no such indication of your claims having happened, and he spoke well in advance of his eventual departure.
As for your other claims, I think you have Brian all wrong. I think he has been very fair and even-handed in his criticisms of what he has seen and experienced, and the fact is that he has been one of the English-language greatest boosters the Chŏlla region has had in recent memory.
I don't agree with everything Brian has said or opined, but he is an excellent source of information on Chŏlla and Korea lost a little something when he headed back to his hometown and began posting less.
I misread SuperNET's outburst and thought he had directed the attack at the owner of the ESL search site.
I back up everything kushibo and add that I know Brian - we lived in the same town for a couple of years and met up for dinner on several occasions - and can ensure you that Brian is a honest, sincere, genuine person with unquestionable integrity.
To go off half-cocked and attack someone's integrity, someone you obviously don't know, is pretty cowardly and foolish. But, then again I saw your 'work' during the past week on Dave's and realise that's all you seem capable of.
superNet, in a comment accusing Brian of 'writing distorted things' and thus having no credibility, you wrote a distorted thing (that Brian 'glossed over' his immigration problems whereas the truth is that he wrote almost 4000 words on them). It appears that, by your own logic, you have no credibility.
However, you are still welcome to rescue your credibility by substantiating your claim that Brian 'writes distorted things'. Give details, please.
Brian glossed over his departure? Did supernet miss Brian's rather lengthy post on that very topic?
Keep seeing what you want to see, supernet. I'm sure it's a strategy you learned long ago, making it easier to face yourself in the mirror every morning.
I learned a lot making this search engine, so I decided to make another one: searchESLJobs.com
It's a minimalist (i.e. not annoying/spammy) eerily accurate Google Search for International ESL/EFL Teaching Jobs. Covers Dave's ESL Cafe, Waygook.org, Craigslist (edu jobs in Asian capitals), dozens of major ESL job sites, and in total indexes 3 million+ pages.
Dimitry posted a link to his job search site, but blogspot ate it (as it has been doing to comments lately). I did a separate post on it a few days ago.
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