Anyone want to start a Facebook group?

I will help.
How about "Expats in Puerto Rico"?

Let us know the name and we can join
If you create it, I will send you my FB ID so you can add me as a moderator.

Not a gringo 😀 but I'd like to join if open.

I think that would be great!!!

I like "Expats in Puerto Rico"

Of course Mimi, we will need the true experts!

Idk, we aren't really expats are we? I'd be interested in hearing other opinions. PR is completely different from the states but Puerto Ricans are also citizens. Personally,  I don't consider myself an expat.

Puerto Rico is a country that happens to belong to the US, a treasure of war. But it is still a country, we have our own representation in the Miss Universe and the Olympics, we are also a separate financial entity that is why in PR if your income is from the island you do not pay Federal Tax.

Technically you are not expats if you look at it from being American or not.

Not all living in PR are gringos, we also have people from many different countries.

So naming is up to you all.

Karenqc, ethically, using an online group to promote another group isn't really nice nor respectful for those who worked hard to gather everyone ... (basics of the netiquette).

Well, I am the one who started the expat.com project 12 years ago, and who's been working everyday since then to serve the expat community - and you just want to arm what the team and I have done here by redirecting our members to another group?

I am sure you will understand ?

Julien, there is no nefarious intent, it's just a fb group. We have shared many facebook groups, websites and so forth here without incident. I am not instating a coup, just suggesting an accoutrement to the Puerto Rico forum for other topics that aren't conducive here. I think good netiquette welcomes open discussion, we are individual people, not a corralled pen of members.

To your point, Julien. having a FB group could help bring more to the X-Pat site here.

YeS! Since this is the only substantial active PR forum on the net it can only gain from other collective streams.

Karenqc, I think your idea is very good. Could you just specify what kind of information / interaction we might find on this page ?

Julien, I feel FB is a good network allowing people to share quick information and getting in deeper touch. It won't change anything on the amazing work produced for Expat.com and I'm pretty sure that people will keep searching for detailed help on this network.

Meetups, sharing places in Puerto Rico to visit, restaurants, logistics, help with mundane things like where to find items in stores. Politics, Idk, whatever anyone wants to discuss.

I'll gladly help too!

Let me know when you get one up and running.

Nobody can stop you guys from setting up a FB group. But discussing it here even after the founder of the site asked you very nicely not to discuss it here is not respectful to say the least....

Apart from the above, every FB user should read this here: https://www.cheatsheet.com/gear-style/r … ok.html/2/

Whatever the name i'll join I just want to get there already

Maybe an idea "in between" would be to call the group "Expat.com Puerto Rico" ? and I could send you our official logo and so on for the group ?

but I still believe than redirecting members from expat.com to Facebook isn't really nice : firstly for Gary and Reyp who have been helping locally for years, for the whole team who's developing the expat.com platform.

Would you go in a grocery, and announce to everyone, in front of the grocer, that they should go to the supermarket because it's surely better than the grocery?

No, we're not Facebook, their private message system is surely better, they're proposing an app, and so on. With 1% of their income I can insure you that we could do something huge here.

The difference is that we are ourselves expats, and the platform is dedicated to us and our needs. We'll constantly work and improve the platform, technically, and will enrich the platform with better content, with your help. Even after 12 years of work, I still believe we can build something fantastic and facilitate exchanges between expats, in the entire world. All ideas and suggestions are obviously welcome, and appreciated.

All the best;

Julien

Good morning Julien,

Providing a centralized location for Expat resources and connections is a excellent way to help your target market.  Originally, your site was focused on providing a central location for would be expats to find expat blogs.  Extending this service to help expats find expat related Facebook groups would be a natural progression and would increase, not reduce, the value that your site provides.  In the long run, I believe that maintaining a focus on helping expats will only increase traffic to your site.

thanks for all of your hard work,
David

I agree with David.

I first tried finding a group on FB. No luck. I did  some serious searching elsewhere - no luck.

I serendipidously stumbled upon this site while searching for something else: I thnk it was cheap flights. That was months later.

Had I found a group on FB and discovered in that group that there was a site devoted to X-Pats in PR and those like myself who are anticipating a move and wanting to hook up to others in the same basket for help and friendship, I would have been way ahead in my plans. 

Apart from that, there are some things that seem to be beyond the limits of what can be discussed here that are not off limits on FB.

FB is not the enemy.

Facebook is booming! I get tons of leads in my business page everyday. You'll get more traffic, leads and free exposure to your main site in a matter of seconds.

But if the owner of Xpat doesn't feel comfortable doing so we should respect his decision too.

Maybe an idea "in between" would be to call the group "Expat.com Puerto Rico" ? and I could send you our official logo and so on for the group ?


I think you and whatever team you choose, should do so.

but I still believe than redirecting members from expat.com to Facebook isn't really nice : firstly for Gary and Reyp who have been helping locally for years, for the whole team who's developing the expat.com platform. Would you go in a grocery, and announce to everyone, in front of the grocer, that they should go to the supermarket because it's surely better than the grocery?

To me it's like comparing Pueblo to your Family's BBQ. I never intended any disrespect, we just have different points of view.

No, we're not Facebook, their private message system is surely better, they're proposing an app, and so on. With 1% of their income I can insure you that we could do something huge here.

The difference is that we are ourselves expats, and the platform is dedicated to us and our needs. We'll constantly work and improve the platform, technically, and will enrich the platform with better content, with your help. Even after 12 years of work, I still believe we can build something fantastic and facilitate exchanges between expats, in the entire world. All ideas and suggestions are obviously welcome, and appreciated.

All the best;

Julien

I wish you continued success...Cheers, Karen

Hello everyone,

My name is Séverin. I work at Expat.com with Julien, Paul and many other guys here.
This topic is really interesting, inspiring and trendy.

We'll definitely help you (and want to) launch an "Expat.com Puerto Rico" FB group.
Technically, it only takes a few minutes to do so.

But we still need to define the rules that would (or would not) apply to this group. We'll discuss this with Gary and Ray and will surely launch this group asap.

If this works well, then why not sharing this idea with other expat communities, right? :-)

Thank you everyone for your support, ideas and understanding.

Severinguiton wrote:

We'll discuss this with Gary and Ray and will surely launch this group asap.

As far as I'm concerned you should have done this before you made the above public announcement.
I'll contact you by PM...

Hey Gary, thank you for your private message, it's well noted. Your points are well received.

I will support this effort as I stated in the Expert section of the forum.

I want to see the "rules" first.

It would be nice to be able to freely discuss some things in the facebook group that aren't allowed here.  Also, in a more "private" closed facebook group setting vs. this group which is easily googled.  There are many things I do not share for that reason because I don't care to be identified through google searches.

We are targeting Monday for this.

lgustaf wrote:

I want to see the "rules" first.

I am discussing with them what the rules are at this moment, so far they are basically the following:
a) Advertising is not accepted on the group for obvious reasons of comfort of use.
b) This group is based on a spirit of community, so it is essential to show respect and politeness. So no insult, racist talk, troll or spam will be tolerated.

Getting clearance for being able to insult public figures (politicians, presidents, prime ministers, etc).

MimiEv wrote:

It would be nice to be able to freely discuss some things in the facebook group that aren't allowed here.  Also, in a more "private" closed facebook group setting vs. this group which is easily googled.  There are many things I do not share for that reason because I don't care to be identified through google searches.

The group will be closed and searchable for its name, people will need to request to join or be invited, if you guys like the group I would suggest you share it with your friends and potential Expats. Locals are also permitted.

As to readability .... I believe (could be wrong) that by default closed groups are readable by non-members, but that is a setting that can be changed, I will investigate.

If you like it please post activities, parties, news, meeetups, restaurant and hotel reviews, secret beaches, anything somebody in PR could use to enjoy life there, so as to make the group fun. It will be your place to meet others and become more active in the island and be less homesick.

*** (not a rule) I will ask that anything you post that could be beneficial to new expats, should also be posted in the standard Expat forum so it is available to new expats and it is searchable in the expat.com site. This would cut down work for me having to do it for everyone, so have pity on me.
Rey

FWIW, my point was not for expat.com to create an official Facebook group.  Rather to point out the benefit to expat.com of providing a central location for and freely linking to Facebook groups that would benefit expats...

David

Clarification on advertising: the intend is to keep people from flooding the group with their advertising of their services, so realtors will not be able to advertise in our FB group for example, you would still see the ADs that FB inserts.

You will be able to recommend your friends restaurant, hotel, electrician, etc to the group since this is helpful information, but ads to promote your business is not allowed, the idea is fun and help others not help your business.

ReyP wrote:

As to readability .... I believe (could be wrong) that by default closed groups are readable by non-members, but that is a setting that can be changed, I will investigate.


Rey

I belong to three closed groups on FB that are only readable by members... so it is do-able!

I think it would be a mistake to make it readable to members only.

lgustaf wrote:

I think it would be a mistake to make it readable to members only.

Explain please

There's no point in having a FB page if it's only readable to members. That's not what FB is about.

I was (and still am) on an ExPat members-only page for Rosario, Argentina. It really helped eliminate spam and people trolling. Just us familiar, friendly faces, in the same boat, trying to help each other out.