The affinity space that I'm going to write is called the littlesoldier, a local forum for local students to share resources on exercises and past papers. There are also sections for sharing tips on how to solve academic problems. The common interest among them is to get good results in public exams and help with each other with their homework.
Most of the participants are similar in age and ethnic background. They are Hong Kong students and with Cantonese as their mother tongue as the language used in this forum is Cantonese. Some of them may be tutors like me to download those exercises for my students.
Helping each other to solve problems is also one of the interests that the users share.Some of them even adopt the role of teachers or experts on the internet. They are able to contribute their knowledge and skills on topics ranging from academic ones like quadratic equations in Maths and English grammar to interview techniques.
This community of members has a set of conventions that they need to follow to maintain order of this affinity space. Each category would have a board monitor to manage different discussion pages, the rules are:
no foul language & personal insult, a must to thank the person who
shares the resources so that I can download the files.
Sometimes, you need to accumulate a
certain amount of points by replying to different posts
and contribute your own information to different topics.
The point system allows
the forum to distinguish if the users are regular contributors,
one-off participants, experts or a novice and decide whether they can get those
resources.
One interesting rule is that users can't post messages non-stop trying to
get more points. It would be treated as "abuse of posts" -- for example,
if you reply "Thank you" within 30 seconds, you'd be banned from commenting for 5 minutes. In serious cases, the board monitor may even ban your account.
However, if you post something meaningful/useful to the forum, the board
monitor may give you more points as an award!
All these rules and conventions are described in detail at the top of the
forum so that the novice can learn them in advance.
I consider myself as a one-off participant as I use this forum for practical purpose. I usually say "thank you for sharing the info! :D" to get what I want and then left.
To be honest, I used LittleSolder" before while I was Form 6 and 7. It's a really really resourceful forum!!! And you remind me of the old times while i was sharing my studying experiences or asking for opinions from people that I hadn't even met them before... :)
ReplyDeleteis this a common memory for all of us who had sit for a public examination. ofc i do not need to use this again when i m studying in university. i strongly recommend this to my secondary school mates.
ReplyDeleteI believe this forum has been very resourceful and helpful to the students who are sitting for public examinations!!! It reminds me of my secondary schooldays. I often threw up questions and started discussions in this forum and there were always people who were willing to answer and solve the questions together.
ReplyDeleteGigi, Stanley and Jason:
ReplyDeleteI think this forum has been every one's memory!!! Almost any people of my age had used it to help with their studies as this is pulling different people's resources together to share with us!~