14 <strong>asialife</strong> <strong>HCMC</strong>
The man behind An Phu Neighbours Google Group shares his insight on the online community he is Webmaster of. Photos by Ho Quang. Tell us about the history of the APN Neighbours group What prompted you to become its Webmaster The group was started by An Phu expat residents in August 2007. I inherited it after volunteering to become its Webmaster as one of the founders was leaving. The list was originally much more focused on the local An Phu neighbourhood. When I took over there were 700 members—there are now more than 2,300 from all over the city. I am a big believer in communities and the importance of helping others. There are very few ways to bring expat communities together, and I hope APN helps to do just that. Are you surprised by its popularity I am surprised. I think part of its success is the low barrier to entry and the simplicity of a mailing list format. I often think whether this is the best format, and for now I really can't think of anything that would work better. How has your editorial (posting) policy evolved Do you struggle with what you can or not allow to be posted Recently, for example, animal sales were banned but information on outlet sales is available. How, and where, do you draw a line I've tried not to make too many rules, but it's becoming harder and harder as the number of messages increases. I generally frown on advertising for businesses. If you're making money, you can factor in the cost of advertising in a publication like <strong>AsiaLIFE</strong>. Of course there are exceptions. For restaurant openings, clothing sales, and events, I think about how else they might inform people, and whether the community will be interested. I try to allow informative messages while frowning on marketing, but it is a hard balance. And I don't have the time or a team to review all messages, so things slip through that I wouldn't allow if I was actually making a decision. I have my own strong values, but I did consult the community about the animal breeders' ban. They were overwhelmingly on the side of banning breeders. At least one other HCM City online community had already taken the lead (ha). In the end, the community only works when most members agree with most of my decisions. If enough people disagree the community will fracture. What, in the time you have monitored APN, have you learned about the neighbours Are there types in the online community that you can label—the bored housewife, the know it all etc There is incredible diversity among the neighbours. They do tend to resist classification. There are definitely some people with too much time on their hands and there are also clearly some people who are finding expat life extremely challenging. Also, some people don't seem to realise that the expat community is quite small, and they burn bridges in spectacular ways by writing unfair or inappropriate content. I'm always amazed at what people will write on APN in front of an audience of over 2,000 neighbours when I'm sure they wouldn't stand up in a theatre and say the same things. Are there any discussions/incidents online which illustrate "expats behaving badly" The occasional racism, or xenophobia, of some expats drives me crazy. I really like Vietnam. I've lived here long enough to see a lot of people come and go. I'm sure it's a pretty hard place to live if you don't want to be here but it's always important to remember that bad experiences are about individuals or situations, not about Vietnam, and they can happen anywhere, in any country. Describe the funniest/most ridiculous exchange between neighbours... There are certainly some ridiculous opinionated ones. The most memorable for me began with an innocent question from one home schooling parent looking for other home schooling parents. The first response was a late-night alcohol-induced rant against home schooling and it just deteriorated from there with back and forth arguments on the pros and cons of home schooling with many people sharing their strongly held opinions. By the end of the 'debate' I even had one neighbour accusing me of being a bad parent for spending time answering their emails rather than being with my children (I'm a stay-at-home dad). When everything was finally calm it was revealed that the original poster had a child with special needs, so it wasn't even a question of schooling preferences. Do you have any plans to venture into new neighbourhoods If I was going to change the approach, I would look for a better way to deal with the volume of messages rather than splitting the city up geographically into 'new neighbourhoods'. Perhaps a 'market' list for buying and selling, for example. Some new neighbourhood lists (PhuMyHungNeighbours, SaigonPearlNeighbors, etc) have been started by other people in the last year, but what I often see is the same message being posted to all the lists. <strong>asialife</strong> <strong>HCMC</strong> 15