so no qingwen again
adam_p_lax
June 01, 2014, 08:09 AM posted in General DiscussionSo no 请问 and no notification that there would be no 请问 this week? 我真受够了你们一直让我们蒙在鼓里
Sean@ChinesePod
June 02, 2014, 04:24 AMHi Mark,
We are working on these issues right now. Thanks for your passion! We all love the brand and all of this input is so vital to making the site the best it can be. I would love to talk to you and see how else we can improve. Would you be up for that?
mikeinewshot
Sean - You seem to be the only person still at Chinesepod. Like Mark I have been a fan for seven years or so but the site indeed slowly but surely feels in decline. The number of comments by users reduces steadily.
Are the current lack of lessons, feedback due to the Dragon Boat festival or some other reason?
mark
Hi Sean,
I'd be happy to talk to you, but I don't want to post my phone number, email or skype name here. How should I get that to you? (You could ask Zoey. She has my contact details.)
Best Regards,
Mark
root
Hi Mike -- I agree with you about the apparent decline, but it does not look gradual -- it is quite abrupt actually, according to the post counts at least. We are in the 6th month and the top poster for this year has 287 posts (http://chinesepod.com/community/rankings). At this rate, we will be roughly 10 times less active than 2013... Something is definitely not right here. Which is too bad, the community page was the cornerstone of CPod's concept for the last few years it seems, and now it appears to have reached a sudden death :(
Right-Wingnut
I don't think a judgement should be made based on the top poster. The vast majority of my posts last year were 30 second transcript snippets (and I might get back to that later in the year). There is definitely a decline since last year, but tenfold looks like an exaggeration.
I'd say its just over 50% of last year's post rate (if you ignore my transcripts), and about 20-25% of 2009/10.
But this is not the problem, merely the symptom.
And I think that there are now so many lessons available that a large number of people who have no interest in taking part in conversations are taking out a month's subscription, downloading every lesson ever produced, then saying goodbye. I think CPod should be looking into download limits for monthly subscriptions, say 60 lessons per month.
antony73
Good idea! Not sure 60 lessons would cover it though. For me, I'd like the option of at least 150 or more downloads. Sometimes I download a chunk if I'm traveling. As a full paying member who has payed for a long, long time, I think I should have the freedom to download chunks of lessons. But I know what you mean about some people downloading masses of lessons and only paying one month for them.
I truly believe giving Newbie Lessons as freebies again would be a huge boost for Chinesepod. But that's me.
adam_p_lax
I think Chinesepod should sell lesson sets. I would really like to be able to download large chunks of lessons as well.
Egachan
+1!
darkstar94
I have started using Chinesepod less and less, I'm not sure if it's because I don't feel like I need it anymore or it's because quite a lot of long term staff have left. To me, without the long term staff it kind of doesn't feel like Chinesepod anymore, but I guess at the end of the day there are still people here who are good at what they do and there is still a large archive of lessons.
henning
June 03, 2014, 06:59 AMFreshly remotivated, I've started doing my weekly share of lessons again. So I come back after a year with only limited activity - and what I find? John is gone, Connie, is gone, Dilu is nowhere to be seen, Community is reduced to a handful of hard core users (the same ones from 5 years ago as it seems), and as a topping technical issues like it is all 2007 again...
But I remain optimistic. Hey, the site definately has to reach its 10-years anniversery!
I sure do hope, though, that even now that John is gone, we still get some lessons of the fun sort: aliens, monsters, time-travel, dinosaurs, space ships...the recent contributions I found in the library have all been so awfully useful and practical!
Regarding the Community: I wonder if this is a mere CPod phenomenon or a decline in interest in China in general. Now that the hype is over China is becoming to be one industrial country among many - with the sexyness of learning Chinese being diluted to some degree. I hope CPod is prepared ressource-wise to hibernate through this period of draught (the next China hype will come).
Winter is coming!
mikeinewshot
Hi Henning
Nice to see you back, being one of the 'hard core' users!
I hope you can help to reinvigorate things around here.
The current state of the site worries me a lot, the worse aspect is the lack of feedback and transparency (in my opinion) and indeed sometimes users have been vilified for commenting ... I hope things improve
Cheers
antony73
Henning, remember you from way, way back.
You're right! There was a time when learning Chinese had a cool feel to it, and it amazed people, China had so much mystery. But now, that doesn't seem to be so much the case with a lot of people. Having said that, it still is an amazing language to learn. I just absolutely love it... and China!!!
Chinesepod could now consider entry into 'Writing Chinese.' I've never been keen on Skritter, but love the Pleco stroke order program, (I'm a pen and paper guy, hate all that 'mouse pen' stuff). Maybe something like that here?
henning
CPod has Skritter integrated, you just have to activate that function somewhere. This is one of the main lesson features for me. And now that I have a convertable Win-8-Notebook I can just skribble in the characters with my finger (or a pen, but finger is more fun)!
antony73
Thanks! I didn't know that. I'll look around, check it out.
antony73
June 03, 2014, 11:01 AMI have also come and gone throughout the past, i guess, 6-7 years, (and I hate saying this), but each time I return there are indeed some good new features, but the shows themselves lack the passion and fire they once had. The old shows often had a sense of good conversation, humour and real interest. But now, to be honest, they are regular Chinese lessons. The only reason I return is due to ChinesePod's format. It is 100% the best langauge study format I know.
The only word that has often come to my mind is, "corporate." Chinesepod has become corporate. I enjoyed it when it was in the old studios and a little after, when, (at least it appeared), had many enthusiastic staff on board. I think those old youtube videos bare testament to that.
The lessons are at the core of Chinesepod. The content is great, but enthusiasm and character is missing. In my opinion, it was that that drew in the community.
My apologies! But these have been my long held thoughts. The customer's voice is indeed important for any business. Thanks to Mark for giving me the courage to voice them.
(What I miss: Amber, Clay, John, Connie, Poems with Pete, (great lesson set!) and free lessons for newbies, (It was these free lessons that got me on board. I could see change on the horizon when they became available for paying members only).
One old lesson I still listen to is "Dear Amber: Adventures in Chinese Learning." So inspirational. Seems like those days are long gone.
You often used to make me smile. Please do that again!
mark
June 02, 2014, 02:19 AMA number of other things have gone missing lately: there were only four lessons last week. It looks like none will be posted my Sunday evening. No working link to the latest UI lesson audio, and no one available to fix that issue over the weekend. The link to Jenny's show is no longer in the upper right of the home page. No excercises for newly published lessons. I'm afraid to say, that having ridden a startup, or two, into the dust myself, CPod has that kind of distressed organization feel to it lately. I hope they manage to pull out of their slump. That said, reading the transcript of the latest UI dialog, it sounds like it may be another lesson hints at a back-story.