Pollyana

Not sure what's happening to the Aussie forums these days, but I think its time for a bit of a shake up all round.....

A lot of new posters are landing in here without a clue about life in Australia and asking unrealistic questions, and a lot of us are getting rather 'short" with our answers!
So, lets all try and help ourselves and each other to get back to encouraging a bit more welcoming and friendly atmosphere

Newbies - Australia is HUGE compared to the UK - if you ask "Where is the best place to live" it makes no more sense to us than asking about where in EUROPE is best to live! We can't help if we don't know a bit more about you, your lifestyle, your jobs, your needs......Give us more info, we'll give you more help A lot of new people get annoyed when we say "have you sorted a visa yet?' See it from our side, we can spend ages trying to help only to find you don't have a visa and have no hope of qualifying for one! We aren't trying to pry or to be difficult, we just want to help you get the visa first. We also have a lot of posters on here with a wicked sense of humour, feel free to join in and have a laugh. Migration is stressful enough without having to be serious all the time

As for the rest of us - lets try and be a bit more welcoming We've all seen the questions before, but for every newbie this is a fresh world. Many of them have never used a forum before, and yes, many have only experienced Australia through the tabloid press and TV We should be welcoming and helping them not trying to put them off before they start! We were all new here once remember and there are gentle ways of breaking the bad news that Australia is not all sunshine, sand and surfing

Finally a few hints for those of you wanting visa guidance - we can't tell you how long it will take to get a visa - some family classes are more predictable but every single one is still individual and different! There jusr isn't a visa for everyone, but we will try and help as best we can - for that reason we may ask what are seen as rather personal questions, or we may look at posts you have made in other threads - that's just so we get a good picture and can help to the best of our ability We also can't predict next year's visa quotas, which skills will be on the list in 2016 or the fees for 2017 and if we tell you your case is complex and needs an agent - that's cos our experieences on here have taught us when something is beyond the scope of a free forum Again - just help us to help you and lets all be friendly about it