Bali websites: The Bali Travel Forum

The Bali Travel Forum is one of the busiest Bali websites. Created in 1997, the forum is basically a message board that allows users to browse comments and questions posted by other people. Learning from other people’s experience can be a good way to save time and money. Many of the participating members of the Bali Travel Forum are repeat visitors to Bali, who like to keep up on local news and maintain contact with people they met in Bali.

The value of the Bali Travel Forum is it has a high volume of people with a strong amount of knowledge about on small area. If you want to know about a hotel, restaurant or bar in the southern Bali area, there is a high probability someone on the Bali Travel Forum will know something about it. In order to post a message or reply to a post, you have to fill out fields for Name, Password, Subject, Message and have a choice of whether or not to show your email address.

Here is the FAQ list for the Bali Travel Forum.

Q: What’s the purpose of this forum?
A: We maintain this forum to help travelers planning to visit Bali to get an initial “feel” for this island. After reading the experiences of others it will be easier for first-time visitors to make sensible decisions about where to stay, what to see and do, where to eat, where and how to do their shopping, how to get around, and to be aware of the various “do’s” and “don’ts”.

Q: What kind of questions can I ask, or what information should I post?
A: Feel free to ask any kind of question, and share any experience you might have had – as long as the message relates to travelling to and within Bali. All messages others can benefit from are welcome – including warnings and recommendations.

Q: Can I use this forum to advertise or promote a shop, restaurant, hotel, or any products?
A: No, you cannot. This forum is not commercial and should be used only for messages and information related to travelling within and to Bali.

Q: Can I use this forum to promote, announce, or publicize my photo-page? It contains nice Bali photos and I want to show them to my friends.
A: No, you cannot. Please use e-mail, sms, IRC, or any other means to inform your friends about your photo page.

Q: Hey, but my homepage is non-commercial!
A: If you provide straight-forward information about Bali on your home page which relates to a specific question posted on the forum, and your home page is really non-commercial, you may give the URL in the answer to this question.
Please do not use the “Bali travel Forum” to promote your homepage by posting your URL over and over again.

Q: So why do we often see messages with links from Balivillas staff?
A: Bali.com Ltd, the company operating Balivillas.com and its “Bali Hotel Bargain Finder” division is providing the server space, covering all costs (including Administrator pay), and their staff is spending quite some time answering questions. For providing this free service to all visitors to Bali without restricting the use of the Forum to their clients who book either vacation villas, hotel accommodations, or cruises through them, we think it’s justified to allow them posting messages with links to their pages where appropriate.

Q: I registered, but didn’t get my activation code!
A: Hotmail users:
Hotmail classifies all emails coming from un-known domains like balitravelforum.com as spam. Therefore activation codes end up in the trash automatically. If you are using Hotmail, please check your trash for your activation code before asking for assistance.

Q: Can I use the forum for personal or private messages?
A: Please don’t. Private messages as well as the infamous “xx sleeps to go” messages just use up valuable disk-space and bandwidth and make it difficult to get decent results from the forum’s search engine.

Q: I like to post under various aliases. Can I have more than one user name?
A: No. One person should only have one user name. Multiple aliases will be deleted.

Q: Which language shall I use to post messages?
A: The official language on this forum is English. English is a “common denominator”, and to avoid a “Tower of Babel” chaos on the forum, we don’t allow other languages here.

Q: But I’m not a native English speaker. It would be much easier for me to post in my own language.
A: Please don’t. If you understand enough English to read the messages on the forum, you are able to post in English, too. Don’t be shy, as long as other participants can understand what you’re trying to say, nobody will mind your grammar or your spelling.

Q: Is this forum moderated or censored?
A: No, it is not. We remove only duplicates, advertisements, and offensive or outright stupid messages.

Q: Does Balivillas.com / Bali.com Ltd support the opinions expressed on the forum?
A: No, of course not. As the forum is not moderated Balivillas.com doesn’t verify or support any opinions expressed by participants.

Q: I have a technical question concerning this forum. Shall I post this question here?
A: No, please don’t. Instead please e-mail the Forum Administrator at “forumadmin@balitravelforum.com”, and he will answer your question directly by e-mail.

Q: I feel offended by a post. Shall I give this poster a stiff talk to get him back on track?
A: Please don’t. This will start a flame war and we want to avoid this.

Q: I think a message breaks one or more of the Forum rules. Can I give the poster a swift reprimand to get him back on track now?
A: No, please don’t play Forum cop.

Q: How do I get the e-mail address of a participant?
A: Participants have the option of providing their e-mail address when posting a message. If they do, the poster’s address will appear as an e-mail link next to his name above the particular message.

Q: How do I view the archives?
A: In the top part of the Forum’s Main Page you’ll find a selection box saying “Select an Archive”. Select the month you want to review and click the button “Go to Archives” next to it. Your browser must be JavaScript capable and you must have JavaScript enabled to use this feature.

Q: How do I search the forum?
A: Click the button saying “Search the Forum”. Your browser must be JavaScript capable and you must have JavaScript enabled to use this feature.

Q: Why do I only see old messages?
A: You’re probably getting this old information from your computer’s cache. Force your computer to update the page:

• Mozilla/Safari/Konqueror: hold down Shift while clicking Reload (or press Ctrl-Shift-R)
•IE: press Ctrl-F5
•Opera: press F5

Q: Why are all e-mail addresses prefixed with “_noSpam_”?
A: To protect your e-mail address from being collected by robots or spiders, a prefix (“_noSpam_”) is automatically added to it. Remove the prefix to send e-mail to a forum participant.

Q: When I try to post a message I get a message back saying that I am not allowed to post to the forum. Why is this?
A: Basically there are only three reasons that prevent you from posting to the forum.

1. You use a word or words that are considered unsuitable for this forum.
2. You use a word or words often used by spammers or advertisers.
3. You are an unregistered user trying to post a message using a banned ISP.

So you see the Bali Travel Forum has its own set of rule which cover most situations. A link to BaliGuide offers a map of Bali plus many useful bits of information. There are also links to villas, hotels and cruises.

By using the Bali Travel Forum you might strike up a friendship, with one of Bali’s repeat visitors.