Side note: I've not given up on the Perl Marketing kick. It's just that some of the discussions are now taking place being the scenes with folks from TPF and EPO.
I'll be taking a couple of weeks off from hacking on my pet project as I'll be in the US for a friend's wedding, but in the meantime, I can still have ideas percolating in the back of my mind. What I'd like is some of your ideas percolating in the back of my mind.
Maybe you love adventure, you're bored with your home country, you prefer the politics of other countries, you want to travel, etc. Whatever your motivations, you probably have been annoyed trying to find "one stop shopping" for information about moving to other countries. Turns out it's a hard thing to do, but there's a lot of possibilities out there, if only you had the information.
Most Web sites dedicated to this topic restrict you to a single country or are old school sites like www.expatriates.com or hideous commercial sites like www.escapeartist.com with no social aspects.
I think it would be interesting to build an online community of world travellers (or would-be travellers) with an ability to share stories, experiences, tips, etc. Search for countries by ease of entry, languages spoken, government stability, job prospects, immigration laws, etc. If such a Web site appealed to you, what would you want to see in such a site?
Have you seen tripwolf?
Re:Tripwolf
Ovid on 2009-08-19T13:10:07
Thanks. That gives me a few more ideas.
Re:Tripwolf
phaylon on 2009-08-19T13:13:58
That was more meant as a "isn't this already doing what you want"
:) What do you feel is missing there? More meta-information? Re:Tripwolf
Ovid on 2009-08-19T13:34:00
I explicitly want something where someone can say "I want to move to another country, where can I go?" What they often want, though, is really information about the legal requirements they face. For example, I briefly described how to get a job in the UK, but that's out of date (not much) and specific to the UK.
What are marriage laws per country? Can you get in via ancestry? Can you get -- or do you even need -- a work permit? Does legally working in a country long enough give you an automatic path to citizenship (USA: generally "no". UK: generally "yes"). What legal restrictions are in place if you take a job offer somewhere? (e.g., I have free health care, but if I'm out of work more than 28 days, I face deportation). What countries are really easy to get into?
By building a community site where people who live around the world can contribute up-to-date information, there might be an excellent opportunity for someone to try this as the Wikipedia of emigration: an excellent starting resource which nonetheless requires detailed research after basic information is gathered.
Re:Tripwolf
phaylon on 2009-08-19T13:50:08
Ah, now I see. That sounds like a very good idea to me. I don't know if anything like this already exists. But since I remember the confusing parts of (only) moving from Austria to Germany, I can imagine this would be much appreciated, especially by people targetting countries that are further from where they are, and where the cultural differences are bigger.
How are things done in the other country? I always wonder how things that annoy me where I live are done in other countries. Small thing like knowing if you can get credit card or debit card, if you can be in overdraft or not to larger things like how voting for parliament or president is done.
This web site might be able to provide such information as that could be very interesting to people before making the move.
Raising children in multilingual environment A long time ago I wanted to create some kind of a web application for parents raising children with multiple languages. I think such a content might be an interesting sub-section of the web site you are talking about.
