Hello Everyone. I am new to TripAdvisor. Any suggestions are welcome.
About what?
Welcome aboard!
As for suggestions: well, it's not much more complicated than answering the questions people ask based on your knowledge about Montréal. If you want to be particularly helpful, do some searching on the web and provide links (or even make a phone call, as we have many times much to the surprise of the OP).
Oh, and on here, TA = Trip Advisor, OP = Original Poster
You'll notice that in winter, the forum is pretty slow, so you might want to check out the travellers articles and add to them if you think there is stuff missing -- see http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Travel-g155032-s1/Montreal:Quebec:Inside.html
It's not a great idea to go reading old posts and answering them, since the OP receives an e-mail with each new answer, and if they've come and gone, it can be irritating. However, since the forums are searchable, if you do feel something vital has been missed, add it.
When giving your opinion, ask yourself it it helps the OP. Just saying "I agree!" for example, is not quite as helpful as if you add more info, such as "...and their confit de canard is sublime" or "...but if the line-up is too long, xyz offers much the same thing within walking distance" or "...the last time I went there, my pasta was overcooked and the service was dreadful" or, well, you get the idea.
When giving names of places and streets, try to keep them in French since people will be using maps to get around. Not always -- Old Montréal is well understood, for example, but if you say "Take Lakeshore for a prettier drive" the poor tourist may not know it's called Bord-du-lac on the map. Often, we'll put the equivalent in parenthesis, so that they can find it as they're walking around, but they'll also know what it means -- something like "don't buy wine at grocery stores or dépanneurs (corner stores), but the beer is fine."
Be sure to read TA's community guidelines http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Travel-g155032-s1/Montreal:Quebec:Inside.html which basically say be polite, don't use bad words or call people names or get into arguments, don't suggest anything illegal, and don't promote your own services.
Edited: 9 years agoExcellent answer Tristou, as usual. Just so you know, I added this post to the 1st Top Question on the [province of] Québec forum. Might come in handy to refer to it in the future.
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98 helpful votes Browse the forums to learn the ropes by seeing what questions are being asked and the answers that are being given.
Browse the Help Center which is a tiny blue link at the bottom of the page. A coffee and 30 minutes would make a good start.
I'm pretty sure Tristou meant to post this link for TA's community guidelines:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/help/what_are_the_guidelines_for_posting_in_the_forums
Good that you added Tristou's reply in the Top Questions on the Province of Quebec page Eirelover. It is really there that it belongs, I did some editing lately, like for the question about looking at whales in Tadoussac from Mtl and such and it is really on the Province at large that this newcomer question really fits.
Which reminds me Steve S and others that all forums, restaurants, things to do, etc are classified from the most general to the most specific. So it goes, for example, from all the forums in the world to countries, to provinces or states, to specific area to towns.
The traffic being much slower on all of the Province of Québec forums than, let's say Florida most inquiries are for Montreal and Québec City while most of the traffic for all the locations in the Laurentides/Laurentians usually go to the Mont-Tremblant forums and you will also see some queries about Charlevoix or La Malbaie and Tadoussac. For the rest of the province the collaborators are more infrequents but, if memory serves me well, there are specific collaborators that don't write so often but will jump in when necessary for their "coin de pays".
As Tristou also hinted we also tend to use French words that all anglophones around uses, like dépanneurs or metro but for the first time on one thread we put the regular English word in brackets but for the following sentences use only the French word.
Also It is a bad habit of myself of putting the French accents in English, for example Québec, but it is just a typing habit and you can write with or without accents without any problems. Same for hyphenation in names like Baie-Saint-Paul, not necessary the system will recognize the name. But it will, indeed, recognize the names only if the French spelling (no matter the hyphenation or accent) is good and will then give a cross link, the word in question being written in blue in the text..
Sorry Baie-Saint-Paul was a bad name to use as it doesn't bring any crosslinks.
Edited: 9 years agoThanks all for your suggestions......... Happy New Year to all.......
Hi im trying to find. A trip montreal to new york with hotel included any suggestion
Hi im trying to find. A trip montreal to new york with hotel included any suggestion
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15,390 posts
33 reviews
25 helpful votes Post in the NYC forum about hotels. THere is a trailways bus to NYC that leaves nightly and seems to be okay.