PolishForums Reviews 6

PolishForums likes to bill itself as being “All about Poland and Polish lifestyle - with competence and without bias.”

This is from a website that is literally based in the flyover state of Illinois in the American Midwest. And to make matters worse, this site - for well over a decade and for unknown reasons - has been moderated exclusively by British trolls and their Anglophile patsies.

A casual look around this place shows that many if not most threads actually have very little or absolutely nothing to do with Poland. Any threads that do refer to Poland in their titles are either anti-Polish or quickly go off-topic and never return for scores of posts afterwards.

This website also claims to have several “freelance writers” with apparently Polish names on its staff but you would be hard pressed to find even one topic started by any of them.

To its credit this site has had numerous different anonymous guests and registered members over many years; some of whom actually posted something. However, most quit participating not long afterwards. Now their abandoned user names are akin to countless dead flies stuck to a used roll of fly paper. And like any unsightly used roll there are still a few living flies (in this case other trolls) stuck on this site day in and day out; aimlessly buzzing at each other while putting others off.

Aside from the trolling moderators, the other hardcore trolls are either obnoxious non-Polish foreign posters who openly or passive-aggressively hate Poland; low-skilled non-Poles with limited education and little financial means who reside in Poland only because it is cheap to do so but they never bothered to integrate; or they are disgruntled former communists who have a very warped understanding and hostile contempt of anything or anyone authentically Polish.

Many threads show legitimate posters pleading for fairness but these go unheeded. There is actually a section for “feedback” but such suggestions are either ignored, given a dismissive response by the thin-skinned trolls running the site from behind the scenes, or the threads are abruptly closed. Any feedback is useless (apart from documenting how bad this site obviously is) since competent moderation and impartiality are not evident. The threads and posts are proof of this.

It’s really unfortunate that PolishForums does not live up to its name or mission statement.

This site is helpful if you want to observe (or even participate in) some of the worst online behavior found on the internet. In this case, you get trolling British and Anglophile moderators who are completely unqualified both on the topic of Poland and in managing discussions about it. Indeed, trolling British and Anglophile moderators who openly criticize, give unjustified warnings and immediately suspend any real Pole or friend of Poland who doesn’t conform to their intolerant view of how Poland should be (i.e., a copy of modern Britain and its woke Orwellian dystopia).

If you genuinely want to learn anything about contemporary Poland or its language, history and culture then give PolishForums a very wide berth and look elsewhere.

It was quite a good place in 2007-2014, but it has since declined to a troll haven. Most of the friendly and nice people left or just lurk and no longer post. Now it’s the same rude people like posting all the time.

It is indeed as Chris R described except that the Polish Americans on there are much worse than the British ex pats he refers to.
Polish Americans are very different to the rest of the Polish Diaspora and these particular gun loving,racist Trump followers hate most Europeans, even Poles but they especially hate the British, probably due to some kind of inferiority complex.
My advice is, unless you have a strong stomach, avoid.

This forum is dominated by a handful of British ex-pats who have worked in Poland for low wages teaching English. They use the anonymity of the forum not to discuss issues but to attack anyone who disagrees with them, with a particular hostility towards Polish-Americans. Two in particular stand out for their anti-social behavior. One is teacher with an obsession for young boys, who stalks forum members online, will try to learn where someone works to cause problems there, etc. The other is bitter that he got fired for managing a language school in Warsaw. He claims to know every poster, and their personal lives, and also likes to allege that people haven't paid their taxes. They shamelessly hijack serious discussion threads with such personal attacks. Nothing is done about them, possibly because they pay money to the site owner. They also appear to know the personal information that people use when they sign up for the forum like email addresses and even the IP addresses for logins. In short, they run the site. This information is used to cyber stalk people. No other forum operates like this. The site, not surprisingly, suffers in finding advertisers and revenue is apparently made by selling personal data from members, and tracking cookies. Anyone who values his/her privacy is advised to avoid registering at this site. Extreme caution is advised.

They suspended me for no reson and can't log in.

I'm glad to be the first visitor to review this website. I'm a semi-foreigner living (studying and working) in Poland. Actually, I shouldn't be calling myself a 'foreigner' because I was born in Poland, but left the country with my family in the hopes for a better life in one of the Western countries when I was 12 years old. As it often turns out in life, the grass wasn't much greener on the other side, so after a few years when I was able to graduate from high-school, we returned back to Poland. Now I'm finishing up my graduate studies at the University of Wroclaw (the Lower Silesia district). Anyway, I just wanted to mention I know Poland and Polish-culture in and out.

Regarding PolishForums.com, I've been watching the site since it's early days, I think it was 2005-2006. It drew my attention because it was the first serious website about Poland where English was the 'official' language of the website. Back then, I was in a position that learning English was a must for me because I lived in an English-speaking country and, at the same time, I was curious about the current situation and news from Poland. So I become a member and started contributing and describing my own experiences from different angles.

What I like about the site is that you don't have to register to start participating; I think these days it is a very rare feature that one can post anything (maybe except for links) as a guest user. This is how I started - first I answered questions related to Polish history and culture and later I decided to sign up and become a formal member (which allows for many useful features, like a possibility to track all your posts, sign up for email notifications, or use a private message system which makes a private communication between all other members fast and easy).

Another thing I like about PolishForums is diversity of its members and depth of some of the discussions. This is the thing that keeps me coming back to the site (whether to post or just to read and think about what others opine on the topic). At the same time, though, this diversity issue often brings unnecessary internal fights between some devoted (or brainwashed ;) members who try to protect their position. There are members who would want to stifle freedom of speech and 'ban' those with whom they don't agree with on fundamental issues, like the role of Poland in the EU, the advantages of relocation to Poland, best places to see in Poland, buying a property in Poland, or abortion access for Polish women. Another group of members welcome all kinds of discussions and points of view and this is, in my opinion, the best way to go to get closer to the truth and objectivity. Due to these inner fights I can only imagine that moderating of a forum with thousands of diverse members may not be as easy as it may seem. Nevertheless, most discussions end up with everybody being wiser about points and facts published by the 'opposite sides.'

Finally, I also like the free Classifieds section where anyone can post their Poland-related ad (without registration) and the separate section that allows writing in Polish for native Polish speakers (and those who learn Polish language).

I almost forgot - they have recently introduced a 'sister website' called Polanda.com which is in fact nothing else but an archive of discussions posted on the original website. They did it to make sure that even the 'off-topic' and expired discussions / classifieds don't have to be permanently deleted. That achieved two things: 1- kept the posting history of all users, 2- removed unnecessary / unrelated to Poland posts and made the forum stay focus on what really matters, ie. news and discussions about Poland and Polish people.

Lastly, I thought about things that could be improved and frankly I didn't find much. Obviously, sometimes I'd prefer that moderators 'ban' voices that are against my own standards and beliefs, but it would make the discussions childish and irrelevant. In some situations, I would also prefer a more detailed explanation why some post was moved or why some poster was suspended (or not). Also, I'm personally not interested (and don't understand) people who are so much into researching their ancestry, family history, or names.. some topics are just simple questions about the meaning or history of a surname and such topics are boring to me (I know, my slightly-misspelled lastname is boring and typical for an average Pole too ;).

I hope PolishForums will remain a true bastion of freedom of speech, objective voices from and about Poland, and a place where there is always something interesting to read, think, and talk about. I wish more people who live in Poland and who don't always feel comfortable in using English participated in the discussions so that they are as relevant and truthful as possible.