moderation is a kind of 'enforced conformity'.

although we need to respect the laws of the land, apart from that too much moderation borders on fascism.

if you think someone is an annoying ahole, just grow a pair of balls and tell them what you really think of them.

having said that. i post way too much useless sh*t for a forum that's obviously supposed to be about kunming.

so 88.

It looks there are not so many daily users. Maybe you need just to focus about your daily life, not spending hours on this forum attacking each other by....years!
or a personal web tutor instead a moderator? :)

haha, web tutor. ok, good idea!

flame wars make all gokunmingers look bad to outsiders looking in, maybe all foriegn devils sterotype reinforced

I thought the gokm team were considering adding ratings a la yahoo comments etc. The user community would then somewhat self-police through likes/dislikes aka the thumbs up/down voting.

The moderators would then only intervene if posts overtly violated the TOS (Terms of Service), such as profanity, etc. Please read gokm's TOS for a refresher on civility and mutual respect.

is it 'civilized' that someone starts a thread about NGOs and no one working in NGOs bothers to comment?

@ Magnifico, I think that is perhaps an unrealistic expectation.

If there are NGO staff who come on here, assumption, they may not wish to or be allowed to comment.
The thread concerned descended into a conversation that an organisation with a PR machine could not engage in, with good reason. One could speculate that if there was more active moderation, an organisation could feel freer to engage in public comments on a forum.
NGOs are similar to other organisations when it comes to PR. They have rules about who is allowed to comment about what, in other words everything must go through a spokesperson trained/briefed by the press office. This is normal practice.

ok, tiger. fair point.

but i wasn't kidding in my first comment. ask the site to have you on board as moderator as they might be too busy at certain times of the day.

and they can toss in some vouchers for restaurants or events maybe?

Gokm promised community rating some time ago. It would work.

The forums have been a source of constant conversation around the GoKunming office recently. Here is a frank assessment of the way things stand right now:

• The general consensus, both by site moderators and a great many of our users, is that the forums are borderline unusable.

• Dozens of users have told us in person and via email that they feel the forums have become unusable because of constant thread hijacking and ceaseless bickering.

• A small minority seem to believe the forums are their personal blogs where they feel impelled to try and settle anonymous personal disputes.

• It has always been the position of GoKunming that the forums were created for and exist, as stated in the Posting Guidelines, as a place for people to freely and respectfully exchange ideas, discuss current events, ask for crowdsourcing help and otherwise engage in constructive dialogue that is of lasting relevance to people living in or interested in Kunming, Yunnan, and, to a smaller extent, all of China.

So, in order to get things back on track, to make the forums a functioning place where people can get questions answered and exchange thoughts free from random hijacking, moderation for the foreseeable future will be more strict. This notice is a reminder that constant back-and-forth, serving no other purpose than getting the last word, is going to be removed.

Flame wars serve no purpose other than stifling legitimate conversation, and as such don't have a place on the site.

As a reminder, here are the full posting guidelines for GoKunming:

The GoKunming Forums exist so that GoKunming users can freely exchange information and discuss topics that are of sustained relevance to the community. Keeping this in mind, both the Forums and Classifieds sections are the territory of individuals, not businesses. The exception to this rule is when businesses post classified ads offering employment.

Users who would like to share information published elsewhere online should include a hyperlink instead of copying text verbatim.

Forum threads that veer wildly off topic, devolve into attacks on individuals or groups of people or use abusive language will be removed at the Moderator's discretion. Please remain respectful at all times.

Do not use all capital letters when posting. Posts written in all caps will be deleted.

Keep things civil and refrain from personal attacks.
GoKunming reserves the right to delete any post that we deem inappropriate for any reason.

By posting or commenting users agree to the above guidelines as well as GoKunming Terms of Service. GoKunming reserves the right to ban users who repeatedly violate any of these terms or conditions.

For announcing events, finding housing, job hunting, buying and selling, language exchange, and personals, please use the GoKunming Classifieds section. Do not use the forums to post advertisements for goods or services.

If you have a service to offer, consider becoming a GoKunming advertiser. Forum posts by companies for the purpose of promotion will be deleted. Any hyperlinks leading to advertisements will also be deleted immediately.

And, just for good measure, a bit from the Terms of Service:

You must not defame, stalk, bully, abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate people or entities and you must not post private or confidential information via GoKunming — including, but not being limited to, your or any other person's credit card information, social security or alternate national identity numbers, non-public phone numbers or non-public email addresses.

You must not create or submit unwanted email, comments or other forms of commercial or harassing communications — ie "spam" — to other GoKunming users.

You must not attempt to restrict another user from using or enjoying GoKunming and you must not encourage or facilitate violations of these Terms of Service or any other GoKunming terms.