I offered my two cents on the issue with Lazybones in a current thread and my comment was deleted later and the thread is locked now. In another post on what KM food makes your head spin and I offered my cynical take on that topic and it too was deleted. This is just further proof of a what lame place this is. If you don't walk around with stars in your eyes and take the tourist slogan Spring Time City literally (hey, it actually does get very hot and very cold here) then you are a party pooper and can't join in any reindeer games. This is my last post here at this farce of a site ever, and in closing... the food in Kunming sucks!

Is there a bit of heavy-handedness with censorship on this forum? Yeah, maybe. But the flip side is some people abuse their right.

I just read your review on Cacao's. It's not a 0 star place. You're being excessively harsh. You're complaining that your friend's bill was 100 kuai. It's an upper-class establishment. The investment in the place must be exorbitant, especially compared to some of the closets that pass themselves off as restaurants in this city. It's a very comfortable place to eat. And the food does require a fair amount of preparation. So how much do you expect to pay? You want it for free?

So my point is that it's far too easy for someone to come along and completely rip apart a restaurant which people have put blood, sweat and tears into.

You've given 5 0-star reviews. Why don't you open up your own restaurant so we can take a swing at you?

Be reasonable.

You sound like an angry person who wants to abuse this forum to attack every restaurant in the city.

Ok, ok, we get it. The food's not as good as where you come from. Give it a rest. People are trying to earn a living.

I have to agree with you BillDan, I am much less likely to add to the site in the future, too much control being exercised. It appears to me the new owners are embracing, even more so, the idea of controlling the potential organic growth of a web portal. That's OK, but the web has always been a place where idea's are supposed to be discussed openly. I guess they may just end up losing valuable input and users. Ahhh well, it can leave room for someone else to open another discussion board...

Maybe www.inkunming.com/ is a better place for free open discussions?

abcdabcd, you miss the point.

The site is a collection of individual users, the reality of what a place is like will come in the overall reviews of a place. If one person hates lots of places, that's fine, they are someone that is hard to please. BillDan is hard to please, so what? He has a different level of expectation when it comes to food as you may be able to tell.

But when a site deletes and locks threads because, it appears, they are not kind to the sites advertisers... that's stepping over the mark of free and openness and moving into "we only print what we want" - a-laa Chinese government owned media.

The guidelines clearly read that one should stay on topic. Replying to threads that are several years old only makes sense if they are still relevant, which the one in question was not. We would like to ask everyone to keep in mind not to derail threads and keep the discussion relevant to other site users as well.

Please remember that you are a guest on this website, in this city and in this country. All of these three have their own regulations.

Yeah! The reason they delete posts or lock threads is because the way a site like this makes money is through ads sold. It sucks, but a fact of life...As for BillDan posts, I am not going to read them all, but the one just posted about the mex-spot is stupid! While i agree that the food sucks and was totally bummed with my experience there. You have to order something and have the experience before you can talk sh** about it.. ordering a coke and having a bite is not good enuff!

ok, blobbles. point taken. and you're right. and my comment was besides the main point.

yeah but the site allows very harsh and negative restaurant reviews - many of which are arguably inaccurate and unfair and negatively affect revenues of advertisers. it's not totally censored. so give some credit.

Reviews are often harsh and negative, sometimes unfairly. That goes with the territory. Other reviews are OTT and you wonder if it is the owners posting. In any review, incl. Amazon.com reviews, I ignore the rave review, if it is only one, and ignore the one or two bad reviews, if there are many others. Even top notch eateries get bomb reviews.

Ref censorship. I think there has been an overly active hand of late. Perhaps someone is a bit bored and being over engaged. Unless there are issues with server space, there is really no need for deleting most posts that go off at a tangent. These lead to other interesting disucssions. Perhaps if the software allowed moderators to split topics this would help.

Indeed, I can get more out of reviews from a reviewer who is constantly critical, than from one who only sings the praises of every place they visit.
The reviews here should reflect the diverse tastes of the readers, for good and bad. Smart venue owners appreciate bad reviews at least as much as good ones as it helps them improve their business. Besides which, before advertising on this site they know what they are getting into. Unless things get personal or their is clear proof of people being dishonest or disingenuous then I'd say it's best to leave things be.