@Peter: How would that apply to deciding about the idea of sticking to the point of a discussion on gokunming?

@Peter: No, other than normal visa applications and Immigration controls at entry points, and address etc. registration at the local PBS. Same as you and everybody else on here, I'd guess.

I don't know about this guy, but I'll agree, for what it's worth, that labels get shifted around and acquire new meanings. One example might be the way in which Left and Right have different meanings in Europe and the US, where people who consider themselves on the Right tend to think that the Democratic Party is the Left. All right - but then what do, or can, they do when they try to get their heads around what the Left might mean almost anywhere else? Globally, I think, in most areas, the opinion might be that both the US Democrats and the US Republicans are both right-wing, but no they're not Nazis - with a few exceptions.
Simple bipolar distinctions are useful in some contexts and are destructive to clear thought in others - categories are never universally perfect, but you can't think without them - computers can do 0/1, but then they can't go beyond it without human intervention.

No attempt to control, but an plea for a consensus that allows everyone to have the kind of discussion he/she wants to have. My use of -1 almost always simply means "I can't figure out the relevance of what you're saying" - if I agree or disagree with it, I'll say so, and usually say why. So I rarely use +1.
I appreciate gokunming's attitude concerning all this.

If you only want a moan from lousy expats you can have it, but I don't think I'm the only one who has other interests as well. Why not start a Lousy Expat Moan thread? I'll moan, and complain about other people's personalities there too. Seems to me that's why there are different topics in the first place. These forums can be virtually anything we want them to be, and it's unsurprising that different people have different interests and attitudes.