Forums > Living in Kunming > Further gokunming feedback You could easily avoid this though with some other cleverness (as other sites do).
For example, the users that post or review on GoKunming are either real or not. Users that are always here posting or reviewing can be considered more real and therefore their ratings are given much more weight.
Conversely people that have only rated or posted once or twice can be considered less of an authority. Anyone that has rated only 1 place should be considered spam, 2 places half spam, only once someone rates 5 times or more can they be considered real. This way you can get a combination of "reviewers authenticity" multiplied by the ratings to create a difficult to influence system. This is just an example of course, you can fudge the numbers to whatever you think is appropriate.
A little maths and tracking what users do (as gokunming does) can be used to increase the functionality and reliability of ratings, so why not do it?
Forums > Living in Kunming > Further gokunming feedback I was just thinking after a posting by Alex, he indicated favourite Kunming eating spots which you could build into your listings section - extending it so it has more functionality.
What I am thinking is you should extend the listing pages to not only be able to refine by type of food (24 hour, American, Bakeries etc) but to include a rating ordering, so we can see the highest rated places first (you could do the tags by star value 5 stars, 4-5 stars, 3-4 stars etc). You would need to come up with a rule probably whereby a place needs to have 3 or more ratings to be able to be included, but setting the rule shouldn't be a problem.
You should also include a map on the listing page that indicates the location of each restaurant by filter.
If you included both functions the listing page for restaurants/activities would include:
Type
Location
Rating
In fact, maybe your default ordering for all listings shouldn't be alphanumeric as well - use the ratings. That way we can see the top rated places in a city just by looking!
Forums > Food & Drink > Kunming Good Eats Ahhh... isn't this what the review/listing section is for?
Forums > Food & Drink > Wasteful Business Lunches When you look at the stats its quite sad about the west though. They estimate 25% of all food is wasted in the west (hard to know here) mostly through the food going past its expiry date (i.e. people throwing out vegetables unused, supermarkets binning old food etc).
If you read up on the subject of food wastage its rather surprising. We could probably all do a lot better than what we do, but we choose not too for a variety of reasons.
An interesting thing I was taught by food scientists (working for a food generation and security NGO) was there is actually enough calorific food value in the human food chain to feed around 12 billion people. The problem is we choose not to use or distribute it equally or wisely for a variety of reasons (political/social/greed etc etc).
Forums > Living in Kunming > Go kunming meet tonight Should advertise a bit earlier if you want one, I only saw this now (10:10pm ready for bed!)
The Box says goodbye
发布者This insane real estate bubble China is in is causing massive pain like this. 22k per month is ridiculous, even more than someone would pay in NY (considering the exchange rate) is even more ridiculous.
Looking around town I see about 50% of lights on in buildings at night, down to 20% in most buildings. Sorry, that's just not feasible long-term in any market anywhere. How long will the bubble continue?
City cracks down on illegal vendors
发布者Don't know why they don't:
1. Set up lots of small areas for them that are along high foot traffic areas.
2. License them - a small licensing fee issued with a clear set of guidelines including times, maximum size of selling area, foot/car traffic impediment clauses, sellers of food can be randomly tested (secret health official customers) etc.
3. Enforce it - but don't be so hardcore. Create a warning system for them - 2 strikes and on the third they are out.
Making the above changes you would think would solve the problem. Illegal vendors then get caught while allowing those that don't cause a public nuisance to continue selling. The shoe is then on the vendors feet - they need to make themselves "up to standard" to continue. But TIC!
Chiang Mai's Chinese invasion
发布者invisible... many countries involved in that and they are just starting (with the easy part - within China). Expect it to open somewhere near the end of the decade (if ever!). The geopolitical issues of giving China a brand new railway into the heart of countries that could be adversaries if the South China seas issue flares up are rather large...
Riding into Kunming's future
发布者Used the new airport recently and it reminded me of HK airport on a smaller scale. A couple of problems though:
1. One of the restaurants there is completely hopeless - it had 6 people trying to figure out a couples bill for about 15 minutes. In this time no one got served, plates were piling up and at least 4 customers (including me) walked out. Very idiotic behaviour yet quite entertaining! This was the western styled place on the left hand side upper level as you walk in.
2. I arrived late at night (1am) and had to wait 45 minutes from the time I arrived at the luggage carousel until the luggage showed up. Not sure what was going on but expect delays if you arrive late I guess, as they probably have to wake the workers up.
The bus service is brilliant, won't use the train until it goes all the way to the city (anyone know if the train is supposed to go on the bridge supports that sudden have no bridge part, which you see on the way in/out of the airport? If thats where the train is going to go, it will be a hell of a long time before it gets to the city...)
Proposed hotel tax eyes Dianchi rehab
发布者Makes complete sense, turn a blind eye to local industry for years who are polluting the waterways which then ruins the tourist value of the lake. Then get the tourists to pay for cleaning up the lake because, darn it, they are the ones who want it to be pretty. China is so full of WTF moments!