My apologies if this is obvious to others, but it wasn't to me until recently.
I think one reason that the forums often seem off track and therefore discourage many possible contributors - there are admittedly other reason for this, like irrelevant or angry posts etc. - one reason is that on at least some twinkyphones and perhaps other computers the posts appear with the most recent post at the top of the list. Now, in any discussion or conversation or presentation of anythiing more complicated than a simple fact, the most recent statements (posts) can only make sense in the context of the previous discussion/conversation/whatever, without which the most recent post can appear completely meaningless or pointless. On my computer, at least, the OLDEST posts appear first, so that I can follow the progress of the discussion - but a person searching under a topic such as, e.g., Carrefour may access the thread only to find that the first post he sees is something about boiling drinking water, and so gives up on the thread in confusion and perhaps disgust, and swears off gokunming forums as useless - whearas, if seen in context (i.e., at the end of a long line of posts that led up to the discussion of drinking water), it all might make some kind of sense.
Point is, you can't follow a conversation very well if you must do so backwards, or a line of reasoning by starting at the end.
I don't know the technical side of this and I don't use twinkyphones to access gokunming or anything else, so I don't know how one might be assured that things don't appear backwards or out of context, but I do think this is a real problem with the forums. Hopefull there can be a solution, so that gokunming (and we, the frequent posters) don't drive away people who are actually trying to gain the discussions or facts that are the rationale for having forums in the first place.
Fact is, the forums now have very few frequent contributors, and there used to be many more, frequent and otherwise. If there are to only be very few of us, we might as well start a small private chatgroup among ourselves somewhere else, where we will entertain/inform/annoy no one else. For myself, however, I value the IDEA (at least) of open public discussion/criticism/whatever of virtually everything (unfortunately but necessarily subject to the Powers That Be).

I noticed that when I need to do some research on something, if I google it and end up on a forum, I don't want to sift through bs. I want access to information directly related to what I have looked up. And I appreciate when people stay on topic.

So I stand guilty as charged of messing up this forum. I have posted way too much off-topic garbage and useless blurbs.

And I will refrain from posting further. Forums should allow folks to find information when they google something. No one should have to sift through drivel.

Again, my apologies.

It shouldn't be very difficult technically to expand the vote system from one pair of up/down buttons to multiple up/down buttons, elaborating the reasons behind the votes:

One pair for "very much on topic / very much off topic".

One pair for "I agree / I disagree".

One pair for "I dislike the poster / I like the poster".

One pair for "I have a bad day / I have a good day".

etc.

Then readers could filter posts according to that - for example if someone wants to only read comments that are on topic, allow them to only see posts that are "very much on topic", or at least exclude those that are "very much off topic".

Added benefit is that having multiple voting buttons would make life more entertaining for those who maybe just like to click things.

Good suggestions. Other possible downvoting buttons:

"I'm jealous because the other poster is getting more attention than me."

"I'm immature."

Attn @GoKunming: As others have already noted, the downvoting patterns recently have been strange. Looking at the following pages, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that someone is deliberately sabotaging the forums through abuse of the voting system:

www.gokunming.com/[...]
www.gokunming.com/[...]
www.gokunming.com/[...]
www.gokunming.com/[...]

If you log IP addresses, it might be worth seeing whether more than one of the responsible accounts are originating from the same IP. You could also check whether there are a number of recently-created accounts that do nothing but downvote virtually every post.

@herenow
The Gokm administrative staff are quite aware, if they choose or wish to followup -

through IP logging. All websites have this feature. That's how google's clickads work - IP address tracking.

I doubt it's one person doing bit deliberately. They'd have to be very OCD or a skilled hacker

@michael2015 wrote: "...through IP logging. All websites have this feature."

Pretty much any website has the option to log IPs, but some websites decline to do so in order to afford more privacy to their users.

@cloudtrapezer wrote: "I doubt it's one person doing bit deliberately. They'd have to be very OCD or a skilled hacker."

Creating a dozen sockpuppet accounts requires no more special skills than each of us here used to create our own accounts. The entire operation, including all the downvotes on the pages I linked above, could be completed in under half an hour by someone with an axe to grind.

Maybe tiger deserves the upvotes. Cant recall him _ever_ creating any fuss, or being part. Now he is slowly starting to emerge as sage, well deserved, through the chaos of gokunming. Who could have seen that?

Share us your wisdom tiger, what is the meaning of life? What shall we pursue in life? Even your silence will be appreciated, holy one.