There's a general tendency for people who moved to Kunming to put on rose-tinted glasses before commenting on the forum about anything in this city.

There is also a tendancy at the other end of the scale for people to release thier frustrations behind the anon of forum ids.
Especially after a BCD.

This to me is totally understandable and, again, it goes with the territory.

Wasn't there a moderator account created so GoKunming staff could reply or address things it felt incorrect or off topic. Deletion of posts and thread locking is literally heavy handed. Feels like a slap in the face to a long time contributor.

BillDan, don't go. The site will be less interesting without your contributions.

Funny that for your closing line you decided to go with "the food in Kunming sucks" — got a bit of a laugh out of me.

As someone new here..adapting to the food hasnt been too enjoyable. One would think that over 5000 years of history the Chinese might have ended up with a slightly better culinary end product than whats on offer today.

But the Chinese think everyone elses food sucks. La duzi seems to be almost compulsory part of the cuisine. No meal is complete without it.
I keep T.P. in the ice box for such occasions.

I find the site quite useful - regardless of the alleged heavy handed censorship. Truthfully, I don't care whether gokm censors me, deletes my comments, or locks my threads. It's their site and as @BillDan notes - we're free to come, free to go - that's the ideal of consumerism.

With you the best - but I don't know of any other comparable KM expat-focused websites - despite the management change, format shuffle, etc - I still like the site and I notice the flaming has been rather muted lately.

I recall a while back that some gokm users were opining the lack of controlled censorship to keep flaming (and spam) minimized, while other's proclaimed the right to unfettered free speech (on gokm's website). I've found the new management responsive - added new and interesting content (eg Roz's Recipes), and generally speaking, the site is rather clean in look and feel, not to mention content - good family entertainment. I don't get gokm generated spam (from the ostensible sales of mailing lists) and most of the restaurant reviews are just general guidelines of varying and debatable bias - great reference information in a pinch (eg phone numbers, addresses, etc).

So, don't care if the staff one day elect to block me, censor me, or even outright ban me - the site is useful, unique, and pleasantly functional...and I also have a real life outside of virtual world.

David from Lost Garden here. I just want to say I appreciate the open forum for discussion of local restaurants and the chance to review them as a guideline for others to use when choosing where to eat. "Kunming food sucks" might be one of the more asinine comments someone could make, but it assists my choice when it comes to listening/reading someone's comments. We're an advertiser on GK and they've been more than helpful to us. We appreciate when they delete flamers' comments when anonymous posters write things like, "they must use second hand oil" and "the bosses are obviously not on site" because its utter libel. If opinions are couched as opinions, then fire away. But if you're a liar and present opinions as facts (e.g. "Kunming food sucks"), then go make your own website, elect yourself administrator and good luck finding people to read it.

"Kunming food sucks" is okay to say because it's of the opinion of said person. Just like "China's internet sucks" is another opinion many have. The people sensitive to such remarks are usually from the industry which is being criticized and I understand that. It is what it is. As they say "Opinions are like assholes. We all have them and they all sink." You are always going to have a bit of both. That being said, just pick and choose which 'opinions' YOU deem suitable and unbiased for you.

dtedheshi, if you couldn't tell that "Kunming food sucks!" is an opinion rather than a fact, then there is no hope.

Anything written in comments on any website and most articles on websites are opinions mixed with facts. The reason that modern media and web portals allow discussion is because they are aware that people may want to express idea's the writer of any piece has not thought of or present opinions that differ.

Unless we are now supposed to say "In my opinion, not wanting to impinge upon the ideals, freedoms or other opinions of my fellow man to whom I also have great respect and admiration for, will willingly listen to and potentially have debates with if they themselves are open and similar minded, it is my belief that Kunming food sucks!"?

Clearly anything written by someone on a website is opinion. And, I believe, you shouldn't censor someone because you don't like their opinion.

I'm not surprised that a restaurant owner jumped into this thread.

When someone writes an article and attaches their name to it, they're much more cautious about any claims they make.

But when you're anonymous, anything goes.

I think it's a bit low to go on a forum and completely trash a place, especially if they do have some redeeming qualities.