Ok, everyone, take a deep breath. There were several signs this thread would angle back toward its original intent of sharing news about the train station attack, but it hasn't fully managed to do that yet. Keep the Forum Guidelines in mind or read them again for the first time here:
www.gokunming.com/en/pages/t/guidelines/.
Alright, exhale.

This thread has been locks for violating the terms of use.

"Forums that veer wildly off topic, devolve into attacks on individuals or groups of people or use abusive language will be removed at the Moderator's discretion. Please remain respectful at all times."

This is from our posting guidelines, which was violated in certain parts of the previous thread. While we very much encourage discourse and constructive debate about living in China, we will not tolerate slander on any portion of the community, foreign or Chinese.

We had received several reports regarding this problem but have so far been unable to pinpoint the problem.

It would help us greatly to resolve this issue if people who have been redirected could specify which page exactly they were visiting and which link they clicked when the bad redirect happened. It will also help to know which operating system and browser were being used.

We appreciate your help.

Regards,

The GoKunming team

The forum was established by the site's founders as a place where people living and/or interested in Yunnan could come together online and discuss things pertinent to living here. Since then it has grown organically as has GK's audience. This means threads are no longer only concerned with things like where to buy cheese or how to get to far-flung places across the province – although discussions such as these still abound.

Navigating forums, as well as moderating them, can be a frustrating and tricky business, not just on GK but pretty much everywhere. The concerns in this thread are fairly universal: trolling, hijacking, needless and unhelpful remarks and attacks. Such annoyances have led many sites to disable their comments entirely, most recently Popular Science:

www.popsci.com/[...]

We have no intention of shutting ours down. We could of course adopt draconian policies or, conversely, leave them completely unpoliced. Neither of those is going to happen. Instead, we are working on an "up/down" vote system so users can express approval or disapproval without resorting to attacks. Also, if any forum or series of comments devolves into two people having a back and forth conversation, it will be locked. Discussions of those types are for the personal messaging system.

Civility is the name of the game and sometimes difficult to maintain. It includes being sensitive to the culture and atmosphere most of us are living in, as well as respecting others' points of view.

Of course, people will disagree about what should and shouldn't be allowed. Tigertiger asks an excellent question above: should a discussion on making yogurt at home have anything to do with Monsanto? Splitting forums is a fine idea and we will look into it. But, at some point, users need to understand their responsibility and accountability in fostering respectful, useful and pertinent dialogue in the forum and comment sections.

We are quite happy there is such a dedicated and lively interest in how the site functions. But if the forums are to remain a place where ideas and opinions can be discussed constructively we all have a part to play in making sure people are not ostracized. This forum is a perfect example of everything we are talking about: a civil discussion marred by attempts at hijacking and trolling, devolving into needless insults. As a result, it is locked.