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[Lao Jia Hou]

I have never been able to figure out why MCM is sensitive to certain words. However, it seems to be the practice of MCM members to "disquise" them, so I just step into line, like the little sheep I am.

I visit other websites in China, some quite popular (e.g,. The Beijinger), and T and V are both openly discussed. I also recall reading a recent article from the Global Times (government run news outlet) about some crackdown on VeePeNs (I think the crackdown lasted .... hmmmm ... a week?). Humorously, the advertising banner at the top of the Global Times webpage was for a V company. Here's a link.

I also lurk around Chinese MC websites and there are dozens of threads on T rides, and T experiences.

I also think that CC, the webmaster, is a pretty sharp tack who would know what is going on. I just consider the members' practice here as being no different from those places that say "jacket & tie required"

Anyways, it all begs the question ... I wonder if you can get a V in T?

[ZMC888]

I have never been able to figure out why MCM is sensitive to certain words. However, it seems to be the practice of MCM members to "disquise" them, so I just step into line, like the little sheep I am.

I visit other websites in China, some quite popular (e.g,. The Beijinger), and T and V are both openly discussed. I also recall reading a recent article from the Global Times (government run news outlet) about some crackdown on VeePeNs (I think the crackdown lasted .... hmmmm ... a week?). Humorously, the advertising banner at the top of the Global Times webpage was for a V company. Here's a link.

I also lurk around Chinese MC websites and there are dozens of threads on T rides, and T experiences.

I also think that CC, the webmaster, is a pretty sharp tack who would know what is going on. I just consider the members' practice here as being no different from those places that say "jacket & tie required"

Anyways, it all begs the question ... I wonder if you can get a V in T?

This is a motorcycling forum so why have political discussions on this site and tempt fate? OK so all those other sites 'Beijing Cream' etc have V ads, and discuss political stuff, but for them that's 'on topic' loads more users and walking the line are often told to remove certain sensitive things and often have to change their hosts even though they are mostly just translations of the most extreme Chinese political stories allowable. Sure mention T and X fully when we are talking about riding there, that's on topic. Unless we want to turn this into a 'Daves Esl Cafe', where losers bitch and argue crap off topic all day on a China theme and give the admin a bunch of hassle. Also certain IP addresses, different regions, different connection speeds all have different GFW protocols. You could easily get a site blocked from an internet cafe in Beijing, but perfectly viewable on a home PC in Shanghai. So why risk less visibility?

[bikerdoc]

^ditto to ZMC888's comments.
I just wanted to add that my wife (who's father was S3CR3T p0lice [retired] which is good otherwise his daughter and I would not be allowed to marry etc.) participates very actively on a range of micr0 - bl0gs in Ch!na. Even her father is a little bit of a critic over the govt and the C C C P, though he is still a member.
A lot of the topics are very sensitive, and I warn her, though she is not silly. She doesn't actively outright criticise the central govt et al. instead she links to others that might. My warnings are heeded, but as she points out, anything sensitive doesn't remain available for long (minutes to hours at most), as the chumps in the GFW castle make sure that anything that could bring about d!scord or d!sharmony, or otherwise is deemed sensitive is swiftly removed.

[bigdamo]

I have never been able to figure out why MCM is sensitive to certain words. However, it seems to be the practice of MCM members to "disquise" them, so I just step into line, like the little sheep I am.

I visit other websites in China, some quite popular (e.g,. The Beijinger), and T and V are both openly discussed. I also recall reading a recent article from the Global Times (government run news outlet) about some crackdown on VeePeNs (I think the crackdown lasted .... hmmmm ... a week?). Humorously, the advertising banner at the top of the Global Times webpage was for a V company. Here's a link.

I also lurk around Chinese MC websites and there are dozens of threads on T rides, and T experiences.

I also think that CC, the webmaster, is a pretty sharp tack who would know what is going on. I just consider the members' practice here as being no different from those places that say "jacket & tie required"

Anyways, it all begs the question ... I wonder if you can get a V in T?

Emm Chinese nationals are allowed to enter freely the Big t and comment on it Emm how many foreigners made it into the big t last season.How many Chinese nationals commented negatively on the Big T.None that I know of.They certainly don't go around taking photo's of the people in charge for want of a better word.

[Lain]

OK, lets all take a step back. My points were not to get into a political discussion, but to merely point out that this site is not a threat of any sort, and self censors even more than Chinese people do ON CHINESE WEBSITES, where "management" of content is viewed with an eagle eye. I also made note, several times of the apparent hypocritical nature of when to self censor..which apparently does not apply to the TIC section, where I read comments about everything across the political spectrum from, political scandals, to N. k0r3ah to the 1$land disputes..which are ALL pretty hot topics at the moment...but I digress.

I have stated, and will state it again. There is a built in word filter for this forum, SURELY at least 1 person has admin access to the forum and can easily solve this and any future issues related to key words by simply using it.If this is the problem that some believe that it is, than as mentioned to me...take some time to perform some "due diligence" and well, use it! Everyone will be protected, no accidentally forgetting to talk in tongues, no bashing the newb's for secret rules and even better a sense of safety for the site members who fear the consequences of open speech, even when its not derogatory. The tool is free, runs automatically..just set it and forget it.

[Lao Jia Hou]

My point was/is, albeit probably poorly articulated, I simply don't know how far discussing any sensitive topic is permitted/not permitted by the authorities. I've never given it much thought, aside from the appearance that many expat sites seem not to have any problems. Nevertheless, I've heard a rumor that one well-known expat site was recently chastised by the authorities for going too far, after several expat members became a bit too threatening.

However, as others note, it appears to be that MCM has a type of self-discipline which discourages outright political discussion. That is perfectly fine for me, whether it is allowed or disallowed, because I am completely disinterested in politics. My point was that MCM has an "unofficial rule" where one needs to "dress accordingly." It shouldn't be necessary to ban sensitive words. There might actually be legitimate uses for them (e.g., ride reports, travel permit status, viewing Ut2be videos, etc).

If one wants a motorcycle forum where there are many controversial topics that are widely open for discussion, one can visit "The Basement" in a well-known MC forum. Always good for an entertaining laugh, if you don't take anything seriously, and keep a chastity belt on your mom.

[ZMC888]

OK, lets all take a step back. My points were not to get into a political discussion, but to merely point out that this site is not a threat of any sort, and self censors even more than Chinese people do ON CHINESE WEBSITES, where "management" of content is viewed with an eagle eye. I also made note, several times of the apparent hypocritical nature of when to self censor..which apparently does not apply to the TIC section, where I read comments about everything across the political spectrum from, political scandals, to N. k0r3ah to the 1$land disputes..which are ALL pretty hot topics at the moment...but I digress.

I have stated, and will state it again. There is a built in word filter for this forum, SURELY at least 1 person has admin access to the forum and can easily solve this and any future issues related to key words by simply using it.If this is the problem that some believe that it is, than as mentioned to me...take some time to perform some "due diligence" and well, use it! Everyone will be protected, no accidentally forgetting to talk in tongues, no bashing the newb's for secret rules and even better a sense of safety for the site members who fear the consequences of open speech, even when its not derogatory. The tool is free, runs automatically..just set it and forget it.

I really can't understand what it is with you. Let me try again.....

- We all know there is a minimum danger using certain key words.
- We don't want to police or monitor the use those words, merely ask that those certain words not be used unnecessarily.
- We nearly all know the content of the Wikipedia entry on how the GFW works. Many of us are aware of, and have personally seen much higher levels of monitoring and control than that.
- Nobody likes a 'know-it-all' especially a noob, who seems desperate to disseminate knowledge to 'educate' others on things they already fricken know or is even wrong about.

[bikerdoc]

Lain, there is another aspect you might like to bear in mind and that is there is a myriad of possibilities when it comes to personal circumstances and how those circumstances might and can dictate everything about ones life here inside Ch!na. I hadn't realised how much suppress!on!st activities can impact my life until I was outside Ch!na for 3 months last year. While I was abroad I viewed all the social m3dia websites you mentioned at one time of another, and I was taken aback at just seamless that access was. I have used V P Ns here over the years, my last worked for nearly the whole 12 months of my subscription, but then it stopped and never got it to work again.

I myself live in a government compound. That is a 48 Canadian designed (and Chinese butchered) villas, 24 of which are rented out directly by the government and up until very recent times had strict renting selection criteria that required substantial foreign financial investment in company setup (e.g. business investment of JV, WOFE/WFOE et al.) before a foreign representative of said company e.g. CEO, Managing Director, GM was allowed to rent one of the 24 villas. The other 24 villas, are for direct government use, mainly entertaining and temporary accommodation of visiting officials from the provincial and central governments. Following the great financial crisis [GFC] in which many foreigners left, the majority pulled out by their companies, were then replaced by localisation of those vacant positions.

The villa compound rental selection criteria was relaxed to encourage utilisation, as many villas became empty. Now rich (many arrogant IMHO) Chinese have snapped up many of the 24 villas, and spent ridiculous amounts of money redecorating these villas (read: redecorating costs of upwards of 1 million CNY/RMB) and entered into some long rental leases (5-10 years). The interesting thing is that only the foreigners (which also includes the few Taiwanese and Hong Kong-nese renting here) are allowed (read: tolerated) to have satell!te dishes/TV. Remember satell!te TV is illegal (it might come as a surprise to you), as is GPS; adding waypoints or retaining co-ordinates without specific approval of the relevant mapping section of the govt. dept. or carrying any type of mapp!ng activities.

In relation to satell!te dishes/TV, each year the responsible government here issues a notice to the compound management advising of the impending inspection to make sure no satellite TV's are in use. The compound management, carries out a pre-inspection before the official inspection to make sure that any viewable dishes from the driveways of said villas are out sight. Generally speaking all the dishes are already obscured by strategically placed shrubbery, bushes or trees. The official inspection is undertaken, all boxes are ticked and everyone goes about ones business again.

We are also provided with internet though it is basically a form of intranet, which is monitored perhaps to a lesser or greater degree than a ADSL direct from Ch!na t3l3com. I also work for a government/private hospital with government supplied intranet/internet, and I can tell you Lain that many websites that I can usually access at home I at times cannot access in my office at varying times. Such websites include many innocuous sites such as one Australian university website (for doctorate studies I'm involved in). Last year I had access for several weeks at the start of the academic year, then without any reason access was denied for several weeks (frustrating as hell). Interestingly enough, another Australian university website remained accessible during the whole period.

My point is simple, I self moderate/p0lice myself on this and other websites, especially those with servers based in Ch!na. It may not be required, but having witnessed various suspress!onist activities (including websites DNS) at varying times in my more than one decade here, to me it is simply exercising my self imposed due diligence. You might consider it paranoia. I don't.

As I have stated, there is much more to this soc!ety if you scratch beneath the surface. Some foreigners have no appreciation at just how complex everything is here, and carry on completely absent minded. If only "they" knew. Everything in Ch!na is just for looking, for nothing is as it seems, beAware the smoke and mirrors - author: me.

[felix]

What a spineless display of self censorship, the 50 cent party would be proud. So now even the word sensitive is sensitive? You guys are hilarious. But why stop at replacing every letter i with a !, here are a few more rules to make sure we please our favorite censorship bureau:

- no more mention of china, regardless what the name of this forum is. Just to be safe.
- new official language for the forum is Swahili, a much less threatening language and one that has been used in very few revolutions
- sʇuǝpıssıp ʎq pɐǝɹ ǝq ʇ,uɐɔ ɥɔıɥʍ 'uʍop ǝpısdn ʍou sı ʇxǝʇ llɐ

Of course let's make sure these rules are buried deep in a thread so that we don't miss a chance to shoot noobs down for not using the search button, which incidentally is about as useful as tits on a nun.

Ok just to make my point clear, you guys are the only ones offended by these words, the GFW doesn't give a shit what new contrived way you can think of spelling them. As Lain said there are sensitive words repeated hundreds of times on this forum, so either get rid of all of them or stop having a fit about it.

Funny how irritable bikers are in the winter...

[ZMC888]

What a spineless display of self censorship, the 50 cent party would be proud. So now even the word sensitive is sensitive? You guys are hilarious. But why stop at replacing every letter i with a !, here are a few more rules to make sure we please our favorite censorship bureau:

- no more mention of china, regardless what the name of this forum is. Just to be safe.
- new official language for the forum is Swahili, a much less threatening language and one that has been used in very few revolutions
- sʇuǝpıssıp ʎq pɐǝɹ ǝq ʇ,uɐɔ ɥɔıɥʍ 'uʍop ǝpısdn ʍou sı ʇxǝʇ llɐ

Of course let's make sure these rules are buried deep in a thread so that we don't miss a chance to shoot noobs down for not using the search button, which incidentally is about as useful as tits on a nun.

Ok just to make my point clear, you guys are the only ones offended by these words, the GFW doesn't give a shit what new contrived way you can think of spelling them. As Lain said there are sensitive words repeated hundreds of times on this forum, so either get rid of all of them or stop having a fit about it.

Funny how irritable bikers are in the winter...

Hey guys! There's a thing called the internet, you can use it by using a thing called a browser to go places that you like. Also motorcycles have things called engines, they make it go forward by using gasoline. I thought I'd write like 30 posts in three days to tell you guys about it, as I think I'm real clever so you dumb asses wouldn't know. Bye, love from noob. I think you're largely missing the point Felix.

So you agree with Lain? But Lain is wrong, he knows like you do, what you read on Wikipedia. Sorry if it puts your nose out of joint to find peoples actual first-hand experiences do not match up and then have points of view that might seem over zealous. The GFW dosn't use bots, they (in my provincial capital based out of the university) scan your freakin connection when you use the web to fish for words they don't like or think they might not like. Then that text is then tracked back to the IP that it came from. Then that IP may then be blocked. OK, so it isn't that likely, but why push it when we are writing off topic? Why keep on about it when you've already been asked not to? Why presume every internet connection is the same?