Re: China Travel Discussion List

I'm sorry to add to the background noise here, and I'll post only once
on this thread in response to some of the remarks following my last
post.

The Oriental-List has a simple set of guidelines which are provided to
members when they join. The aim is to provide a forum for the
intelligent discussion of China travel (and only that) without the
background noise of clashing egos, impertinence, intolerance, and
irrelevance found in so many postings here and on other unmoderated
forums.

Those who dislike the guidelines, perhaps preferring to wade through
spam and the kind of abuse that has followed the original posting on
this occasion, are under no compulsion whatsoever to join. If they do
join then there's nothing to prevent them continuing to post comment
unsuitable for the list in other forums. If they dislike the guidelines
for posting on The Oriental-List, then leaving it again is easy and
quick. All that is asked, as a courtesy to several hundred other
members, is that those who do join then post according to the
guidelines.

Places to discuss China travel on the Internet were few when the list
was started more than eight years ago, but are now very numerous, and
come and go all the time. They continue to exist whether or not The
Oriental-List does, and vice versa, and all have equal right to do so,
although others here seem to want to suppress The Oriental-List.

Alfred Molon, who seems determined to bring his own lack of courtesy to
the attention of this forum at every opportunity, has already been
answered twice here on precisely the same point, and I'm sorry to give
readers of this group the tedium of revisiting this topic yet again.

Having joined the list he refused to pay any attention to its
guidelines, and made a posting which contained material expressly
discouraged there: the list does not accept queries easily answered by
looking in guide books or on-line sources. Rec.travel.asia and
innumerable other on-line forums happily take any old question on China,
but The Oriental-List attempts to be supplementary to these forums. I'm
happy to hear he found satisfaction at Lonely Planet, although the last
time he posted on this topic he blamed The Oriental-List for the fact
that he hadn't found what he was looking for.

As has been stated twice before, his posting was not simply "blocked",
but returned with a suggestion for editing, and further suggestions on
how to repost his other queries so as to get the best response. He
preferred to sulk instead, and intermittently to post here his complaint
that the list wouldn't change just to suit him. Unfortunately its
several hundred other members have different ideas.

The list is strictly non-commercial, although members who provide
fulsome and useful information are welcome to mention their businesses
briefly in a sig. file. They are not permitted to write self-promotional
postings, although some leeway is given to authors of books on China to
announce new titles and new editions.

Speaking of guide books alone, in recent times the authors, editors,
updaters, or contributors to China-related guides by Moon, Lonely
Planet, Frommer's, Insight, Cadogan, Odyssey, Bradt, Rough Guides, and
Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness to all of parts of China have all been
members of the list. The membership also includes freelance and staff
journalists for a number of newspapers and magazines across Asia, North
America, and Europe, including several based in China itself.

The moderator has written or contributed to China guides by four of the
publishers listed above, and also contributed China stories to
newspapers on the same three continents. This is hardly a "dark" secret,
but nor is it relevant to the list. Postings critical of some of these
titles appear, and many members publicly disagree with the moderator on
all kinds of travel-related topics, and are welcome to do so. In general
any posting is welcome as long as it is polite, on topic, not too brief,
not easily answered by looking in guide books, not too vague ("I've got
two weeks in China. Where should I go?"), and is signed, if only with a
pseudonym.

Those who find this all too restrictive have absolutely no need to pay
The Oriental-List any attention at all and will no doubt continue to
make use of rec.travel.asia, Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree, the discussion
boards of other publishers, etc., (and presumably without complaining
that most of these are indeed large-scale self-promotional commercial
enterprises).

At the moment the list is thriving, but if it ceased to exist tomorrow
that wouldn't matter. For now its several hundred members, many resident
in China and many expert in China travel, welcome others of like mind
who want detailed, even-tempered, on-topic discussion of travel in
China, without name-calling, abuse, or michief-making.

Moderator
The Oriental-List

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