Ways to Delete Your Comments

From time to time, I receive request to delete a comment they have made on this blog. There are not many. I would say about 10 – 20 request so far.

The major reason of the delete request is, when they search for their name on Google or other search engine, they found their comments they made maybe long time ago. They no longer feel comfortable to see the sometimes “silly” or “out of date” comment on this blog. So they drop me an email to ask me to delete them.

It is fine. And I am willing to help.

However, there are also other people who take another approach.

So please, reply to me and ensure me everything will be very soon deteled

Otherwise, I am forced to contact a lawyer.

The format was included in the original email.

Hmm… I still help to delete one comment that match his/her email address. For many other comments he/she mentioned, it is just a comment with the same “first name” and it obviously belong to other people, I just leave it.

We are here to help but many people mention lawyer, or other strong words in the first email. I just don’t feel comfortable. Who cares about lawyers, just because someone else with same first name or you, or your friends posted a comment on some blog under the term and condition of the blog?

Top Commenter of 6 Years

I am presenting this Top Commenter of the Last 6 Years award to a group of unbelievable persons. In the last 6 years, my readers are with me and created this great community to talk about important things in life, setting a bridge between China and the rest of the world.

These people wrote most comments in the last 6 years, since Sept 11, 2002, to Sept 10, 2008. The first line of the list is the name of the commenter, and the number behind it are the number of comments this person posted on this blog in the last 6 years.

stephen 538

carsten 428

Carroll 269

Shrek7 234

AussiePB 197

jqian 168

wonton 165

bigbro 159

bellevue 132

James 128

DC 120

WilliamW 118

Давид 113

John 111

david 109

Elaine 108

earthmilk 103

shirley 101

Ben 98

Michael 89

JH 83

ILH 81

DB 80

Kevin 76

Ling 75

caroline 75

Chris 74

oncerest 73

Steve 70

Tony 69

Lu Heli 68

solopolo 67

Mike 67

Peter 65

PC 63

Nick 62

elliottng 62

xge 61

zhang 59

tutu 58

Micah 57

xu 56

Grace 56

mac 55

luo 55

Jerry 55

George 55

Mark 54

Joyce 54

Bob 53

Lee 52

Jie Lun 51

Alex 50

Richard Hong 48

Bill 47

Anna 47

Victor 45

tom 45

mcgjcn 45

Shockr 44

Sam 44

Rogi 44

Dave 44

Claudia Frias 44

Ali 44

Herbert 43

Dave G. 43

dezza 42

jack 41

susan 40

Paul Ayala 40

Jason 40

zjemi 39

Roger 38

Patrick 38

loretta 37

lin 37

Frank 37

ecodelta 37

Paul 36

mei 36

Andrew 36

boran 35

Michelle 34

Joshua Allen 34

Bovemanm 34

bingfeng 33

Jing 32

GN 32

Eric 32

DKwan 32

Annie 32

ddjiii 31

Brad 31

Shane 30

Martin 30

joel 30

JL 30

Jimmy 30

David.S 30

Dan 30

Among all the first 100 candidate, I am presenting the Top Commenter of 6 Years to the following people:

stephen 538

carsten 428

Carroll 269

As you may already realize, two or more different users may use the same name, I have a small feature that use different color to represent different email addresses (without disclosing the email addresses) for the same name. Click the name to see their comments to find it out. I ever thought about whether I should use email address to sort and count, and then map it back to display name. Finally, I think, since the blog is all about share and contribution, it does not matter to have many people rewarded under the same nick name. In the case of my blog, most of the comments of the winning nickname are posted by the same person.

When I celebrated my 6 years of blogging, I said I do want to do something special for this community. There is at least one thing I can do – to get a small award to my readers who contributed so much to this blog to make the conversation going, so it is not a one way street. For many topics that I don’t have enough knowledge on, I just started the thread, and my passionate readers completed the rest. What is wonderful.

Congratulations for this “Top Commenter of 6 Years” Award.

Seek for Some Guidance

Recently, I feel that I am too much far away from this city and far away from my reader community.

The business was almost the whole part of my life, and Yifan is another important part. Even Wendy and I didn’t get any time to get together to watch movie…

I feel far from the city because, I just realized that I didn’t take metro for a long time – I just drive, and I didn’t take bus in the last few months. I am far away from restaurants, and from friends these days.

For my reader’s community, I feel I am more disconnected than before. Do you feel the same?

I just want to seek for some guidance from the readers of my blog, whom I trust a lot, and sometimes may understand me better than myself.

What is your suggestions or observation?

Don’t Leave, AussiePB

One of my reader AussiePB was very offended on this blog today. AssiePB has been here for a almost two months, if I count from his first comment on August 9, 2007. He left a comment and said good bye to this community.

Hi Jian Shuo – it is with great regret that after a very long time following your blogs and enjoying open and friendly discussion, I will no longer be visiting your site… unfortunately, it has attracted a person with very low intellect and even lesser moral fibre. Good luck to you and your family, I will keep in touch via email. Keep up the good work and positive attitude going – I hope that the racism desists here in the future!! Kindest regards, AussiePB…

Posted by: AussiePB on September 23, 2007 7:21 PM

Unfortunately, this is not surprising for me, since I have seen this happens before, when a passionate reader put their heart into discussion and only found out this is not the right place to discuss the issue. I feel bad about it.

So let me write something about it. For AussiePB, but not only him.

First, I don’t Want AussiePB to Leave

During the first interact with AussiePB, when he commented on the coins, I start to know him, and so do all my other readers. I share the happiness of AussiePB’s new arrival baby, as he enjoys my happiness of having Yifan. We even exchanged photos of his son. From his comments, we know he is from Australia, and he has a nice Chinese wife, and enjoy their lives in Shanghai.

This is a typical story of one of thousands of readers of this blog – a real person who is passionate about life, and happen to gather around this little blog.

I don’t want AussiePB leave us. If he feels he needs to leave, so does many other readers.

Secondly, Tolerance is the Survival Tool on this Blog

I have to say, there is no other suggestion than tolerance to my readers when there is a conflict.

For my readers who have been to this blog long enough, we have witness so many cases that people throw all kinds of negative things to this blog. I don’t want to name it, but remember that someone from California came to the site and write a comment on every new blog article, and claiming I am a government agent and try to fool this world? I remember I have about two months or so time to see this kind of comment as the first thing in the morning. Beside that, there are many controversial discussion on this blog, that discuss get heated up. So, I am not surprised.

In this situation, I believe ignore the comments you don’t like is the only way, or the right way.

Thirdly, I don’t Delete Any Comment

Even in these situations, my readers have guided me and helped me to ensure myself that no-delete-comment policy is the right way to go. I have a strict policy on this blog that I do NOT delete any comment as long as it is readable, and it is not a spam.

Sometimes to delete a comment is the most convenient thing for me to do, or even ban some IPs, or keyword. MovableType has that cool function. However, no matter how convenient this action is, it is against the spirit of free speech, and free flow of information. I am not 100% confident about my own judgment of what is right or what is wrong. That is the value I get from comment section.

Lastly, I do NOT Allow Personal Attack

I also have the guideline that you can say whatever you believe is right, but it is definitely not allowed to make personal attack to anyone. That leads the discussion to nowhere.

So My Wishes…

In short, this blog is a place for people from different countries, from different angles to gather and discuss the same topic that people happen to like to discuss: Events (in Shanghai or China) that affect our lives. I value this place so much since I could not find any place that people can discuss so openly and honestly.

It was amazing for me to see a comment system even without registration or email confirmation works so well in the last 5 years, that it is seldom (in percentage) abused. That is the beauty I love to put 30 minutes or 1 hour to this blog every day. It helps to change the world (for a little bit).

So, I’d like people (like AssiePB) to stay, and I will feel frustrated if people just get offended by any of the discussion. It happens, so as I suggested, ignore it, and go on. Do not repeatedly post on the same topic for more than twice if you feel there is some person who don’t understand you.

Anyway, we are adults, and it is not possible to change anyone, especially using comments. It is not only waste of efforts, and also dangers (we see enough time in all kinds of BBS that any effort to change another poster often lead to flaming threads).

This blog is prepared for people who like to express, and more importantly, people who like to listen. Let me use my favorite story The Blind Men and The Elephant again. We are just blind men in this world. No matter how ridiculous or naive, or no-brainer, or making-no-sense the other person is saying, it may be one angle for the same thing. I said MAYBE, but who knows…

Let me add my final comment. If I look back to my entries in 2002, 2003, and 2004, I cannot believe I wrote that, since my point of view was changed so much by intensive traveling, by reading comments on this blog, and by talking with people from different countries. Who knows how my thoughts or your comment-fighting-partner’s thoughts may change in the future.

So, if you enjoy it, keep on commenting, and if you don’t enjoy a comment or two, ignore it and go on the another topic. That is just my 2 cents on this issue.

P.S. By asking AssiePB to stay, I didn’t imply wonton is wrong. Wonton, I read your comments, and got many of your points. People in China, like me, share the same frustration as you have. We are trying to building a better country while someone is holding us back, or ban it. This is reality. As a 3rd party in this case, I feel that you and AssiePB are holding different part of the same elephant – China.

Thank You for Your Comment

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Thank you for your comment.

Your comment has been received and recorded.

It will appear after one minute. Please be patient and allow the system to update your comment to the entry you commented on and onto the homepage of my blog.

Is Community Blog a Good Idea?

Some readers suggested me to open a community blog section on my blog. That is, a blog hosting service that enables active community members on this blog to post their own experience in Shanghai on this blog and share with other Shanghai expats, visitors or travelers.

With this the MovableType 4, I have the ability to offer every blog reader the same blog hosting service and everyone can post to this blog using the same interface as I am using and manage the comments as I do. I believe it will be under different URL though, like http://wangijanshuo.com/<username>, where username is a name chosen by the poster. That means, everyone’s blog is still separate but can be presented on the home page after aggregation.

I know I have the best community about Shanghai so far. Although I didn’t implement any community features like user registration, or profile, or BBS (there is a not so working one), the community feeling of Wangjianshuo’s blog is very strong. Sometimes I feel it is hard to believe to run a community with such a simple way – just anonymous comments, and most commenter didn’t abuse the freedom to be able to post freely.

I there is a community blog feature, I can ask those who plan to visit Shanghai to start to write a small blog during their trip in Shanghai, or those who just relocated to Shanghai to describe their lives, or local Shanghainese to share their favorites or tricks about this city – it is a much more powerful community than the current one man show.

I know everyone has wonderful experience about Shanghai. There are a lot to share. So this can be a good idea.

To make this idea more solid, we have to ask the question: why blog here, instead of thousands of blogging hosting sites? I will try to answer this question this way: It is not about a hosting service. It is all about the community, or who are the readers. Here there are many people interested in Shanghai and the same interest will gather people together as a community, instead of the same tool, isn’t it?

I also have concerns about the idea. I posted Shall I Open a Shanghai BBS before, and then opened a Shanghai BBS at http://bbs.wangjianshuo.com. This actually didn’t work, and I am thinking about shutting it down sometime. The key problem is, I don’t have the bandwidth to manage it, or generate content or answer every question there in a more timely manner than for the comments on blog.

Hmm… Let me think about this and postpone actions. Do you have any idea about this? Whether it is good or bad idea?

OK. Let me do it this way. Let me do a short survey with just three questions:

1. If I offer a blog hosting service that you can own a Shanghai blog at http://wangjianshuo.com/yourname, will you consider that? (I think I will only accept people who don’t have a blog somewhere else, since I know it is almost impossible to maintain more than one blog. Trust me. I know how hard it is).

2. If you think it is a good idea, what kind of writers do you think is the best choice?

3. Any other thoughts about this ideas?

Please post your answer in the comment section. Thanks a lot.

Top Commenter of the Month (2007H1)

When was the last time I published my Top Commenter of the Month? I guess it is Sept, 2006. Old readers of this blog knows, that I publish Top Commenter of the month from time to time in 2005 to 2006 and to recognize to the top contributors of this blog.

Why I have this award? Simply because I owe my readers a big THANK YOU for your comments, your thoughts, your contribution to this blog that make it so unique today. I feel bad that I paused this very important award for sometime – almost one year. Today is the opportunity for me to pick it up.

This time, let me summarize all the top commenters in H1 of 2007, just like what I did in 2006H1.

Jan 2007

stephen 21

Shrek7 21

carsten 16

Давид 15

solopolo 12

Charlie 8

SSC 8

mcgjcn 7

twang 7

Feb 2007

Давид 20

rio 14

stephen 8

Shrek7 8

ericsson 6

Indra 3

DC 3

liujie 3

federico 3

shirley 3

horsoon 3

Herbert 3

swany 3

tom 3

March 2007

carsten 20

ben 13

Давид 11

Shrek7 9

joyce 8

Jianfeng 8

Herbert 7

lionroars 7

oncerest 6

DC 6

stephen 6

April 2007

Shockr 19

Jianfeng 11

Jet So 10

DC 8

ddjiii 8

CJ 6

John 6

Elaine 6

Давид 5

David 5

fujianren 5

Herbert 5

tw 5

Yanqing Chen 5

May 2007

Давид 8

stephen 8

DC 8

ben 7

Shrek7 7

502forever 5

ALi 4

joyce 4

chez 4

Jun 2007

stephen 15

Elaine 14

Давид 10

AussiePB 8

Shrek7 7

Carroll 6

jw023 6

cube316 4

Jennifer 4

Joe 4

ester 4

Michael 4

DC 4

ALi 4

swany 4

ZJ 4

Jul 2007

Shrek7 8

DC 8

xge 6

stephen 6

David 5

Claudia Frias 5

George747 5

ilya 5

Давид 4

AussiePB 4

shirley 4

bob 4

Herbert 4

ddjiii 4

Thank you!

Please Don’t Add me on MSN Messenger

I have my email published on my home page – on the right columns, so readers, or friends who lost my email address can contact me. I am open to emails, and welcome your feedbacks. Many people just send me a thank you note, or a compliment letter, which made me very happy. I receive several emails everyday about Shanghai questions, and I answer most of them – I do have to ignore some when the question is too technical (like help me to fix this webcam driver problem), or hard to answer.

I want to make it clear that although the hotmail address is also my MSN, please do not try to add it to your MSN Messenger. As you can imagine, there are too many people doing that, and I see several notification boxes to add someone everyday. My MSN Messenger has already been full for a long time – more than two years ago.

Just now I received email to complain that he/she never saw me on MSN Messenger. I want to make it clear now that please don’t expect me to accept every request. Email is still preferred way to reach me, or even mobile when it is really urgent, but not MSN. I don’t like to use MSN since if I do, my time is completely hooked up with MSN, especially with chat starting with “May I know you? What do you do? How old are you, can you tell me?”…

To set the clear expectation is at least better than disappointment.

Contact Me

Thank you for spending time on my “little blog”. I hope you enjoy reading the articles.

If you want to contact me, just send me an email at

jianshuo at hotmail dot com

I check my email daily, and your email will be read (if it does not mistakenly put into the Junk Mail folder of my Hotmail).

The best way to contact me is via email, but if it is important or urgent, you can also reach me via:

Phone

My mobile phone is +86-13916146826 (you need to add your own country’s prefix to dial out of your country)

Don’t forget that I am in Shanghai, at time zone +0800. Please check the current Shanghai time before dialing.

Mail

Anybody still uses postal mail? If you do, here it is:

Room 1808, 55 Guangyuan West Road, Shanghai, China 200030

Social Networking

If you’d like to connect with me via a social networking site, you can do so at:

LinkedIn

Comment on this Blog

Finally, don’t forget that to leave a comment on this blog is also a great way to contact me. I read comments daily.

Where are You – Part II

It is amazing! I got so many high quality and genuine introduction about people from around the world in this blog entry: Where are You?. Thanks for the great comments.

Hey,

I am from Finland. A small, population a little bit above 5 million people, country in the Northern Europe. The neighbours in the map are Sweden, Russia, Norway and Estonia (Estonia doesn’t share any land with us in the borders).

Finland is part of the European Union and nowadays has Euro as the currency, we used to have our own currency, markka. Finland has been ruled by Sweden and Russia in the history but we have been independent since 1917.

They say that Finnish people are shy and quiet but if you get to know us then you will make a friend for a lifetime. I don’t know about that, I think the younger people are not so shy any longer but we still tend to appreciate friendship very much.

Finland is known to be a country of thousands lakes, it is actually true. According to some general definition for size of a lake, we actually have thousands of lakes, which are bigger than the definition. As we are small country by population, then there is still lots of land untouched and nature is one of the beautiful reasons for living or visiting here.

Winter time is a little bit depressing as sun will set very early and rise quite late. You get used to live in the darkness but it gets easier when it snows and everything turns white. During the summer time, people get really happy as sun practically doesn’t set so well. It is so nice to walk out from the nightclub at 4am and see that there is still lots of light available and temperature is such that you don’t feel chilly at all.

Posted by: Miikka on October 22, 2006 12:35 AM

I live just outside Washington, D.C. It is a very international city. One out of every eight residents here were not born in the United States. You can meet people from just about very part of the world. I have roommates who are Indian and Bulgarian. I love it here!

Давид <-- My name in Bulgarian Posted by: Dave G. on October 22, 2006 01:31 AM

Hello! Mabuhay! Greetings from Manila,Philippines.we are located on the southeastern part

of Asia, between south china sea and Philippine sea. I am from an archipelago consisting of

more than 7000 islands. Aside from the year round warm and summer like weather, beautiful beaches and great hideaways, the filipino people are what really is the real deal.

From a long history of Western colonial rule, interspersed with the visits of merchants and traders, evolved a people of a unique blend of east and west, both in appearance and culture.

The Filipino is basically of Malay stock with a sprinkling of Chinese, American, Spanish, and Arab blood. It’s hard to distinguish, accurately. but who cares, we are unique, both in

appearance and character. You have to visit us, to see, feel, and get the vibe!!

BTW, Thank you Mr.Wang for giving us, your readers, a chance to be known and heard.

You are doing wonderful.

Posted by: mariz on October 22, 2006 03:43 AM

Hallo, my name is Andrea. I am a psychologist in a childrens hospital in Stuttgart (600 000 people), Germany. 30 Years before I have studied Chinese at the university of Tübingen, but I never had the opportunity to go to China… Now will my husband go to Hangzhou (and Shanghai) tomorrow. He will meet people of the BOSCH plant there, because he is the chairman of the workers council (Betriebsratsvorsitzender) in the German plant in Leinfelden/Stuttgart.

I am excited to hear about the China of today.

Today we had a big manifastation against the government in Germany, also in Stuttgart, Munich, Dortmund and Berlin!

Many greetings, Andrea

Posted by: Andrea on October 22, 2006 04:36 AM

Hi,

I’m from Düsseldorf, Germany. Düsseldorf is the Capital of North- Rhine- Westfalia, the biggest Country of Germany (17 Mill. Residents, Germany: 80 Mill.). You may look at this Website for more information about Düsseldorf: http://www.duesseldorf.de/zh/index.shtml (in Chineese) and: http://www.duesseldorf.de/en/index.shtml (in english).

Düsseldorf is associated with Chonqing, so we have a lot of chineese People here – and also a lot of Chineese Restaurants, Supermarkets, Taiji- Chuan- Teacher (My taiji- chuan- master is from Shanghai), etc. There is also a direkt Flight Chonqing- Düsseldorf.

So, if you want to visit Germany, I would be happy to welcome you…

Xiong Shui

Posted by: Xiong Shui on October 22, 2006 05:08 AM

Hi,

my name’s Gabyu, I’m from Paris, France, used to travel back and forth from Shanghai to Paris since 10 years by now. Well, The world is much more smaller than we think, especially using the internet and jets …

Paris is full of many different foreigners, from northern African people to Southern asian people, and also Chinese people for sure. 2 chinatowns in Paris, essentially made from Wenzhounese. The city is very quiet compared to Shanghai… Less pollution, less CO2 et definitely less hot.

Here, people’s concern is to avoid polluting, to feel as quiet as they can, to hear silence, to avoid wastes, and to go to cafés after office time :)

Gabyu

Posted by: gabyu on October 22, 2006 06:28 AM

你好,

My name is Ben. I am originally from Shanghai, and now in Austin, the state capital of Texas. It’s a beautiful city with many mountains and lakes with blue water, though there are few Chinese people or restaurants. Life here revolves around live music performances (check out austinist.com) and enjoying nature. :)

Thanks for writing this awesome blog, it makes me want to return to Shanghai and do something big, bigger than myself. There are definitely more professional opportunities there.

~Ben

Posted by: Ben on October 22, 2006 08:37 AM

I am in New Zealand, the South Island. Air New Zealand has just started (or will very soon start) direct flights to Shanghai so next time to Shanghai it will be much faster and less tiring :-). I live in Christchurch and frequently eat at Chinese eateries without any other Europeans around. There are also lots of Chinese shops and the Mayor of Dunedin is Chinese.

Since my first visit to Shanghai I check your blog daily, there is always something interesting and relevant. Since my second visit I feel I “know” Shanghai a little (!) and feel very comfortable there.

Posted by: kiwiuncle on October 22, 2006 11:51 AM

Hi

I am from Chicago Illinois USA and visit China on Furniture business often. I really enjoy your blog

Lee Rosenberg

Posted by: lee rosenberg on October 22, 2006 12:11 PM

Hi,

I am from Singapore. I came to know your blog through a friend working in Suzhou in 2003, just a day before I left for Shanghai. I had stayed there for a month. Since then on my second trip to Shanghai, I moved around very comfortable like a local. Thanks all these to your blog. The next thing I want to do is to learn Shanghainese and plan for my next trip to Shanghai..

Jian Shuo, if you have chance to come to Singapore, please email me. I wish to give you a treat.

With Best wishes

Joyce

Posted by: Joyce on October 22, 2006 07:02 PM

Hi to all!

I’m also from Singapore, typically described as a ‘tiny red dot’ (on the world map). We are just 1/10 the size of Shanghai with a population of 4 million hence it is little wonder that many people don’t know our existence!

Like any other places on earth, there are good and bad comments about Singapore, the most common one being it a very clean country. Negative one would be that our government is too strict (think of the chewing gum ban, caning and death sentences) though I personally don’t think it is necessarily bad.

Although I stay in Shanghai for my work now, hopefully there will be an opportunity in future to show you or any readers on this blog around in Singapore!

Posted by: zee on October 22, 2006 11:21 PM

I come from Melbourne, Australia. U visited here a couples of week before. Do u like it? U really good in observe things.

I would definitely want to come to shanghai try the maglev.

Posted by: Ryan on October 23, 2006 07:49 PM

Hi, I’m Ying.

I was born in Shanghai, then moved to the UK. I lived roughly half my life in China and half in the UK. Currently I live in Manchester.

I’m really facinated by the difference between cultures and also discovering how much similarity there are. I enjoy travelling. The last time I visited China was in 2005.

Posted by: Ying Zhang on October 23, 2006 08:02 PM

Hi, I’m from Italy…seems like I’m the only one here :-) I studied Chinese and like to keep updated on all kind of things about China, that’s how I stumbled into your blog…months ago, can’t stop reading it now! keep up the good job please.

Ciao!

Posted by: elena on October 23, 2006 10:29 PM

Hi, I am from Kentucky in the USA. I live in a very small town, less than 1000 people. I have visited Shanghai twice, the most recent time being in July of 2006. My husband and I have three daughters adopted in China. We hope someday to live in China for a while.

I enjoy reading your blog and learning more about China.

Posted by: Carolyn on October 24, 2006 12:44 PM

Hello, I am from San Francisco. I really enjoy your blog and learned many things about Shanghai. The first time I was in Shanghai was in 1980, just when China opened up. The 1980 version of the city clouded my vision of Shanghai for many years. I returned in late 2003 on a business trip, and on arriving at the airport I was amazed. I could not believe the change. Taking the highway into town and checking in to the Grand Hyatt was a fantastic eye opener.

I took my family to Shanghai just to let them experience the transformation. Have returned a few times and Shanghai is now one of my favorite cities. I love your blog, thank you for your time and you effort.

Posted by: Alex Lee on October 24, 2006 01:51 PM

Hi, I’m from the Portuguese Island of Madeira!

It lies about 360 miles from the coast of Africa, 535 miles from Lisbon, 230 from Gran Canaria. More info (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeira_Islands).

Nowadays my HQ’s is Barcelona but I had a chance to spend 6 days in shanghai last week.

Posted by: Paulo Martins on October 25, 2006 06:52 AM

Hi, I am a Chinese originally from Malaysia, and now in Busan, South Korea.

Malaysia is a federation of 13 states in Southeast Asia.Although politically dominated by the Malays, modern Malaysian society is heterogeneous, with substantial Chinese and Indian minorities. Nonetheless, Malaysia is considered to be a model of racial harmony.

I enjoy traveling a lot and my last trip was to Shanghai in April 2006.

Thanks for writing this blog and it make me understand more about China especially Shanghai. Keep up the good job.

Posted by: Teresa on October 25, 2006 10:21 AM

I am so excited to see people from around the world gather on this small blog and share their lives, and know more about others’ lives. Among the list, I have been to some places, like Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, U.S., and there are so many for me to explorer: Finland, Germany, New Zealand, and France…

The early days of my travel was mainly triggered by the desire to see “how different people are” in many places, and my recent travel is more about enjoying the commonality between people around the world – nice, friendly, having dream, and enjoy small happiness like sitting in the Sunshine. That is just so beautiful!

Kudos to everyone who posted on that entry.

P.S. I just checked my site log, and found out the top 20 countries/regions where my reader came from.

United States

China

United Kingdom

Canada

Australia

Singapore

India

Hong Kong

Germany

Thailand

Malaysia

France

Italy

Netherlands

Japan

Turkey

Brazil

Sweden

Spain

Taiwan

screen-wangjianshuo.blog-geo.PNG

Source: Google Analytics data for Wangjianshuo’s blog for 2006 (from 2006-1-1 to 2006-10-25)

This is the Geo overlay so we have some idea about how global this community is. :-)

screen-wangjianshuo.blog-geo.overlay.PNG

Source: Google Analytics data for Wangjianshuo’s blog for 2006 (from 2006-1-1 to 2006-10-25)

Suggest a Topic

I write blog to help visitors and expats in Shanghai. I write daily, but sometimes I am lack of topic (not surprisingly). If you think there is any topic that I should write about, please post it here. Whenever I am out of topic, I will look at this page. This is also a central page to capture all topic suggestions. Otherwise, they will be randomly posted under unrelated posts.

Thanks.

Where are You?

I found I have readers from all around the world. Every new commentor on the blog bring my interest to his/her own country if they mentioned about the name of the country. The world is so big. People tend to think of several highlighted countries, like U.S. and Canada in American, China, and India in east Asia, and UK, Germany in Europe. Recent, I met more people from Denmark, so I start to read the history of Denmark, and meet with good people from Holland, so I started to know that in the year of 1630, a tulip cost more than 50 Holland dollars. There are so many examples. So if you don’t mind, where do you live? Do you want to share more about your country with me and the rest of the community members?

To have a personal connection makes such a big difference to one’s view to the world. For example, now if someone talks about Holland, instead of a symbolic scenery picture, now I get excited and say: “Hey! I know someone in Holland!”. That is my personal connection with a country linked by my friend.

P.S. Get back to Shanghai, spend the wonderful day with Michael, and wonderful dinner. Thanks Limin, and Duib.

Top Commentor of July 2006

Congratulations for the following readers to get the Top Commenter Award for July 2006!

Shrek7 33

Jie Lun 27

carsten 17

Top 10

Jerry 13

Bellevue 12

stephen 11

andreas 10

solopolo 8

Dave G. 8

SSC 7

jqian 7

Alex Langos 7

In July 2006, 341 commentors contributed 633 comments. The history data shows, that in May 2003, 175 visitors contributed 453 comments to this website. In April 2003, 157 persons (distinguished by display name) posted 437

comments. In the first 5 months of this blog (Sept 11, 2002 to March 31, 2003), 216

persons (distinguished by display name) posted 478

comments.

We saw the community of this blog is also growthing bigger and bigger. Thanks for your sharing.

Top Commenter of the Month (2006H1)

I have “Top Commenter of the Month” award on this blog in early days of this blog. At that time, the blog is small, with not many people coming in. I was so happy that there are always some good friends around me (most of them I didn’t meet them in person), and join discussion, share thoughts by posting comments. I love that award program a lot, since I always believe this blog is built together with my reader community. If you read the number of content distribution, you will also agree with me:

Jian Shuo Wang posted 1,350 entries in the last 1,418 days.

Readers of this Blog posted 16,288 comments during the same time.

That is 12 comments per entry!

The last award was issued by in Oct 2004 – long time ago.

Top Commenter of the Month in H1 2006

I hope I keep issuing this award on monthly bases. Before I do that, let me post stastics of people who posted most comments in the first 6 months of 2006.

January 2006:

stephen 9

carsten 9

Betsy Markum 8

blue 7

John 6

Brad 5

jqian 5

mcgjcn 5

Yoyo 4

Reno 4

Richard Hong 4

Oncerest 4

Febuary 2006:

stephen 9

carsten 9

gong 8

mcgjcn 7

Carroll 6

Damien B 4

Grace 4

james 4

alex 4

jqian 4

Feigo 4

Sekhar Sirigiri 4

March 2006:

stephen 22

carsten 11

shockr 8

iamcj 7

Andrew Spark 6

gong 6

zippy 5

Peter 5

Reno 5

Paul 5

Andrew Leyden 5

April 2006:

carsten 11

stephen 8

Iamleon 7

Grace 5

Echo Chen 4

zjemi 3

Michelle Cheung 3

earthmilk 3

Tom 3

May 2006:

stephen 16

Grace 13

Michael 12

Carroll 10

CJ 9

David .S 9

passer-by 8

ninjaboy 7

Amelia 6

June 2006:

Shrek7 37

Bovemanm 33

Bellevue 30

stephen 19

jqian 11

Ali 11

ILH 8

carsten 7

Jie Lun 6

Buster05 6

I will issue July 2006 TCA (top commenter award) after July ends.

Big Thank You

Big Thanks You goes to everyone who have ever left a comments on this site. Together, we made the site a good source for people visiting or relocating to Shanghai.

Peace in Discussion

I am sorry to see some discussion in some particular threads ended up to be unpleasant arguments in the recent weeks. I’d like to remind my commenter to value the rule we have set on comments. Here are some mentions on the rules:

Emails and Privacy Policies May, 2003

As you can see again, there is a comment system on this site. I value everyone’s post and it is part of the blog – actually, it is very large portion of this website.

As of today, 206 entries were posted on this site while we have 957 comments (4.6 times of blog entries). Some readers posted more than 20 comments per month.

The comment entries provide very informative and updated content to the readers. I have my principle on comments (check the My principle on comments section).

I insist not to delete any comments as long as it is readable. However, I cannot bear anyone writing flaming comment against my other readers.

Thanks for your Comments April, 2003

My principle on comments

I insist not to delete any comments as long as it is readable – I did saw testing posts before – about one or two. I will leave it for several days to give the poster some time to verify that it really works and delete it for sake of ease of reading.

I don’t change the content of any comment although the system provides the function. If I disagree, I will post my comment under it. I did receive such comments that I wanted to delete but I hold firm against it. Here is one example.

However, I cannot bear anyone writing flaming comment against my other readers. Unfortunately, Wayne, who has posted before, gave me a surprise by leaving this comment. I have to say, no matter what you think, just give out fact and your thoughts. Do not simply give us such comment, please.

Thanks for Your Defense for Me, but…

What changed from the days in mid 2003 is, recently, I saw some reader posted negative comments on the board toward me, and some reader rose up and defended me (or my opinion). Some nice readers may see some comments as offensive to me and fight back for me hardly.

Thank you for your defense for me, but I just want to make it clear that I value any disagreement as much as those supporting comments. Recently, I may not be active to join the discussion as before (due to time constraint), but if I have a chance, I would rather either clarify my points or list facts. Sometimes, I also post to admit that I ignored some facts and I was educated by some comments and changed my mind. In any means, I don’t think it hurts me as much as people’s attempt to discourage others from express their opinion.

In conclusion, thanks for everyone’s participation in the discussion. As you can see, in May 2003, my page view per day was only 4,000 and it increased to 1 million per month. There are 957 comments on 206 entries in May 2003, while now, the total comments increased to 8968 on 950 entries. Comments per entry increased from 4.6 from 9.4. I hope the healthy discussion continues in the years to come. Thank you.

Top Commenters of Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct

Jul 2004:

carsten 43

bigbro 21

earthmilk 13

George 13

Aug 2004:

bigbro 26

Stephen 16

earthmilk 16

Sep 2004

carsten 33

Stephen 26

Lu Heli 11

bigbro 11

Oct 2004

Stephen 38

carsten 23

bigbro 16

Thanks for everyone’s great contribution.

1 Million Page View in October 2004

With everyone’s contribution, Wangjianshuo’s blog reached the first 1 million page view in October 2004 for the first time. According to the report of iPowerWeb, the page view at home.wangjianshuo.com alone is 0.977 million (page served). With hits on other Wangjianshuo’s Blog property, like www.wangjianshuo.com, blog.wangjianshuo.com and bbs.wangjianshuo.com, the total page view exceeded 1 million. 0.12 million people visited the site in the last month. For the first time in the site history, it experienced bandwidth crisis last month by serving more than 50G of data. I still wonder why iPowerWeb didn’t paused my site after it exceeded the limit.

This is an important milestone for the site.

Volunteers Wanted

With your support, Wangjianshuo’s Blog has become an important website about living in Shanghai. The readership increases everyday. I am overwhelmed by your compliment and encourage. The number questions I got on all aspects of Shanghai also increased dramatically. I have tried my best to answer as many questions as possible and answer them as quick as possible. However, my bandwidth is limited and I am not an expert on all areas (such as how to get a visa). So I turn to you, my readers, for help to make the site more helpful everyday.

I am thinking of a volunteer program to improve the quality and coverage of this site. I drafted the following “positions”.

Proof Reading Expert

I have proof read most of my articles myself (if time allows). I read the published entry(so HTML code is not displayed), mark mistakes and go back to MovableType to correct them. But English is not my native language and there are still many grammar and spelling errors in every article. I am aware of it. :$ (type this into your MSN Messenger and you can see what emotion it prepresents)

I know half of my readers are native English speakers. How about devote 10 minutes to proof read a piece of my (past) article and correct errors?

Time needed: 10 minutes per article.

Total work load: There are 624 published articles including this one on this site.

How many volunteers needed: About 10.

If you enjoy reading this blog and cannot bear the bad grammar of any entry, why not help me (and help other readers like you) to correct it?

How it works? I will setup a Wiki site for you and export all my articles into the site. You accept an article and you can freely edit the content of the article. After it is completed, notify me and I can export the article back to the main site. The Wiki site is also open to public, so everyone can add inputs.

Shanghai Expert

Are you a native Shanghaiese? Have you stayed in Shanghai for many years? Have you successfully relocated to Shanghai in the past half year? Would like to help others (especially the expat community) to survey in this city? Would you like to practice written English and see your articles published and read by 10+ thousands of people from 109 countries? This position is for you.

Time needed: Depends on you. You can either take full day travel in Shanghai and take pictures (as I did for Starbucks) and write an article the second day, or just use 5 minutes to drop few lines to answer someone’s question here.

How it works? After I get enough volunteers in this category, I will setup a case management system so people can directly send email to a group email alias or via web form and the question is put into public queue. You can pick up a question and answer it. If you want to send original article on certain topic, just like what I did, submit it via Wiki website.

Indexer

There are many articles in this site, and to find the right resource is not as easy as it was . I start to see repeating questions again and again while it has been answered in details in a separate article. Will it be useful if someone help to index the pages just like the index of a book? This needs skills. A good index can help people to navigate through this maze of articles more easily.

Time needed Maybe longer – you have to read all the articles and assign key words for each other and combine the keywords into a list. This is a tough job, sorry.

Volunteer needed Only one, since according to some books, it is best for one person to index this site so he/she has better sense of selection of keyword.

How it works Also on Wiki.

Thanks

Thanks for reading all these “job posting”. They are all volunteer jobs. I don’t know what I can give to volunteers. But do ask for anything you think I can offer. I may consider.

  • Want a link on this site? Sure.
  • A T-shirt with a logo? Yes. If someone can help to design, I can pay to print some.
  • Want me to name a section on this site after your name? Well, maybe.
  • etc…

I don’t have many things to offer – just to show my appreciation, on behalf of all the readers who get help from you.

Do not hesitate. If you are intersted, would you please drop a short message to me screen-jianshuo.at.hotmail.com-logo.PNG. In the mail, please tell me what type of volunteer you want to be, your contact information, your plan about how you can help and what you want to get from me if I can offer. I will contact you soon after I get the mail. The closure date for this application is June 30, 2004.