We’re about to instruct our developer to start making some changes to the site pertaining to comments generally, whether on the eMagazine, Blogs or Forum, or in Scammer Prison or on Success Stories. My guess is that most of you were unaware you could comment on Success Stories, and likely do not much care, but just in case, now you know. Needless to say, comments on Success Stories do not stir up a whole lot of controversy or personal angst, but comments on the other places occasionally do and the first changes are aimed at alleviating some of the undeserved personal angst being suffered by those who are the subject of the comments, or the detrimental affect certain comments can have to the overall community spirit we wish to engender here on CLM/ALM.

It is important to remember that the purpose of the Blogs and Forum was to offer members of CLM/ALM, both Chinese and Asian women and Western men, a place to communicate with each other in a positive manner with the hope that everyone would be able to gain a better understanding of the cultures of others, and thereby have improved chances of ultimately developing a lifelong relationship with a special someone. They were created in order to enhance everyone’s online Chinese dating or online Asian dating experience.

They were not created to give relentlessly negative individuals an opportunity to relentlessly whine and bitch about everything and everyone except themselves.

Changes In Approval Policies

1. Generally comments made that we feel are detrimental to the well being of CLM/ALM or are not conducive to encouraging a strong community spirit on the websites will no longer be approved. We are starting to receive letters from new members, especially new Chinese women, indicating that they came to CLM because they’d heard or read that it was a great site for meeting real Western men and that they were excited to become members of a site known for keeping members’ best interests at heart. However, after reading some of the threads and the comments posted in the forum that were so negative about Western men and about online dating, they felt discouraged and no longer sure about giving CLM/ALM a try.

Needless to say these negative comments are generally coming from women who have not succeeded in finding a match, and have concluded it is everyone’s fault but their own. So instead of looking at themselves and asking “Why am I having trouble attracting the right kind of guys?” and thinking about what they might do to change their approach and improve their chances, they decide that all Western men are bad, and CLM is bad, and they post incredibly negative comments saying just that. However, the reality usually is that they are extremely negative people, and because of that, they are not attractive to anyone.

Of course not all Western men are good, nor are all Chinese women, and CLM/ALM are also not perfect. However, going from a specific example of one bad Western man, or one bad Chinese woman, or one instance where CLM may have not provided perfect service and turning that into a broad generalization that all Western men or all Chinese or Asian women are bad, or that CLM/ALM are bad websites generally, will no longer be approved.

2. Comments that are rude, obnoxious, mean spirited or just plain personally insulting and are directed at any specific person, such as a blogger or a forum thread creator or another commenter will no longer be approved. Anonymous commenters will be put to an even stricter test under this guideline than those who reveal their identity.

To put this another way, constructive criticism, meaning criticism offered in the form of disagreeing with or debating another person’s ideas or point of view in a spirit of attempting to bring to that person a different way to think about the matter at hand will always be acceptable. Criticism that goes beyond that to personally attack the other member will be disapproved.

The bottom line is “If you can’t say it in a pleasant way, don’t say it at all.”

Changes in Comment Tracking & Comment Notifications

DanRuble raised this in a recent forum thread for which we are grateful. Dan has been a consistently positive, well-meaning and involved member and he’s made several valuable suggestions that have resulted in improvements to the site for the well-being of everyone, and this is no exception.

1. Comment Tracking Page

We will create a page that is linked to your My Space pages that will show all comments made in the eMagazine, Blogs, Forum, Scammer Prison and Success Stories going back from most recent to oldest. They will be colour coded so you can tell at a glance which venue the comment was made in, will give detail of where the comment was made specifically and will give the first 160 letters of the comment together with a link to the comment.

Provided that website speed is not an issue, the comment page will go back to the earliest comments made. However, it may be that it will only go back to show comments made from the time the comment page was created. In either case, if you’ve been away for a few days you’ll have no problem going back on this page and finding all comments made in your absence.

2. Comments Directed at Another Commenter

We’re going to introduce the “@username” system of commenting to allow members to address another member’s comments. Should you specifically comment on another member’s comment by typing @ followed by that member’s username as the first thing typed in your comment, then that member will receive an email notice that someone has commented on his comment, and will hopefully then come back to the page to respond.

We will try to include the ability to reply to a comment by an anonymous member by having the anonymous members listed as “anonymous1”, “anonymous2”, etc. Likewise these members will get an email notice that someone has responded specifically to their comment.

Bloggers or Forum Thread Creators will continue to get a notice of any comment made on their Blog or Thread, even if it is a comment directed specifically at another commenter.

Subscribing to Specific Blogs and Forum Categories

Another suggestion, made by Histguy, also a long term supportive member, is that members should have the ability to subscribe to specific bloggers and to specific Forum topics. We’re going to chat with our developer about this one to determine the difficulty of creating this option and the effect it might have on overall website speed, if any. Unless there are unforeseen (by me) complications, we’ll go ahead with this suggestion as well.

Any further suggestions as possible changes to the eMagazine, blogs and forum in addition to the above are welcome here.