Why Doesn't Winston Wu defend his own forum?

[Winston]

You guys need to start taking responsibility here. Together we all make this forum either a great place or a very negative place. You guys should defend this forum if you want it to be defended. Don't depend on me for everything. A forum is a group discussion. Each one of us is a factor. Not just me. So start taking up responsibility guys.

You are the one who needs to lead by example. Everyone looks to you to set the tone and shape things. Frankly, you don't give this forum enough time or attention. You let trolls do days or weeks of damage and then often just slap them on the wrist if you're not in the banning mood.

You've also contributed to the fragmentation of the tiny poster base by putting so much time and energy in alternative channels. I'm convinced that the FB group, wechat group, and private spinoff groups have created a lot more damage than synergy.

These days, I get my best HA inspiration from chats to certain members offline, by viewing their photos, or participating in certain groups. For example, I have to go to FB to read about Steve Neese's most recent trip reports and updates in Russia and Ukraine.

The forum itself has become overtaken more off the wall type of threads and discussions. It's no longer a one-stop shop for core HA types of posting - trip reports, experiences abroad, socializing, dating, studying, working and making money, or learning languages in countries or areas which rate highly on HA scale.

It's clear that you ignore a lot of the posts and don't really seem to care much. I've seen it happen a few times where a generally well known poster of many months or years were unknown or almost unknown to you.

You are the leader of the movement and owner and chief admin of the site so if you set that sort of example, it will ultimately drive the whole tone and feel of the place. Many higher value prolific or productive posters have moved on. The quality of your more current content has dropped off IMO and the opinion of many others.

If you would make more serious effort here, I think it would attract a lot more where that came from. If you don't give a damn, why should any of us?

1. Truth is more important than usefulness or relevancy here. Do you not care about truth? I don't think you have the soul of a truth seeker. A truth seeker places the love of knowledge above all else, including money and materialism. You admitted yourself that you focus on money matters because money buys your happiness. That's fine, but don't expect everyone to be the same. You don't have a philosophers soul so you don't understand the soul and drive of one. Just like you don't feel the desire to climb Mt. Everest coursing through your veins, so you can't understand those who do.

2. Just because I have more diverse interests than you doesn't mean I'm doing something wrong. There is no rule here that says that posts have to be all about expat issues or even useful. There are many topic categories for many different subjects. Free speech does not mean you can only talk about expat issues or keep to a narrow topic focus.

3. I am not a real leader here. No one follows my orders. Everyone here is an independent free thinker. They treat me like some TV guy to judge and mock. No one follows my pattern in posting. Just because I post about something, doesn't mean others start the same topics. There's no connection there. I see no pattern. People post what they want, and usually it has nothing to do with what I post.

4. I have started both relevant threads and irrelevant threads. There are thousands of threads. You can't generalize them all as irrelevant, because some are.

5. Life is not all about one thing. Man does not live on bread alone. Men need spiritual development too. Focusing on that brings balance to life, not distraction. Same with health, discussing current events, conspiracies that affect our lives and this world, etc. It's all relevant in a way because as you know, everything is INTERCONNECTED. There's no true separation. We are all connected at some level, as is everything else in the universe. So again, you are missing the big picture Rock and only focusing narrowly.

[Yohan]

Winston perfectly understands, that not to care anymore is indeed much better than to care too much. Simply said, no moderation is better than over-moderation or insincere biased moderation of a forum. This can really ruin a forum with members are either banned or leaving by themselves.

But when it's nothing but trolls, prophets of doom, pessimism and support for conspiracy for the sake of supporting conspiracies, it's pretty clear that we're not going anywhere anymore. Quality is lessening.

There are also MGTOWs - what about myself?

People are all different from each other. They have different experiences in their life, you cannot expect everybody to write comments which fit everybody, except if you run a feminist-style forum, all which does not fit the party line 100 % will be deleted, user banned.

Little moderation is still much better than an overmoderated dead forum with a few members sending smileys to each other claiming 'high quality content'. Orientexpat is a good example, Winston and Cornfed also know about that place.

A large quantity of bad quality comments from many different people is still much better than an empty house.

Other forums with little moderation have similar problems about how to regulate what is still OK and what should be deleted. It's not only about HappierAbroad.

[Shemp]

HA is a mess but other similar forums are worse, believe it or not, which is why HA is one of the only two forums I regularly post on anymore. The other is ISG Ukraine subforum, which is specific to mongering in Ukraine. Mod there doesn't tolerate off-topic junk posts, which keeps quality high, but it means I need someplace else to hang out for general conversation. So back to this poorly managed group of mostly crackpots.

The best way to think of forums is the modern equivalent of a tavern where people get together and talk, mostly talking drunken nonsense but occasionally an interesting discussion occurs. Nobody would expect the local tavern chatter to always be interesting. For me at least, the alternative to this forum and it's mostly junky members is not engaging with other people at all. Maybe that will be where I eventually end up, however I'm not yet ready for complete solitude.

[statnerd]

Because the man is a gigantic p***y. He is surfeited to make $2000 per month off of the moniker and concept of "Happier Abroad" and "free speech," while claiming to spend 10 hours per week on this site. (On what, exactly?)

I'm glad I'm not a fat Asian man who derives his income from the contributions of others. To have free speech you need to defend it like a monarch, dumbshit. But yet you're content to just collect money like the effete that you are. I'm glad I make my money working on technology and not leeching off of others like a dumbshit.

Lol this guy even f***ing censors swear words like the gigantic human p***y that he is

Someone sounds jealous. How much does it suck to go through life with such a crappy attitude?

From the few times Winston has interacted with me, he seems like a decent guy.