Sinodefence.com cited on newspaper

Re: Sinodefense.com cited on newspaper

Gollevainen said:

Unfortnatelly none. Thats has been one big pain [] for quite while now. Reason is again simple; we hardly have any members from mainland alltogether and the change that some of them fits for the requirements of the "blue order" is even remote. Its just plain and harsh math.

Orginally the vip-membership was preserved for those who actually have had some militaryservice backround but it soon became evident that thohe would mainly be ex-western grunts and reservist like me, popeye, Norfolk, Rommel and so on...Its too homogenious lot so around year back we decided to give the status as "reward" to those who may not have been served but yet proven up to be good posters with good knowlidge and input to the discussions. I'm not entirely aware if there is any mainlanders included but as we attend to do the same thing this christmass also, I hope some one might squeeze in.

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We need all the fresh blood we can get, especially from China itself. Those of us who are Westerners with military experience or defence industry expertise, can see things that even Chinese cannot about the PLA because there are things that only military people or defence industry professionals can properly grasp or perceive; but we need more Chinese military/ex-military and defence industry types to speak up, when and where they are able to do so without compromising their lawful duties, to give as rounded a picture of the PLA and the world that it perceives around it as possible.

That said, there are some regular posters on this board who are neither current or former military or defence industry who have excellent sense and judgement; and giving them VIP-Status, especially if they are Chinese, may go some way to providing more balance and wider perspective in the Professional Discussion Forums, even on topics that they have no experience with. Some of us current VIP members could stand to learn a lot if challenged by those who do not share our assumptions and we have to explain them to others or re-examine them ourselves.

Your toughts are exactly what we have been thinking up here in the ivory tower

Re: Sinodefense.com cited on newspaper

Norfolk said:

We need all the fresh blood we can get, especially from China itself. Those of us who are Westerners with military experience or defence industry expertise, can see things that even Chinese cannot about the PLA because there are things that only military people or defence industry professionals can properly grasp or perceive; but we need more Chinese military/ex-military and defence industry types to speak up, when and where they are able to do so without compromising their lawful duties, to give as rounded a picture of the PLA and the world that it perceives around it as possible.

That said, there are some regular posters on this board who are neither current or former military or defence industry who have excellent sense and judgement; and giving them VIP-Status, especially if they are Chinese, may go some way to providing more balance and wider perspective in the Professional Discussion Forums, even on topics that they have no experience with. Some of us current VIP members could stand to learn a lot if challenged by those who do not share our assumptions and we have to explain them to others or re-examine them ourselves.

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They also serve well as translators on important posts and topics.
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Nope, there are 3 international languages: Chinese (All dialects counted together), English, and Spanish. English just happen to cover the most area and the richest parts of the world.
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Which newspaper again? World News? (My family reads Singtao, I didn't catch it so far.)

Seems like sinodefence is mentioned on phoenix tv military show tonight, but i am not sure if the specifically say sinodefence forum name in it (i missed that part). anyways they are talking about the revelation of 094 photos and how japanese intelligence is trying to confirm it (old news). I am surprised that the tv show mentioned this so late. If i remember correctly, phoenix tv have shown the picture of 094 on earlier shows....but again i may be wrong.

Well, look at it from a Chinese netizen's point of view. What is the point of reading or posting to SDF? In terms of news, SDF is a secondary source and the primary sources are readily available in Chinese. So the reason to read SDF is for the analysis, if it is worth the extra hassle of reading the English. In terms of posting, what's the point of a Chinese netizen posting to SDF? He has ready access to a huge community of Chinese military fans. These peers are far more like-minded than the people who post on SDF. There are a few that drift by, they post less than a dozen times, get bombarded by opposition and a western worldview, and leave. There is no incentive for them to stay. They're not being paid to improve international understanding and friendship. To try to debate and reconcile fundamental differences in worldview, in a foreign language, with a huge crowd of foreigners is just not worth anything that may be gained from the exchange. Besides, a patriotic Chinese netizen might find it perfidious to provide foreigners with further insight into the Chinese military. Americans wanting to learn more about the US army aren't going to go to a Chinese langauge website to discuss.

Obviously a chinese netizen would not read or post on SDF for getting informed about PLA's newest developments.

Though he (or she...) might be interested how western guys view PLA and how much of their declared ´common wisdom´ is actually completely detached from reality. :rofl:

As for ´being nice and considerate´to non western people: I've suggested implementing a kind of ´second chance´ for non western members some time ago but the majority of the mods wanted to press through ´western standards´of debate so we have unfortunately to live with the consequences...

What about Nethappy? He was from China. I thought he was from the mainland, or HK and he worked on the mainland. He had a lot of nice info about the Type 99 that we didn't know. He hasn't been around for a while though.

We members here at SDF know more abou the state of the world then it's out of touch leaders anyway.

Finn, not my intention to say that SDF members are generally ignorant to chinese military affairs but I'm only sure that most mainlanders have certainly their very own thoughts after reading our postings.

However your apt perception that western political leaders have actually no real clue about China is certainly correct with the one probable exception of the recently elected new PM of Australia Kevin Rudd.:coffee:

Though he (or she...) might be interested how western guys view PLA and how much of their declared ´common wisdom´ is actually completely detached from reality.

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Detached from reality? Funny, becouse its often the wanna-be-chinese who are tends to get deluded.

The real mainlanders, the very few that I have had privilegs to actually discuss tends to have far more rational viewpoints about chinese military than the western kids. But like I've said so many times there aren't much of them around and thats IMO 90% for one reason: the lack of good english skils.

As for ´being nice and considerate´to non western people: I've suggested implementing a kind of ´second chance´ for non western members some time ago but the majority of the mods wanted to press through ´western standards´of debate so we have unfortunately to live with the consequences...

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Huh? What seccond change? In all these years of SDF, I've personally have never had to moderate anyone from mainland china. So I really don't quite understand what you mean by this.

Huh? What seccond change? In all these years of SDF, I've personally have never had to moderate anyone from mainland china. So I really don't quite understand what you mean by this.

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I agree golly. The Vast majority of those disciplined at SDF are from the USA, Canada or Europe.

I for one am very proud of the level of discussion at SDF. New members find out quickly this is not a forum for children to play..unless thaey want a spanking..:nono: