DisOrientated - A Weblog by Philip Sen - Living in China

September 27, 2004

Living in China - A Response

The knives are out again for Living in China. Initial criticisms are levelled by Brainysmurf and taken up by Peking Duck. Also alluded to by Simon World's Asia by Blog and Danwei.

My response as posted in the comments sections of the first two are reproduced below. But it's also worth saying that the fact that people are talking about it means they still think it's worth talking about.

Living in China is new. It's different. It's not always going to meet everyone's expectations. The important thing is that people have to work at it to keep it going.

I'm guilty of not always putting the hours in - especially when you look at the dedication of Michael Darragh and Brad Ferguson who have not just put in time but money too.

It's kind of sad that people are so ready to sling the mud but not to paint the wall. LiC can be great again if people can set aside personal vanities and scores and help the whole thing out. In a way it is a poisoned chalice - a site that aims to bring together bloggers doesn't necessarily appeal to the vanity that drives them (myself included).

So what do you say?

Like anything it needs time and effort from everyone concerned - and most of all that includes the people that criticise.

My own comments below:

It's a toughie guys, and despite being the manager of Living in China to an extent I have to agree.
OK, so a bad workman blames his tools. And a really bad workman blames the other workmen. Now I've got that out of the way, can I try to objectively discuss a couple of the problems that I think are causing the malaise.

1. Lack of interest and participation. It's a group site and if people don't want to write original material for it, I can't make them. And since the original flurry of interest since the site's conception (by Adam Morris of Brainysmurf, it would unfair not to mention, though the building of the site was taken up by others) about a year ago, interest has died off.

There was a direct correlation between interesting articles on the site and site traffic, and when the site traffic goes down people lose interest too.

2. No reward. People are selfish - it's not a criticism, it's a fact of life. Good writers would rather write good articles for their own sites first rather than for a group site which brings no direct reward in terms of readers or comments.

Lately I and Ralph Jennings of Laowiseass have been looking out for good content on other sites and (with permission) cross posting it. The idea is to attract attention to what people write, especially lesser-known bloggers, but as you can imagine it's a very laborious task.

3. Petty arguments. The comments on this and on Richards site are just and fair and I accept the criticism, but in the past there has been some real sourness (the 'censorship' and 'community' arguments can be seen elsewhere) that frankly puts people off.

If I was a new blogger, a bit nervous about the whole venture, those kind of tirades would put me off altogether.

4. Lack of focus and direction. No matter what is said on this topic, it is going to annoy people. Some will agree, others will vehemently oppose it.

The question is in some ways the question of 'what is blogging anyway?' Living in China exists to serve China bloggers. On occasions I have personally followed topics of interest such as the Typepad block etc. and at those times it's been a good site - as a representative voice for China bloggers as a whole whatever their complexion.

But most of the time there is nothing to focus on. LiC is simply a tool for people to use as they see fit. I would like it to promote all bloggers writing about China - but it has to be proactive rather than reactive. Simon World, Danwei and others already have analyses of other peoples' blogs and long may it continue.

For everyone's reference, there is and always has been a statement of policy at http://www.livinginchina.com/about.html and http://www.livinginchina.com/membership.html

Noone ever read them, choosing instead to say they didn't exist!

5. The new publishing system. Like others I'm no technophile and the incredibly hard work that Michael Darragh and Brad Ferguson put into the new system may have backfired somewhat. It was supposed to be a more functional alternative to Movable Type but I'm worried that people are afraid to tackle the system. There's still a number of bugs and glitches too that don't help.

6. Me. I reserve this till the end since it's the point people will remember, not because it's least important. I had hoped that after a few months of a guiding hand, LiC would run itself and that people would post material on it of their own accord. They didn't. It was a miscalculation.

I'm not paid to do this, and not every hour of my day can be spent working on LiC. Since March I've started dating a girl who doesn't really appreciate being left alone while I tinker on a computer screen for hours! I work during the week, I have frequent problems with my laptop and connection not to mention all the issues of blocking. And sometimes I just want to watch a DVD, read a book or sleep.

I also haven't sent a 'newsletter' e-mail for a while, which has reduced awareness I suppose - but then again chances are no-one read them anyway...

So I haven't spent as much time on LiC as I should, and for this I apologise to all. But at the end of the day, it's not my site - it's everyone's. If the content were just my writing or just my selections it would be 'Living in Phil's World' - it's not and never was meant to be that. I have my own blog if you're interested in me.

If anyone does wish to take over the reigns, I'd be very happy to help and transfer the job to them - my e-mail is below. But for all the problems I list above, the biggest is lack of interest from people - and it's become a vicious circle.

I would love LiC to keep going and still believe it's a worthwhile project - does anyone else?

Phil Sen
Editor - Living in China
phil at livinginchina dot com

Posted by Sendover at September 27, 2004 07:28 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Well, as I have just said it over at Brainysmurf's, I do have a piece to send in soon (hint: on the internet radio stations in hong kong). It has just taken me a long time in writing it as it requires some research. So don't worry, I will be in touch with you soon.

Posted by: Andrea at September 28, 2004 03:44 PM

TO be frank, even knowing a lot of people have put a lot of time into this, I think LiC (or should I call it PHP Web hosting now) has taken several steps back. Half the time I cannot tell whether I am living in HK, CHina, or whatever, or suddenly India (which took me by surprise). I agree with the comment about endless repetition of the same story.

The feeds seem to encompass about 3 blogs only.

I no longer visit, as unlike before I never seem to find anything I want to read. It had a personal touch before, now it just seems automated and left alone. If I was you I would undo the past few months and stop thinking so much. You had a good formula before. It was not broken.

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- Mark

Posted by: Mark at October 4, 2004 11:38 AM

In brief - thanks for your comments by the way, Mark - work is in progress to handle some of the issues that you raise.

It will take a little while to implement, since the Living in China people have lives, illnesses and problems like everyone else, but the basic plan is to construct a more 'selective' aggregator with original content on the main page and keep the other as it is.

You see, we can't let ourselves just be an exclusive club - we said that we'd include anyone and everyone and we have. This is why things have got overwhelming...

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