My goodness, so much squealing!

I don't at all dispute that teachers who simply lie to tar the reputation of a school damage us all and are worthy of censure from the rest of us. I'd be with you 100%...if that's what you were really doing.

But sometimes you present yourself as some kind of Uber-Writing Critic for all of China EFL on the internet. You seem to feel entitled to smash up people's accounts because you personally happen to find them "long" or "full of irrelevant details" or "badly written". You seem to equate these crimes with dishonesty or with deserving abuse from the schools. This doesn't really jibe with the carefully-crafted reason for your posts that took you so long to come up with.

You jumped into the middle of my friend Hemingway's account largely for the above reasons. I happen to know for a fact that his account of the tale contained absolutely no "deliberately untrue and misrepresented information", yet you jumped in and started smashing anyway. Again, this just isn't consistent with the "fighting dishonesty on behalf of all decent teachers" that you want us to believe you're undertaking.

On the Reviews side you've gone round and round with some poor soul who took a job, had a mutually-signed contract in his hands, got an L visa, and flew to China only to be told that he didn;t have a job after all. He keeps demonstrating that he had his ducks in a row at least as far as he knew he needed, so you finally just dismissed him by saying "well, it MUST have been something you did wrong on your side somewhere." You wouldn't even CONSIDER the possibility that this guy really had been ripped off and that this school really was run by a bunch of lying crooks, even though neither phenomenon is particularly unusual in China! THIS is pursuing the truth for the benefit of all?!?

In the Cross case, I won't argue the guy's mistake. He messed up, it seems, little doubt about it. So instead I will invite a viewing of our respective first posts back to him that might illustrate the real difference between you and me: My first reply to him was to point him to his Consulate so that, right or wrong, he could get some help if there is any. Your first reply was to try and rip him a new hole.

So I still can't see any reason that holds water for the things you are doing on here. Oh, I understand what you are saying, but I don't actually see you doing it...anywhere. And without that just cause you so obviously DON'T have at least in many of these cases, I'm sick of watching you tear these people down on behalf of schools that pretty clearly seem to have operated in a completely unacceptable manner. That's what it is to ME. I'm still very unclear about YOU.

I appreciate the solid support I've received from Frank, and he has my gratitude for it. (No, I don't know Frank other than on here. But I'd like to.) But this has nothing to do with why I don't debate his takes on job ads. The reason for that is that I realize Frank is simply trying to share a little humor. A lot of these job ads ARE pretty damn funny, and I know many teachers who enjoy reading them. I don't think anyone with half a brain would ever automatically equate writing bad Chinglish in a job ad, with being a dodgy school! Besides humor, Frank also shows compassion and tolerance in his writing...none of which I've ever seen a glimmer of from you.

Meanwhile, yeah, I DID have the temerity to stand up and tell you that I don't buy your arguments and that I question your motives. Sure, I used some pretty blunt language in saying so. But at no point did I ever stoop to the level of nastiness that you've displayed...which makes your accusing me of these tactics pretty damned funny, really. Ditto for your assertions that I haven't made solid arguments for any of my points; in reality I think I've done this a hell of a lot better than you have.

But then, some people are not able to build and they're not able to defend. The only thing they're good at is tearing down.

Speaking of which, while your detractors may be few (An assertion that seems as arguable as most others you've made), your support seems to come mostly from a known repeat troll. This same guy pops up from to time for the sole purpose of slapping everyone around until he gets banned again. You're welcome to grasp at this straw if you want to, John. It's absolutely no skin off my nose. Personally I don't want or need support from a person like that. I'm absolutely delighted that they're on your side!

You said in another post that you were going to ignore my posts, and that this would be infuriating to me.
Please.
I invite you, I WELCOME you to ignore any and all of my posts on this or any other forum. I won't mind a bit! Go for it! Please play in your own league!