why would anyone with any modicum of intelligence listen to someone who has admitted they are not even in the country
?

Great, if we followed your logic why would ANY FOREIGNER want to listen to YOU since you're obviously in a foreign country yourself and you're also working in an embedded environment. Who's REALLY not having it out with having a rational areguement?

Since I do not agree with your assessment of the state of affairs in regards to training schools my guess is your only recourse is to call me names. That obviously proves you are right and I am wrong. Kudos to you sir for revealing your lack of intelligence or ability to formulate a thought on this post.

The more you talk, the less appealing your personal, well, appeals are to us.

If you really wanted to help the ESL industry and prevent new teachers from making the mistakes you made , might I suggest you stop writing about the past or at least come back here and do more research which will leave you better informed than you actually are.
As for the glowing posts about universities i am sure you will find many teachers that have had horrible experiences. The universities operate similar to the training schools wanting to make money. a major difference though is that at a training school such as York the class size has 60 plus students.

I never said all universities were great, that is an assumption YOU have made. I know teachers who have had horrible experiences at public universities, maybe I'm one of them? I'm just saying that if you really WERE TO COME to China to work as a teacher, the university scene is a place WHICH TREATS ITS FOREIGN TEACHERS much better by comparison. I also never said working at universities meant having the best jobs in China now did I??? Your reading comprehension needs work.

I am suggesting you and your ilk are worthless and outdated, the type of people that complain and whine while not even in the loop. Your claim that you talk to people still working at training centres serves to validate your argument yet I have to wonder if all training are crap why would they still be here. Your message that training centres are crap has been on this site for years. I guess those people you talk to feel your opinion is worthless and outdated as well.

I still get emails from time to time(and I'm sure others who post on this site do as well) from teachers asking me for advice. I try my best to help them and give as much information as possible, but I cannot say I always give a complete picture. However the fact that strangers contact me for information shows that these ideas are not outdated. Your idea of complaining about the same old adage being repeated needs to be re-examined. EVERY SINGLE FREAKIN MONTH there are a whole NEW BATCH of crappy places and complaints popping up. I hate beating a dead horse but THIS IS AN ONGOING PROBLEM. Private educational quality in China cannot be turned around from the inside of the business.

Calling me "ilk" and saying everything I say as being "outdated", "old", yada yada yada is pretty childish. It sounds like you're talking for the sake of soothing your own hurt feelings from other people disagreeing with you.