a very interesting discussion topic, a shame most comments on here are not really relevant.

i represent a school that was unfortunate enough to hire two young-ish teachers who were both let go and decided to take revenge on this site and a few others.

the talk at the time might have affected the response rate to our recruiting but i would argue that on the whole, it only put off those we would probably not have been keen on to start with.

if anyone is daft enough to be influenced by clearly biased comments from unhappy ex-employees, then i should think they are not suitable for work in the organisation concerned.

we haven't had to up our offer, actually, we have even found that offering slightly less (we used to offer CNY12000+, but now offer 10-15, and we don't pay for visa anymore, nor do we give an end of year bonus anymore) worked better.

we have managed to attract older, more stable and concerned teachers who actually care about what they do more than they care about money.

obviously, the trend on this website is a bit ridiculous but this is symptomatic of the modern faceless internet social environment as a whole and it has its benefits; those who spend more time online hiding behind their keyboards (although they do manage to hurt some people; internet bullying is unfortunately a grave matter) are less likely to interfere in the real world and have much impact on the business landscape. i am not entirely discarding the impact they may have, i am merely saying it is very limited.

still, a bit more objectivity would be welcome!