Please restore the S:T. thread

Yes, admins please do the same as you did to the "Thinking in Chinese" thread and just remove any inappropriate or nonsensical posts.

Henning, you're welcome for the word and thanks for the thread. When I first saw the thread topic, I was afraid it concerned having to look up big English words posted by smart-alecky Americans who only know one big word. Hey, at least it's not slang!

I did not see the relevant posts, but I suggest that we all consider what is best for Chinese Pod, and let the capable administrators handle the situation as they consider best. Don't forget that CPod is in very special postion on the internet. I have some experience of net communities, and have seen that they are sadly vulnerable. Personal conflicts can do damage to the whole community.

Marcel, I do not agree. Auntie surely can become angry (hot-tempered girl sometimes...), but that this special thread of her's is completely elmininated is simply not adequate. She has given this community way too much and simply does not deserve this. It is not fair towards her (she put a lot into this!) and it is also not fair towards all of us who were contributing to this discussion or simply following it. This is about raising kids bilingual, that's all.

I agree with Henning. There are lots of wackos in the world, and it's inevitable that every so often one of them will stroll into CPod. Auntie (and the CPod community) shouldn't be punished because of one person's ignorance.

I second henning's motion. In fact, I mentioned the disappearance of this thread a few hours ago while posting on Auntie's other ST thread as we "speak".

Oops, part of my comment got mangled. Meant to say: "And I am hoping that they are busy rebuilding the thread manually as we "speak".

Hello. I am the original poster. Thanks for showing support (and thanks, CPOD, for responding), but the thread was deleted at my request. Please don't blame CPOD. Henning, this will sound stupid, but I don't think I was "angry" so much as "feeling foolishly desperate". we all enjoyed learning from that thread, but it has served its purpose. The problems with "zhangyanlin"'s postings there brought home to me the fact that if you write very personal things, especially about your loved ones, it's a very unsettling feeling when you tangle with a troll on another thread and then he/she comes to harass you and other people on the very personal thread as well. Even if you don't reveal actual names, it's a frightening feeling. I am so sorry..

It looks as if zhangyanlin's profile has been removed. Thanks CPod for taking care of this, especially since it's after 2 am Shanghai.

Hi auntie68.:) I'm sorry about the incident. Let's hope none of that will happen again. BTW,His Chinese was "classical-ish"...I didn't understand some of the things that he was saying.

hitokiri6993, I've just apologized to you via pm... it's heartfelt. So sorry. There's no excuse for "losing it" in that way. Take care.

I missed the whole incident, which is just as well. So easy to offend one another in a forum like this. So difficult to keep people out who only seek trouble (捣乱). The Cpod community is quite fortunate that this kind of thing does not happen more often...

Ahh.... I only saw a couple of the posts in the "Thinking in Chinese" thread, so I didn't know the entire story. However now I understand a little more. With such a nice community where everyone is open, honest and cares about each other so much; it's always a shame when someone from the outside comes in and spreads spreads dirt throughout the house. It doesn't just affect the person it is being directed at but everyone else who has to live here. Gladly there are some fine moderators to keep things in check and fortunate also not that many of the ignorant people, with muddy shoes, that come here.

Well, Luke, at least I think I can say I am a wiser person now. What I should have done is: e-mail the Admins instead of merely posting my requests for help. John Pasden was not pleased that I didn't try e-mailing them first. So by the time I managed to get this thread yanked, it was something like 7 hours after trouble began on goulniky's thread. It's a pity that CPOD had to be working at 2.30 am on a Saturday morning.

Hmmm, I guess this explains some of the discombobulated [(迷惑的）:-)] conversations floating around.

tvan: Small excursion to the Lookup debate: http://chinesepod.com/connections/viewpost/henning/connect/The+case+for+the+vacuum+approach+%28%22looking+everything+up%22%29 I just sucessfully looked up "discombobulate" and listened to its pronounciation (magic of the web). Although you already gave me a strong clue, because I already knew 迷惑 . But discombobulate is indeed a fun word.

With the ST thread, I tried to ignore the troll by only replying to hitokiri's comments (I think we were both trying to distract ourselves), and then the troll's language turned very ugly. Even though it was in an "I'm off my meds" kind of Chinese. Let's let this one be...