Someone mentioned elsewhere in this forum that I had rejected him from Trade Manager so let me explain so that he and others that I have also rejected can understand my decision.

First off it is not personal as I often don't know who you are, but you have your fellow country men to thank for the fact that I no longer accept Chinese members on TM.

The reason is.......abuse.

To my mind TM is for discussing business related matters, not for:

a. selling product;

b. promoting your company;

c. making friends;

d. practicing English;

e. abusing and stalking other users

I have encountered all of the above during my time here at alibaba and in almost every case it was at the hands of Chinese members hence my bias in this regard. Just because I am online does not mean that I have time for idle chats and I get a bit tired of offending people when pointing out to them that I am busy!

Of course I am fully aware that there are plenty of legitimate Chinese users out there but unfortunately I have been burned too many times before to accept any more Chinese users on TM.

The last straw for me was one Chinese user who asked me to admit him to my TM by sending me the subject line - Urgent Help Needed. Only to have him try and sell me some fake brand name product of some type or another. On questioning him he admitted that he uses that subject line as if he doesnt then people dont accept him on TM!!

Prior to that I have had one guy offer to hook me up with prostitutes in order to get a good business relationship going, one guy threaten me, and plenty of others who repeatedly sent requests for me to add them to TM after I had rejected their requests until I had no choice but to add them just so that I could block them.

So members from China, sorry to group you all in together, but please understand that it is the bad behavior of the ones that have come before you that have created this situation.

Comments and criticisms are welcome.

Quoting from [Oneuni]:how about  "the Amateurs"  "the New comers" etc ?  it  sound a bit nicer ?

You probably hit the nail right on its head! First, China has the most numerous population in the world, and as Alibaba is a Chinese website, the number of Chinese members is even higher, percentage wise. Consequently we also have a huge number of Chinese newcomers.

But whatever the reason is, people who just want to chat out of boredom or to learn English are a huge burden. It might be good for Alibaba to compile a "welcome" page for newcomers to the forums and include the point, "don't get on other people's nerves!"

Quoting from [Egernia]:

Thanks Howie.

Yes as I stated in my post I am fully aware that this is not true of all Chinese users, unfortunately it is true of far too many of them.

So now rather than giving Chinese users the benefit of the doubt and accepting in the hope that they will not break the rules I simply exercise my right not to accept them.

I am sure that I miss out on making some very good contacts with legitimate suppliers, but from my perspective this is worth it as I also no longer need to deal with the offenders.

So just a word for Chinese users. If you are finding that other members here reject your offer of adding to TM then perhaps they too have been burned in the past.

I 100% behind you on this and started to do the exact same practice in which you yourself have done. I also think if more TM users did the same there might be some effort in really weeding the bad apples out perhaps one day I will allow but it is not in the near future is all i can say.

Large Buyer From Canada

Quoting from [lepiner]:


I 100% behind you on this and started to do the exact same practice in which you yourself have done. I also think if more TM users did the same there might be some effort in really weeding the bad apples out perhaps one day I will allow but it is not in the near future is all i can say.

Large Buyer From Canada

Well it is up to the good Chinese suppliers to stand up for themselves and complain to alibaba about this. They are the ones who are paying for the rights to use this board and I know that if I was paying to be here and other people were making it impossible for me to do business through their selfish actions then I would complain about them.

As usual people tend to shoot the messenger on these sorts of things but it is good to see that some members such as Cooleyes can see past the 'racist rhetoric' and can understand that the solution here lies with their fellow countrymen abiding by the rules.

Quoting from [Egernia]:

Comments and criticisms are welcome.

      May I ?  allow me to comment :


      -  Now  I  got the answer,  why you ever refused me to add on  2 or 3 times

         before we can contacting via TM.

      -  In respect of your  Privacy been Annoying  ( abuse)

         we do more selective to contact with  peoples.

         I can see it as  a Culture Gap,  as like  Germex  had said...

        

      -  As  Mod's  it is better to use  another way... to those some but not  All Chineses.

        

         regards,

Quoting from [Oneuni]:


      -  As  Mod's  it is better to use  another way... to those some but not  All Chineses.

So what is your suggestion for dealing with this problem?

Quoting from [germex]:

Apparently the people who contacted you were sometimes more thoughtless than the ones who contacted me. And you mentioned an important point: "hear people out". That is, if somebody is already typing a response, wait to read it first before you go on "talking".

I'm using the concepts of "hearing" and "talking", because I hope that everybody knows that it is very rude to start talking before the other person has finished. Well, the rules for conversation via TM should be the same as for talking face to face. Hear the other person out!

Three easy steps to block such users. (Not to name Chinese, or Indian, etc.)

1- Accept their request to be added to your contact list.

2- If you are a manufacturer, ask them if they need any of the goods/services you provide.

3- Try to sell your products :)

This was a short story about turning a seller into a buyer.

I became friends with one seller. He was selling cellphones. He is a nice person to learn more about China. We all need to learn about China. Well, maybe I do. I did about 10 points out of 100 in the Alibaba China Quiz.

Also, we shall accept those invitations, unless we are busy.

Suppose you are entering into a spice bazaar in Turkish Spice Bazaar, or Grand Bazaar, we will treat you nice as well. We will try to sell you our stuff. So, accept the apologies of these people. We all want to sell. We just need to be patient, and respectful.

By the way, 100 characters is too little for me to express my reason to add new members to my contact list. The other way would be to send them an email and then hit the add contact button.

Long story short, I invested about 3 minutes to write a quality reply, I hope it was helpful.

The idea of turning the seller into a buyer is a novel one. I like the idea.

For me it is not so much that they are all trying to sell something. That is the nature of alibaba and particpation here. My biggest problems with these people who do use TM to try and sell their products includes:

a. they are generally not honest about their intentions for wanting you to add them. They sometimes claim that they need help and then as soon as you add them they try to sell you something. Perhaps they need your help to buy their products but that is not why people such as myself would add them;

b. they do not target their sales pitches at all and just contact everyone who is online regardless of what type of business that person is in.

I have followed MbM's suggestion and it has effectively solved the problem for me i.e. I no longer use the TM function. So all the legitimate users of TM can now no longer access me due to the abuse by some. I suspect that I am not the only one to turn TM off due to this reason which really undermines the value of the system.

Quoting from [Egernia]:

Someone mentioned elsewhere in this forum that I had rejected him from Trade Manager so let me explain so that he and others that I have also rejected can understand my decision.

First off it is not personal as I often don't know who you are, but you have your fellow country men to thank for the fact that I no longer accept Chinese members on TM.

The reason is.......abuse.

To my mind TM is for discussing business related matters, not for:

a. selling product;

b. promoting your company;

c. making friends;

d. practicing English;

e. abusing and stalking other users

I have encountered all of the above during my time here at alibaba and in almost every case it was at the hands of Chinese members hence my bias in this regard. Just because I am online does not mean that I have time for idle chats and I get a bit tired of offending people when pointing out to them that I am busy!

Of course I am fully aware that there are plenty of legitimate Chinese users out there but unfortunately I have been burned too many times before to accept any more Chinese users on TM.

The last straw for me was one Chinese user who asked me to admit him to my TM by sending me the subject line - Urgent Help Needed. Only to have him try and sell me some fake brand name product of some type or another. On questioning him he admitted that he uses that subject line as if he doesnt then people dont accept him on TM!!

Prior to that I have had one guy offer to hook me up with prostitutes in order to get a good business relationship going, one guy threaten me, and plenty of others who repeatedly sent requests for me to add them to TM after I had rejected their requests until I had no choice but to add them just so that I could block them.

So members from China, sorry to group you all in together, but please understand that it is the bad behavior of the ones that have come before you that have created this situation.

Comments and criticisms are welcome.

  Dear  Egernia,As a mermber from China,I have to admit your opoints is true sometimes.Since your article "Chinese user" attract my eyes so that I  note your discussion with others carefully .When I read this article ,my face was getting red,my feeling was getting uncomfortable,since I am Chinese.Your points let me to be at a loss of how to make friend with foreigners in future. Actually,Your point C& D  often appear on Chinese people.But maybe I think the situation of  point A ,B,E appears just less than one thoudsand percentage.Frankly,I smell a little prejudice feeling from you to Chinese people.However,just a suggestion to you for reference.If you will try to break your rule which  you set,maybe you can get the other decision to Chinese.

Quoting from [germex]:

Quoting from [Oneuni]:how about  "the Amateurs"  "the New comers" etc ?  it  sound a bit nicer ?

You probably hit the nail right on its head! First, China has the most numerous population in the world, and as Alibaba is a Chinese website, the number of Chinese members is even higher, percentage wise. Consequently we also have a huge number of Chinese newcomers.

But whatever the reason is, people who just want to chat out of boredom or to learn English are a huge burden. It might be good for Alibaba to compile a "welcome" page for newcomers to the forums and include the point, "don't get on other people's nerves!"

   Hi,Germex,I agree with your points.