"没看见过谁跑到私人家里，大吵大闹，主人还要端水送饭的"
- First of all I agree that the owner has the right to ban or block any ID he wants, but with my reservations on some aspects of incident.
- Secondly, I don't think the analogy comparing a private home with this website is accurate or appropriate. Because if you look at the top and the bottom of every page in this website, you will see many ads which indicate that this website is a business or commercial entity. Business entity/premises and private home are completely different concepts by nature and by laws, such as tax law, business law, civil law and criminal law. For example, there are certain things you can do in your private home, but it will not be okay on business premises.
- Thirdly, the statement makes it sound like as if the owner is a philanthropist and doing a philanthropic deed to set up this "公众服务型的论坛" without any intention for monetary gains and without actually making any profit from doing it. The truth is a person who operates commercial operations and making profit from doing it is commonly considered and called a businessman. Further from truth is the statement also makes it sound like as if the visitors of this site were handout receivers. The truth is each and every one of the visitors who visits this website is contributing to the owner's wealth. Because more people (or more an individual) visit this site, higher the hit rates are. Higher the hit rates, more advertisers will be attracted to the site, and higher the owner can charge advertisers for their ads. So the relationship between the owner and the visitors is not like the one between a philanthropist and a bunch of homeless poeple in a long lineup in front of his big house waiting to receive the daily free bowl of porridge or soup. But rather it is the one between a business owner and his customers who deserve to be treated fairly and decently. I am not saying there's something wrong with the owner's business practice. But intentionally or unintentionally hiding the business nature of this website, and the customer nature of its visitors, as well as the differences either between a businessman and a philanthropist, or between a commercial operation and a philanthropic deed is misleading.
- Fourth, I think many people have expressed concerns and anger over banning the ID is not because they don't think the owner has the right to do so, but rather an expectation issue. Let me explain. If this site is located in China and was setup and managed by the Chinese National Security Department, I don't think many people will bother to express their concerns, or even bother to visit. But when this site is located in a democratic country like Canada or the US, and many visitors are overseas Chinese, they will naturally see this site in the context of democratic environment, and they will naturally compare this site with other sites also located in the western countries. That's why their expectation is different from that if the site were in China. What I am a bit confused about is why the owner bothered to ban the ID at the first place? It seems banning the ID only causes more people aware of the owner's political preference or political agenda, not much else seems to have been achieved.
- Last, "在私人地盘，民主还是算了吧"... This is an interesting comment. It sounds like this gentleman shares, consciously or subconsciously, the idea that banning the ID is not something very democratic. Also interesting to note, why when it comes to this particular private company poeple should not or can not talk about democracy (talking was all the people did so far)? There are millions of private companies in the western countries and many around us. How often we hear poeple in the west comment about private companies in such a tone "在私人地盘，民主还是算了吧"? Let alone people who talked about the incident are customers of the company, not company's employees.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, and thanks...
