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To providers: free giveaway of registration codes for the biggest server/hosting community in China
Hi all,
Inspired by @FAT32 who joined this Chinese community recently (https://www.hostloc.com/thread-617798-1-5.html), I'll start to provide free registration codes to all the providers here if you would like to publish your offers in the biggest hosting community in China. This community is invitation-only; due to the limited number of the invitation codes I have, it is not possible for me to provide codes to everyone who would like to join at this moment, but all members with a provider/mod/admin tag and any other active LET members here with at least 200 "thanks" can also PM me for a free registration code. The codes are valid for 72 hours only, so make sure to register your account ASAP after receiving the code.
As a long-time member of both two communities, and a Mandarin/English speaker who have lived in the US for many years, I (and quite a few others) can see the cultural difference and would every much like to contribute to improve the overall reputation of Chinese customers in the hosting industry. Several of the English-speaking users in this Chinese community have been actively explaining to others the correct way to communicate with providers, and preventing people from abusing chargebacks. For sure, that's a long way to go.
By introducing LET providers to this Chinese community, I believe it's a step forward that benefits both providers here and the potential Chinese customers that unfortunately don't understand English and have no idea what LET is.
Tips for providers: you can try to translate your offer through Google Translate, or even publish directly in English; lots of people will be more than happy to translate them to Mandarin for you.
Let me know if you have any questions. If any mods think this thread is not appropriate here, feel free to close it.
Comments
I am pretty sure when I say this, most and almost all of us would love to the be part of that forum.
Only problem would be the massive language barrier and the shitty job that Google translation does.
Chinese/Asian customer base is definitely unique and something @poisson did a great job explaining why and how.
@HostDoc
Many Chinese cannot buy foreign VPS.
Because fraud is so important, it is not possible to verify IP addresses or real information.
Thanks @dedipromo for the effort. I do think that it is quite a lot of effort for providers themselves to use translation tools to engage in back and forth discussions (which @seriesn has correctly pointed out that the current technology does a really poor job) and their time is also precious.
Also, there is quite a mismatch in cultural expectations, as evident from the recent case where the Chinese user couldn't understand why providers here would reject business (those of you who have been following will know the "we have a lot of money" faux pas), which is another problem.
If you ask me, what is needed is a set of FAQs properly translated into Mandarin in terms of the general expectations of hosting providers on LET. Most of the problems I see are fake details during sign-ups, using VPNs to sign up triggering fraud checks, chargebacks on Paypal etc. A comprehensive FAQ drawn up by the LET community, properly translated into Chinese and stickied on Hostloc should mitigate most of the concerns.
I am not sure if I have the time to add monitoring Hostloc to an already busy schedule, so I will have to pass. On LET though, if any Chinese user has difficulty explaining his situation in English, I am happy to read PMs in Chinese and offer an accurate native English translation if I have the time.
I am sorry but providers outside China are governed by their local laws and most will require real information.
@dedipromo If it is not too much effort, can you help to find out the procedure for providers to be able to offer WeChat/Alipay and put up the information for the benefit of providers? This information will help a lot by removing one of main annoyances for providers, which is Paypal chargebacks. I think many Chinese would prefer to pay using WeChat/Alipay too, so this alone would be a potential win-win for both sides.
也有文化的障礙，你一說台灣是獨立國家，他們會開始DDoS你的网络。你說『光復香港』的話，我也不知道他們會怎麼反應。這些人以為中華民國是中華人民共和國的一個部分。
Translation: There is also the cultural mistrust. The moment one mentions Taiwan is an independent country, the PRC Chinese will DDOS your network. If you say "Return Hong Kong's glory", I don't know how they will react. These people believe that the Republic of China (Taiwan) is a part of the People's Republic of China.
I think many providers here such as Virmach and BuyVM already have Alipay set up, so yeah that's definitely a good thing to dig into; I'll try to find some info and update here.
Not many do, but if the information is public and the procedure is not difficult such that most LET providers can get this payment mode easily, there will be more opportunities on both sides.
They have English website (https://intl.alipay.com/open/index.htm) and there is WHMCS module (https://marketplace.whmcs.com/product/4537), I suspect it is straightforward. Settlement in e.g. USD is supported. 可是阿里巴巴就是中國共產黨，如果外國公使用支付寶，那這錢就會被用來資助新疆種族滅絕。
Edit: is WeChat Pay more popular than Alipay now? Or are they used for different purposes (like PayPal vs Venmo, even though former owns the latter)?
Translation: But Alibaba is part of the Chinese Communist Party; if foreign companies use Alipay, the money may be used to sponsor the ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang
@perennate I won't go so far as to link Alipay to Xinjiang.
@poisson any thoughts on WeChat Pay vs Alipay? My impression is everyone has started using WeChat Pay but maybe that's only for sending money to friends.
I am not PRC Chinese, so I actually don't use these payment gateways but I have lots of PRC friends and they tell me they use WeChat Pay or Alipay for everything in China.
I feel like certain people are trying to get LET banned in china with this thread...
If anyone has some friendly advice for an Australian who speaks only English, on how I could best integrate into that community, I'd be very much appreciative.. I'm surprised I made it through the signup process lol
I'm going to point out that if you use recaptcha and you don't want chinese customers signing up on a VPN, then you don't want chinese customers.
Is Recaptcha now blocked in china?
When I was there in 2017 I confirmed Recaptcha was working over 3G.
Oh wow, that's really interesting, didn't realize Google being blocked implies recaptcha won't work.
I'm not sure but https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57827914/google-recaptcha-in-china says you can use it if you change the domain to recaptcha.net instead of google.com, as of September 2019. I checked LET registration, it uses google.com. So I guess that is the default but maybe the big websites change it per Google's recommendation.
Virtually no one changes the domain, and most forums' builtins do not allow changing the domain.
不知道谁告诉你们阿里巴巴和新疆的关系，但是我在新疆的朋友们说完全没有你们想象中的那样
I do n’t know who told you about the relationship between Alibaba and Xinjiang, but my friends in Xinjiang said that it is completely different from what you think
I have a Uyghur friend sitting right next to my desk, I showed your comment to him and he was like, what the actual fuck.
I don't think politics should be discussed here...
You can learn from Ronnie Chieng here:
He appears in the final two minutes.
@perennate why not try to understand chinease mainland and get in touch with the local people first? though I know political sucks
don't want to talk much, it's not a political forum.
yes
If someone needs an invitation code, I can give away about 5 for free.
Alipay focuses on payment and online purchase, believed to be owned by Alibaba. You may related it to Paypal, ie, it is a born payment tool without literally social function(it does have, but few people use this func).
Wechat pay is an extension, or an integrated part of Wechat, which is a born chat tool, sth. like Facebook messenger, or ICQ. When tencent group found online payment was growing to be a huge business, it started to add payment function into Wechat so people don't bother switching from Wechat when they are chatting with friends to paying for meals, travelling agencies, taxi fees etc and just complete the payment process within the application on their mobile phones. To be more specific, if I could make a right comparison, it is something Apple Pay is doing, you are talking to your friends and meantime split the bills of your last evening meal, you are browsing Amazon with your iPhone and meantime finish the order via Apple Pay shipped or installed inside the phone.
Concerning popularity, both are one the same level, by which I mean most merchants/peddlers/store owners would have to provide the two, NOT one of them. It's normal situation that you'll find QR codes for at least two gateways, one for Alipay, one for Wechat Pay, and perhaps a few for some other, say UnionPay. Also, you may find one QR code but that combines Alipay, Wechat Pay or Union Pay.
This is a nice giveaway @dedipromo