A better end

... though not the best. I mean, there is such echo of pride even in a formal apology that has come late (thanks to the pressure of the public)...

Please wait until tomorrow for the whole issue (now I must go to sleep).

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Finished! (Aug. 27)

First of all, I have just found some unfavorable comments had been turned off secretly by the page administration... I have to admit that they are clever to do this instead of deleting them directly, because the second would be detected immediately.

So now, I will also show what they don't want others to read (and don't want me to realize that they have blocked such content). At the same time, I have to suppose that many other users' posts have also been treated in this way, because since late afternoon of yesterday (Aug. 26), no more negative comments could be found there...

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OK. Here is the story!

To promote the beautiful nature of Helsinki, its Tourism Office called on a photo contest on the webpage and also via facebook. The detailed conditions are:

Didn't it look great? I was just back from Helsinki and why not to have a try?

I believe that most of participants, like me, just see it as a chance to share moments and also to see other's sharing - You don't see Helsinki of all the seasons even if you have stayed there for one week, right? As far as the prize is concerned, I was quite aware of my phone's quality and the limitation of places I could visit during a weekend.

Then the day came. And you rolled down the whole album but could find nothing more than 16 photos, and there was not any trace of your submission. You looked into it again and found no words like "more photos to be uploaded later". Later on the same day, the page uploaded more photos of the same selected authors, making a total of 48 photos (16 x 3).

Then you found others had raised the same doubt as you:

I was disappointed of course looking into their explications that the rules had just been changed without any previous notification - Not all the photos will be shown, but only a small part of it... "Visit Helsinki" preselected 16 authors for the 2nd stage, when the voting will start...

I felt being cheated but I tried to maintain rational at first:

Some posts were quite solid! Here it is also pointed out that this reduction or non-legal preselection was not obliged due to facebook's capacity, which has NO limitation on numbers of photos in an album. 

But some replies to requests just made one furious. I could see NOT ANY proper reaction after having done something wrong, BUT a tone of authority toward its victims:

Positive feedback? From the chosen 16? Only? And even so, where was it? Why not a single positive word could be found around the page?

(By the way, they were cheating also in another mean, because they were NOT leaving all comments to be seen...hahaha today I have got to know it when I log out and see my posts disappear)

There is a Chinese saying quite popular in the recent years:

If you handle it seriously, then you already lose.

But as I already had nothing to lose:

I just could not tolerate such attitude!

And the official guys kept showing off their position of victory as defense:

My last post above (marked in red) was blocked by the page. Only me could see it now. Also my single post at 10:53; and the last of next one:

I grow up in China. I believed that such silly manner of domination could only happen in non-democratic societies... which could not be possible for the Occidental world in general. But Finnish tourism officers gave the lesson "Yes, we can".

Another example, not with me:

Reading the last reply, you just wonder if "Visit Helsinki" has any idea of basic respect, if it has none about public relations...

People love your city does not mean that love is free to be abused like this! Probably I was too kind to have not chosen English to write the review:

Now, about the selected photos. Of course there are wonderful shots!! Really good ones!! However, such "sun" and "sea" (if you find any) also passed to the 2nd stage:

"Visit Helsinki" explained later: "With the word "quarlity" we mean quality of content, not quality of camera equipment" (from the 1st image of this blog).

So they eliminated some wonderful insights, e.g.http://500px.com/sankarbe/sets/finland, through the "dark-box" operation... And I even expect them to feel guilty?

"Too young, too simple? Sometimes naive?" Again?