???? – 2004murdered
BonziBuddy
“A purple friend who told jokes and took notes — rest easy, buddy”
“A quiet room for loud ideas, argued in good faith until the lights went out.”
The Constitutional Forum — xianzheng.net, if you had it bookmarked — was a Mainland China-based academic thought forum devoted to constitutional theory and China's constitutional transformation, with constitutionalism at its core. Run by webmaster Chen Yongmiao from its founding in 2002, it gave serious people a serious place to think out loud. For those who cared about how a country might govern itself, it was home.
The site was banned several times by the Chinese government, and it closed in September 2003, its run as brief as it was earnest. It leaves behind the memory that even a one-year-old forum can matter enormously when the conversation is that important. xianzheng.net, rest well — the questions you raised outlived you.
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“A purple friend who told jokes and took notes — rest easy, buddy”
“Sent kanji as pictures when keyboards could not, and never quite found its audience.”
“It taught the world to point and click, then stepped aside with its trash can emptied.”