Guidelines for moderating Chinese forums?

[sheik]

Over a year ago I was contacted by the admin of a mainland Chinese website who said that his website forums had been shut down by the Chinese government. After getting assurances that his forums were only used to discuss Cantonese language and culture I agreed to host the forum for him.

This has been difficult for me as I don't read Chinese, so have no way of monitoring what is being discussed myself. I run an educational site and don't want to host a forum with a political agenda on it (not because I am worried about being blocked by China, but because it simply isn't the purpose of my site).

I now have some kind volunteer moderators who can communicate with me in English and we agreed to some guidelines about the forum in question. Posts with overtly political content are not welcomed and personal attacks on individuals or racist comments are definitely not allowed.

My question is, are these types of guidelines fairly common for mainland Chinese forums? In the west, I would say that racism is (thankfully) banned on most sites. Personal attacks are discouraged on most too, although there are plenty of exceptions. Political comments are rarely banned, although they may not be appropriate for the site in which case they will just annoy other users who aren't interested in getting into a debate.

What generally results in a site getting blocked from China? If someone were to post a strong criticism of the government would that be virtually guaranteed to get the site blocked? Please excuse my ignorance about this by the way, I have no experience about these types of issues - in the UK it is normal to complain about our leaders (and we have lots to complain about ;) )

Comments welcomed,

/dam