Aster,
You write very well and have succinctly stated positions I very much agree with. I haven't commented on this topic for quite awhile but I've been following the conversation since shortly after the discussion began - nothing has changed.
I agree with you 100% that no country ought to be prevented from adding media to this site - well, at least no SE Asian country considering that part of the world is the focus of this site. This is not a public site tho, I don't even kno who owns this site and I'm fairly certain as to the reason why Vietnam hasn't been added yet and I'm quite disappointed with the MDL staff - but that doesn't seem to affect anyone, so I'm going to spell it out rn
MDL Staff,
Eventually this is going to become an actual issue - something I don't think that you are prepared to handle at all, like not at all - I doubt you even understand what I'm implying.
If you were to add Vietnam now, you could say its bc you "reviewed their media and found they met xyz qualifications" or something like that - that legitimize both your adding them now AND this ridiculous waiting period. Plus that would give you a legitimate process for doing this in the future - which tho I really dislike how I think such process will be used, it does seem like you may need a way to prevent certain country content from arriving on this site - a real way, not just ignoring it and hoping it goes away. I don't need to be watching content made by a brutal dictatorship for example - you can censor that.
That is what you are doing to Vietnam, censoring them - you have no legitimate reason to do so. Its becoming more and more obvious everyday that there is only one reason why you are censoring them.
This is very shady what you are doing - someday the chickens will come home to roost. I suggest you get ahead of that and while doing so, give yourselves a little bit of a legit foundation to stand on for similar situations you will encounter in the future.
Just my 2 cents.