SMTH BBS

Shuimu Tsinghua (Chinese: 水木清华; pinyin: shuǐmù qīnghuá; abbreviated as SMTH) BBS is the first and one of the most popular bulletin board system sites among the universities in China. Hosted by Tsinghua University, it is recognized for its diversity and depth of topics.

Access to the SMTH BBS was restricted to on-campus IPs since March 16, 2005, effectively blocking away a substantial portion of its contributors, ranging from graduates living overseas to students from other universities in China. A small protest was held at the elite university against tightening government censorship on the Internet.

Early in 2006, the SMTH BBS reopened itself to the alien IPs from outside Tsinghua University, available to those who would confirm their identification using a valid email account. However, a large number of its discussion groups are still under tight control, refusing visits from the outside world.

1995: How it All Began

In early August 1995, ace set up a BBS site on a Linux/386 machine in one of the laboratories of the Tsinghua University. Later, ming and lucky joined the endeavor and transferred the system onto a SUN Sparc 20 with 64M memory. On August 8, the BBS formally declared open, and was named "Shui Mu Tsing Hua", often abbreviated as SMTH, which in Chinese means "Water is clear, with trees in florescence", referring to a line in an ancient poem and an actual site in Tsinghua University. The IP address then was 166.111.1.11.