Photo.net, the site!

<p><em>"Fred, there is indeed a middle ground. Finding it is the problem"</em></p>

<p>Bob, thanks. As has been said many times before this, sometimes it's the journey, not the destination!</p>

<blockquote>

<p>@ m stephen - does a healthy community have laws? This one does and it comes in the form of our terms of use that community members agree to when they sign up. If they violate those laws/rules then someone must enforce them otherwise you are on the road to anarchy.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Who makes your laws - the members or the owners? There has been a debate of sorts about the closing of the OT forums. Many members wanting to see it continued. You know what the word was from management, right? "This is a private business and we can do what we want." Sorry, that's not community, aside from some management people simply proclaiming it to be so. Read any of Jeff's frequent, "Go somewhere else" rants and attempts at bullying people. Sorry, that's not a community builder. He makes it clear what kind of people are "ok" and what kind aren't. Sorry, that's not community either. The range of authentic human relations in a genuine community is very wide. The range permitted here by your laws is well, very narrow. And then there is the selective application of the laws. Members must "always be nice." Mods can be bellicose, belligerent and simply rude, and often are by my observation. In a real community, people don't allow themselves to be bullied that way. The idea of communities having democratic participation has nothing to do with "anarchy" - so dragging that strawman out is of no value here. I've seen no one suggesting or proposing anarchy. </p>

<p>Let's get technical. "Terms of Use," which must be agreed to by members, is a contract. Binding contracts are business arrangements, and are not part of genuine communities. For instance, when I move to a new physical community, I don't sign a TOS agreement in order to do so. The relationship of your members to your company is a business relationship. The word "community" has, since the early days of the Internet, been co-opted by business marketeers to make the arrangement sound like something it isn't.</p>

<p>Now, there's nothing wrong with business relationships. I use them as appropriate and useful to me. I don't become an Amazon Prime customer though, and then delude myself that I have joined a community, nor do I expect them to tell me I am a member of some Amazon community. However, in these richly monetized hobby forums, there is some historical overhang, probably from founders who didn't initially monetize the site, form corporations and go public, to continually represent the arrangement as being a community.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Does a community have a budget to pave the roads, build new ones, pay the town administrators and police...and etc. etc. The answer is yes and so does this community. Servers, designers, hosting, webmasters...all cost money. Without money there would be no site, there would be no communities online or in your own home town.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You're conflating two different entities there. The <em>city corporation</em> collects money and builds roads, the <em>community</em> is the aggregation of all the inter-personal human relations experienced by those within the borders. These relations and arrangements are personal, not legal or financial. I don't sign TOS agreements with my neighbors to watch each other's homes when we travel, or keep an eye out for stray pets, or to have block parties. Do you? </p>

<p>So yes, I know this corporation needs money to run. It doesn't run on community love or goodwill. So logic dictates the best path is to be clear and concise when describing your operations, aspirations and goals to the members - the content creators. Example: "We want to make a lot of money here at ABC corporation, so we get thousands of content creators to sign contractual agreements that allow us to leverage the content to sell ad space. And, to perpetuate and control that goal we enforce strict rules on what those content creators are permitted to do here." That would be an honest description of the premise involved in running a monetized special interest site.</p>

<p>Now let's compare that to someone that wanted to create a <em>community</em> of photographers. To wit: "We want to create a space where all photographers can advance their art, and help others do the same, by forming a community run by those photographers who can evolve with the changing needs of the group." See the difference? The business example requires business structure, like contracts. The community structure involves human relations. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Community or Business? - all sides are confused. We see many calling this a 'community.' But it is in fact a 'business.' Why is this important? Members want to act like it is a community, but that is in conflict with management, which wants to operate (of course) as a business. The two are incompatible ideas."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I would suggest that they are incompatible ideas only if a business is run old school.<br>

<br>

Every community-driven site measures its social performance via site stats thereby establishing a direct link to the site's financial performance. The fly in the ointment, though, is the potential misinterpretation of site stats causing tweaks to be misapplied. <br>

<br>

Social performance determines social outcome which in turn determines financial performance; no mystery there because they are symbiotic and interdependent - one can not exist without the other, and each responds to the other's performance. <br>

<br>

The community is driven by a collective mindset largely instilled by site management, and management in turn responds to the collective by cherry-picking desirable characteristics to further embellish social performance. This feedback loop can result in several outcomes as we observe the current Internet landscape; some are hugely successful, some are on IV clinging to life, most have gone by the wayside as no more than a footnote of failed experiments. </p>

<p>My question to the community is: who are we? who do we want to be? and what are our expectations? Funny enough, my questions to management is exactly the same which brings us to the crux of the problem - do we share a common identity and are pursuing similar site goals? Or are we, as partners, waiting for, or mandating the other to create a Utopian space in order for us to function effortlessly only under those conditions?</p>

<p>These are complicated questions and probably merits another thread; notwithstanding, Google, Facebook and others are rolling in money operating thriving community sites not dissimilar to PN, so contrary to m-stephen's remark, business and community are absolutely compatible. In fact this relationship has defined and created a new world where there is no going back. <br>

<br>

</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Then, the Nikon Wednesday Pic. I clearly remember, about two years back, each Wednesday thread used to attract 100 plus responses. Today it hardly ever crosses 60-70."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>This observation from Apurva's initiating post really got my attention. My first thought was that at its peak in 2009 the Nikon forum Wednesday photo threads attracted more than 200 posts. Not necessarily over 200 photos, because many of the posts were commentary on photos and, in a few cases, even people thanking others for thanking them for thanking...<br /> ...okay, I lost track of where I was going with this thought. But you get the idea. By 2009 photo.net was already becoming what social media already does, and does better: encouraging us to encourage each other, whether through Facebook "likes", Google+ "+1" or words of praise and encouragement on those photo.net weekly photo sharing threads.</p>

<p>In fact, at one point there was an <a href="/nikon-camera-forum/00Uf1J">extensive and spirited discussion</a> about the future of those Wednesday photo threads. A few folks expressed some real disappointment that we were trying to encourage them to use the site's existing critiques/comments process rather than to comment extensively inline with those Wednesday photo threads. I regret that they felt disappointed and discouraged. My main hope was to encourage them to use the critiques/comment section as well.</p>

<p>I'd like to revisit a suggestion I made back in 2009 - to tie together the weekly photo sharing threads with our photo.net portfolio spaces. This might help improve on another legitimate problem that Apurva mentioned:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Those days one used to get a lot response to individual pictures posted which were really good. Within half an hour of posting a picture in critique forum one would get at least 6 to 8 ratings and as much critiques."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The weekly photo sharing threads on various forums have been consistently popular, even if overall participation is down. Same with the No Words forum.</p>

<p>I'd like to resubmit the proposal to link our submissions to those photo sharing threads - including the No Words forum - directly to our photo.net portfolio spaces. Ideally, members can click on each other's photos in those threads, and be taken directly to the photo.net portfolio pages on which those photos are hosted.</p>

<p>That may help encourage more comments and critiques.</p>

<p>But some minor modifications may be needed to make this work better. For example, the drag-and-drop method isn't intuitive to everyone, and isn't practical via the mobile app.</p>

<p>Instead, perhaps folks could first upload photos to their portfolio spaces and have a box to check for submitting photos not only to be critiqued/rated through the usual process, and to submit photos to various contests/monthly displays, but also to submit photos to the various weekly photo sharing threads and to the No Words forum. This should help ensure that if we see a photo in the No Words forum and would like to comment on it, we can go directly to the member's portfolio space and do so, without interrupting the spirit of the No Words process.</p>

<p>I believe that method could work very well. Many of the really insightful critiques I've received came not from the standard critique forum process, but rather through people seeing one of my photos at the bottom of a discussion forum thread, clicking on that thumbnail view and visiting the full sized version to offer their thoughts.</p>

<p>Applying the same option to the weekly photo sharing threads might help jumpstart the critique process that seems to have lagged for many members.</p>

<p>What is interesting about all of these current threads (I counted five of them with pretty much the same people going back and forth this morning) and the associated heat, and light (this should be about photography after all, so we have to mention light now and then) is that there is a consistent conflating of two discussions. One is a notion that the Off-Topic thread has become a sacred landing-place for some posters here on P.Net, and as such it has somehow become a touchstone for freedom of expression; and the other idea is that photography discussions are being over-moderated and therefore uninteresting. </p>

<p>I've stayed away from this for days, as I mentioned in an earlier post the OT threads were overly distracting for me, so I just didn't go there much lately. The same arguments are flying around in these current threads as were being expressed four or five days back, so I really haven't missed much as it turns out.</p>

<p>My personal preference would be that we focus our energies on the photography discussions and figure out how to make sure those remain vigorous, but not become personal. I think that's much of what Fred G. is suggesting, and I certainly want to make sure those debates can remain interesting and challenging. I learn by lurking, and of course I learn more by being directly involved. But I want to learn, and some of that involves disagreement. But it needn't be personal - although as Fred also points out, that's "perceptual" and will always happen somewhat.</p>

<p>What I have come to really dislike is the antagonism of the OT threads spilling into the rest of the forum, and anyone who hasn't seen that is probably not wanting to see it. I have no doubt that some of the other threads will drift into the value of photography in a free society, but that's more valuable to me than the discussion about the place of a gun in free society. So, again, I'm in favor of a heavily-moderated OT forum that discusses items of interest while staying away from the usual political stuff, and I've no interest in the on-going diatribes from the usual suspects - heck, I could write most of their stuff now so it's not as if I'm learning from that. And, more importantly I'd like to see a less-heavily moderated approach to photography-related threads where we could have some disagreements, but recognize that we are subject to some rules of civility.</p>

<p>Just for fun I googled "website for political debate" and found lots of places where individuals can argue every kind of subject imaginable, as it relates to a political and cultural perspective. The web seems to have that area well-covered without our contributing to the acrimony that inhabits those conversations these days.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"One is a notion that the Off-Topic thread has become a sacred landing-place for some posters here on P.Net..."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Indeed and thanks for pointing that out. There are already at least two, possibly three threads on the site help forum on that topic. It would be better to confine complaints about the OT forum issue to those threads in order to keep this one focused on Apurva's original constructive comments and requests, which did not include any mention of the off topic forum.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>PS. I prefer to call Photo.net retro...not clunky. Don't worry 2.0 is on the way...the costly designers and programmers are ringing up a huge bill which will pay with....ummmm I don't know....money.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Once more, you seem to not understand that I don't care how much money you make. To the contrary, my argument has consistently been to stop calling yourself a <em>community</em> and call yourself a business. Stop claiming people are offended by a discussion of economics (OT Forum), but somehow no one is ever offended by ummmm I don't know, piles of prurient photographs of vaginas? when the far simpler truth to be explained is that you feel you can make more money by eliminating the OT forum than with it. A very simple proposition for anyone to understand - business is business. Instead, those of us who post regulary in that company supplied space called OT had to listen to days of insults and scolding by the mods for "shouting, arguing, creating disruptive mean environments," and a whole litany of horrors about disrupting some community which doesn't exist! </p>

<p>Sarcasm works when the basis lies in fact. Sadly, I have never complained about your company making money, so the attempted sarcasm falls flat.</p>

 

<p>What's a community on the web? Everything is a business. Facebook is a business, Twitter is a business. All social networking sites are businesses. Any site carrying any advertising is a business. Are you objecting to photo.net not being a community or just that it shouldn't be called a community. What would you call it. Are you saying there is no sense of <em>business</em> here, or that there is no <em>business</em> spirit. That participants here are not getting the true spirit of a <em>business.</em> Maybe we should send out messages to new users saying "Welcome to the business". Would that make you happy?</p>

<p><br /> Also, please tell me where the piles of prurient photographs of vaginas are? You seem to be very knowledgeable on that subject, of which I admit to complete ignorance. Despite being on the site for many hours every day, I don't recall seeing one, nevermind loads (or even binders full) of them. I guess maybe you see what you look for?</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>The internet world is just jammed with too many photos</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Not really sure what we're going to do about that one.</p>

<p>Bob, I'm not terribly knowledgeable on the subject of vaginas, so let me add 2 cents from a non-expert on the subject. Probably whether there are many or few vaginas is a matter of interpretation and not a fixed or eternal truth. It's relative. But, I think it would be safe to say there are many more vaginas on PN than penises (at least as shown in photographs). I know in my own case of showing penises, though it's not all about prurience, that is certainly a part of it. I'm happy to say that about my own work, that it comes from a sexual place within me as well as a desire to express other things. I would only hope that there is prurience in the visions of men who photograph vaginas. I suspect there is. I also suspect some might be reticent to admit that for whatever reason and think that art somehow neutralizes prurience, which I think it does not necessarily do.</p>

<p>Now, I'm going to try to tie in vaginas, penises, and Off Topic discussions.</p>

<p>An irony or bit of inconsistency I see here is that because people have expressed a desire not to see nudes if they don't want to or aren't in a good position to, a nudes filter system has been established. I don't know if the same sort of filter has been considered for OT discussions and I'm not sure why that couldn't work to allow those who want to engage to engage while allowing those who don't want to see it the ability to filter it out.</p>

<p>This is just a guess. But I suspect that a great many of the complaints about the Off Topic forum are from folks who just can't help watching a train wreck. How else would they be familiar enough with what goes on to be offended? If you ask most people about rubberneckers and how traffic gets backed up so easily because of them, they will say they hate rubbernecking and would never practice it. And, yet, rubbernecking is pervasive enough to cause slowdowns in traffic with great regularity. Someone is doing the rubbernecking, which means they are drawn to while simultaneously abhorring the train wreck. Give us all a way to filter out the train wrecks and I don't see why anyone would claim that it hurts them or the site. You could even make it a default so a newcomer would never find it unless he actively sought it out.</p>

<p>Again, I'm just as happy the OT forum as it was is gone. But if you wanted to bring it back in some form or another, a filter to make it invisible to those who wanted no part of it might be just the ticket.</p>

<p>A nudes filter? A train wreck filter? Wouldn't that be censorship, the very crime we're so often accused of. We'd have to decide what deserves to be filtered and what doesn't. Can't say I want that awesome level of responsibility.</p>

<p>A new forum called "Train Wrecks" might not be a bad idea though. We could put this thread in it as a start.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>a filter to make it (OT forum) invisible to those who wanted no part of it might be just the ticket.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I believe that's called "not clicking on the OT forum link". I can manage to do that quite easily myself. Maybe those with no self control need OTA (as in AA). I suppose it would be easy to remove all links to an OT forum, but then what would be the point of having it and how would it benefit the site? Might just as well make life easier for everyone and not have it at all.</p>

<p>Bob, we already do have a nudes filter, which I'm not keen on but understand the reasons for it. It looks like you got my point about the OT filter. Yes, changing the channel is the ultimate filter and gives us the ultimate freedom, something a lot of people claim to cherish but find it too much of a responsibility to exercise, which is the very reason so many complaints have been lodged asking for the removal of the OT forum. Because, though people have the freedom to change the channel, they would prefer someone in authority to insist on it and make a policy of it.</p>

<p>Anyway, it's back to penises for me. (Though serendipitously and ironically—an always interesting combination—when I said above I was going to make a comment on a photo, I commented on one with a vagina. That was before vaginas were even mentioned here. You gotta love it. By the way, it's also pretty timely that two people were extremely offended by this photo. I can see every reason for that and I can see the other side as well. I would NOT want the photo removed because of the offense taken.)</p>

<p>We don't really have an active nudes filter. You can visit the site without logging in and view all the nudes you want, and anyone can stumble on them while viewing a photographer's portfolio. We do ask photographers to put all nudes in the nudes category, rather than fine art or fashion or glamour. In that way we sort of filter them and minimize the chances of them appearing at random.</p>

<p>An actual nudes filter would by default block <strong>all</strong> nudes for <strong>everyone</strong> unless they logged into the site and checked a box saying "show me the nudes".</p>

<p>Of course then we'd get yelled at when someone didn't categorize their images correctly (or deliberately mis-classified them) - though that's already the case anyway, plus we'd be required to go in and censor - er, I mean moderate? - images to make sure nudes weren't shown "by accident" - though again, we sometimes have to do that now.</p>

<p>Agreed. We don't have a nudes filter. We have a system that allows for filtering them to some extent. Glad we cleared that up! :-)</p>

<p>My tongue-in-cheek suggestion can now be revised. Instead of an Off Topic filter, we could devise a system that allowed for filtering it out . . . but as you already point out, that system is already in place to an extent . . . don't visit it.</p>

<p>Just like we request the folks put their nudes into the separate nudes category and queue, we could request that people put their political and economic rants into the Off Topic forum . . . which folks could stay away from like they do if they don't want to see nudes . . . oh, wait . . .</p>

<p>Actually, I don't know if it still exists but at one point craigslist had a Rants and Raves forum. I looked in on it once, got a kick out of it and never went back. Maybe, Off Topic could be limited to science projects and asking questions about remodeling the house and another forum called Political Rants and Raves could be started. Again, just tongue-in-cheek. Where's my tongue-in-cheek emoticon? Better not, it could be considered too sexual!</p>

<p>@m stephens - you call photo.net clunky then am I to assume you like clunky <strong>or</strong> is that you would like to see improvements made to the site? Please show me a community that isn't a business on some level. Church, nope - they collect, your town...darn those taxes. Cub Scouts, ugh...fees again! Remember - subscription to photo.net is $25 for the year which we use to keep the servers going, pay for bandwidth all so we can discuss photography. I would love to see this kind of passion thrown into every town hall meeting across the world, we'd all live in a better place. <br>

Lastly, I'm really having a hard time seeing where photo.net doesn't fit the description of a community (from wikipedia): The term <strong>community</strong> has two distinct commutative meanings: 1) Community can refer to a usually small, <a title="Level of analysis" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_analysis#Meso-level">social unit</a> of any size that shares common <a title="Value (personal and cultural)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(personal_and_cultural)">values</a>. The term can also refer to the<a title="Nation" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation">national community</a> or <a title="International community" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_community">international community</a>, and 2) in <a title="Biology" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology">biology</a>, a community is a group of <a title="Interacting" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interacting">interacting</a> <a title="Life" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life">living</a> <a title="Organism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organism">organisms</a> sharing a populated <a title="Environment (biophysical)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_(biophysical)">environment</a>.</p>

<p><strong>Q:What's a community on the web? </strong><br>

A: I've seen various blog sites that are not businesses. Although anymore that are rare. Communities, wherever they occur, do not involve TOS agreements, for starters. </p>

<p><strong>Q: Everything is a business. Facebook is a business, Twitter is a business. All social networking sites are businesses. Any site carrying any advertising is a business. Are you objecting to photo.net not being a community or just that it shouldn't be called a community.</strong><br>

A: No, 'everything' is NOT a business. My weekly photo critique group is not a business. I think I was perfectly clear - call this thing a business because it is one, and not a community because it isn't one.</p>

<p><strong>Q:What would you call it.</strong><br>

A: I'd call it what it is...a business.</p>

<p><strong>Q: Are you saying there is no sense of <em>business</em> here, or that there is no <em>business</em> spirit.</strong><br>

A: Neither. I said it wasn't a community in the sense that community is commonly understood as containing some "self government" as an example.</p>

<p><strong>Q: That participants here are not getting the true spirit of a <em>business.</em> Maybe we should send out messages to new users saying "Welcome to the business". Would that make you happy?</strong><br>

A: What would make me happy is for you to direct your employees to stop endlessly hounding, scolding and insulting a group of members who were merely posting a forum that was created by the company for Off Topic posts. That you want to end it is fine with me, but that people need to be accursed and accused by your mods is frankly ridiculous behavior for ANY business who wants to keep their content creators.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Also, please tell me where the piles of prurient photographs of vaginas are? You seem to be very knowledgeable on that subject, of which I admit to complete ignorance. Despite being on the site for many hours every day, I don't recall seeing one, nevermind loads (or even binders full) of them. I guess maybe you see what you look for?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Being somewhat new here, I don't know who you are, or what your role is in this site, or even in this thread. I assumed by some of your previous comments that you had some role in operating/owning the site when I answered your previous posts. However, if you don't have any operational role, then it doesn't matter what pornographic photos are posted, or how many there are. If you are in an operational role, and don't know that such offensive images are posted, then any argument about the events and discussions over "who offended who with what kind of post in what part of the forum" is utterly pointless, isn't it? </p>

<p>Nope. I want to know where they are. You said there were piles of them. Were you lying?</p>

<p>For god's sake, Bob. There are plenty of nude pictures on Photo Net. They aren't that hard to find. Stop giving the guy a hard time.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I believe that's called "not clicking on the OT forum link". I can manage to do that quite easily myself. Maybe those with no self control need OTA (as in AA). I suppose it would be easy to remove all links to an OT forum, but then what would be the point of having it and how would it benefit the site? Might just as well make life easier for everyone and not have it at all.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>(Laughing loudly now) Well doesn't that take the cake! When OT posters were roundly thrashed because some people were offended, I advised this utterly common sense wisdom - don't read what you don't enjoy! That was ridiculed by the mods who insisted that only removal of this foul and "offensive" material was warranted. That's when I cruised through the galleries for 20-seconds to discover enough photographs of anuses and vaginas to last a very long lifetime. I then asked the simple and obvious question: Which is more offensive to the public (never mind humanity writ large) - an argument over FED policy, or high resolution photograph of a woman's anus and vagina? Needless to say, there was "no answer" from the uh, "business."</p>

<p>I understand that no matter what your role is or isn't, it would be unfair to have expected you'd be familiar with those recent arguments. None the less, your logic here was proposed and rejected by your moderators who said they had talked it over thoroughly with management/owners/whomever.</p>

<p>I did not enjoy being lambasted and insulted by your mods for posts I made in OT which were polite, detailed, not personal attacks, and yet were categorized as "offensive," all the while existing in the midst of a smoking pile of obvious smut hiding behind the moniker, "fine art", which no one dare to criticize. I could care less that such garbage is an obviously central part of pnet as it carries no interest to me. But for my postings on say, "quantitative easing" to be referred to as "offensive" in such a light was more than a bit irksome.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Nope. I want to know where they are. You said there were piles of them. Were you lying?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No Bob, I don't lie. I also don't give in to weak attempts at intimidation. You'll discover that when I post about such things, I have generally done my homework in advance, and have the evidence at hand just in case someone suggests I was lying.</p>

<p>I said there was a <em>pile of prurient anus and vagina photographs</em> on the site. For me, a pile means about 10. 10 photos on the desk makes a nice neat pile. For you, I went the extra mile, and figured I give you a dozen, and not just any dozen, but a baker's dozen for extra measure. If you really don't think that's a pile, I suspect I could make it 100 photos if only I could stomach this infantile rubbish.</p>

<p>Here you go Bob. Here's your pile of prurient anus and vagina photographs. All 13 of them.<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/17086112<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/16619272<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/16580054<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/16123452<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/15956963<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/15154512<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/14878912<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/14969613<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/14800492<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/14258512<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/13290572<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/12851954<br /> http://www.photo.net/photo/11957310</p>

<p>And to think I had to listen to Mr. Jenkins lecture ME about my contributions on this site. For the record Bob, I am proud that none of that crap is mine.<br>

P.S. Thank you Martin S. for the support there, but I find it much easier to just make sure I do my homework before making claims. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>Thanks for the links, hope you had fun finding them. Out of the "pile" I think most of them qualify as artistic and reasonably well done. None actually offend me and only maybe 3 could count as "vagina" images and those were essentially abstract compositions rather than gynecology illustrations. I'm generally not offended much by images of the human body in its natural state, even when viewed from unusual angles, though I probably wouldn't hang such images on my wall. Galleries would (and do) though. Don't think I spotted any anuses (ani?) in the pile, or maybe I wasn't looking closely enough?</p>

<p>As for being prurient, the definition of<br /> <br /> <em><strong>1. </strong>having or characterized by lascivious or lustful thoughts, desires, etc.</em><br /> <em><strong>2. </strong>causing lasciviousness or lust.</em></p>

<p>really says more about the viewer than the image doesn't it?</p>

<p>What about penises? Are you offended by them too? Can you give me some examples? Or is it just the female body that upsets you?</p>

<p>I do have the ability to remove images from the gallery, so if you find anything truly shocking, pornographic and blatantly offensive to a mature, adult viewer, I will certainly consider excising it from the site. Yes, I know, censorship, but I assume you'd be in favor of that.</p>

<p>So why not have the same restraint with censoring words as there is with photos?</p>

<p>We do. We really only censor <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words">7 words</a> and we don't even censor all of them all of the time (it's somewhat context dependent in some cases). There are probably a few more (esp. sexual, racial and ethic terms) we might delete, but they're not the sort of thing I keep a list of.</p>

<p>There's also the fact that this is a PHOTOGRAPHY website, so we are rather loath to censor <strong>photographs</strong>.</p>

<p>You can say Vagina and Penis all you want, as long as it's in an appropriate context.</p>

<p>But you failed to answer my previous questions. Any reason for that?</p>

<p>8 words, I think: The seven "dirty words" plus "ugly" (not to mention an entire forum's worth of words that was deleted).</p>

<p>Please don't tell me that's not censorship of a sort (even if the "terms of use" grant administrators the right to do it). You know, the "terms of use," like the U.S. Constitution, can be amended from time to time if they're not serving their purpose.</p>

<p>Can someone post a snippet from one one of the unacceptably acrimonious "off-topic" discussions? Perhaps if I saw it, I'd understand. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>None actually offend me</p>

</blockquote>

<p>So what? Have you missed the point still again? I never questioned whether they would offend YOU, (or whomever else represents the business interests here). That was never a position I took. I posited that those photographs would offend more of the public than a post on politics or economics found in the OT Forum. Your tastes in porn are of absolutely no interest to me Bob.</p>

<p>It might simply be impossible to catch you up on all this. I'll try once more because I am usually pretty good at explaining things when people "just don't get it."</p>

<p>1. People have been posting in the OT Forum for years. The mods claimed that it had to be shut down because other members were "<strong>offended</strong> <strong>by the content</strong>" of the OT forum. Take note - "offended" was the term used repeatedly. They (members) were offended to have to read about the economy, the FED, the money supply, civil rights, spying, God, and so on.</p>

<p>2. I was one of those who posted in the OT, and I took umbrage at being scolded for creating by inference "offensive content", when in fact my posts were well within any civil boundaries common in our daily lives. e.g. I had never called people names and so on. I do argue strongly, and with much conviction, however.</p>

<p>3. After a few days of this harassment over perfectly good OT posts made in a space provided by the business here, I challenged the mods by asking what is more offensive to members - photos of anuses and vaginas, or a post about the money supply? I suggested a thought experiment in which we put them side by side on the home page, and see which gets the most complaints as "<strong>offensive</strong>." I found it unbelievable that the mods would claim that a post about economics was more offensive to members than these anus and vagina photographs. </p>

<p>4. Then in this thread, as a part of my complaint about the mods and the claimed offensive OT posts, I once more mentioned the existence of the pile of anus and vagina photographs. You then essentially inferred I was a liar (Tsk, Tsk, not very nice!), and challenged me to find them for you. I did find them for you, and list them for you to demonstrate that no, I am not a liar. Then for some weird reason incomprehensible to me, instead of simply acknowledging that I am not a liar, you launch into a rather creepy embrace of these photos, and want me to find you penis photos also. I'd like to suggest you read the posts much more carefully, and understand what actual arguments I am making, because I assure you, your taste in vaginas and penises was not part of any argument I presented.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>As for being prurient, the definition of<br /><br /><em><strong>1. </strong>having or characterized by lascivious or lustful thoughts, desires, etc.</em><br /><em><strong>2. </strong>causing lasciviousness or lust.</em><br>

really says more about the viewer than the image doesn't it?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No Bob. It speaks volumes about the <em>photographer</em> though. Do you regularly go around asking women (or worse, paying them) to spread their legs so you can capture high res photographs of their genitalia as trophies of your domination? Because I don't. And here's why. It indicates a stunted emotional growth - an emotional midget. A need for extreme control and power over women through dominance and humiliation. Would you spread your legs so someone could photograph your genitalia for a web site like pnet? Sounds like you see no problems with any of this. Again, I would not do that. I don't need to be humiliated in exchange for some approval by a stunted, emotionally crippled exploiter. Don't tell me you are fooled by the smiles on the women's faces, are you? You think they're having a ball, do you? </p>

<p>Obviously, some people will do anything to turn a buck. I am fortunate as the dickens that I am not one of them. Sorry there Bob, you'll have to go hunt down your own penis photos. </p>