Stop the censorship!

[phil hall]

Tahnk you Peter for puting my point over far better than i did...Happy snapping

[bill_thorlin]

Changing ones physical attributes is of course difficult to achieve without surgery but it takes little effort to check spelling and to proof read before submission.

[peterblaise]

.

 

===== humorous aside =====

 

"... it takes little effort to check spelling and to proof read before submission ..."

 

Hey, we're snap typists as well as snap shooters - to each their own.

 

If you cn read faster than I cn typ, good for you. I'm typing as fast as I can and still can't keep up! =8^o

 

===== back to seriosity =====

 

I think we need a series of ongoing posts ARCHIVED entitled

 

"MEET THE MODERATOR: ____ (name) ____ (date)"

 

... and have the moderator introduce themselves and encourage a dialog, and keep the thread open forever as an archive.

 

Perhaps with open dialog we can enhance photo.net's future for all of us.

 

Click!

 

Love and hugs,

 

Peter Blaise peterblaise@yahoo.com Yahoo Groups co-moderator http://www.peterblaisephotography.com/

 

PS - On the Yahoo Groups I co-moderate, we have the following three standards:

 

1 - free and open to all

 

2 - multiple co-moderators

 

3 - no banning

 

Works fine. Pig-headed flame-throwers just can't get a foothold and just seem to f-a-d-e away. They either get educed into cooperative behavior or quit because no one engages them on their level and they find it not so entertaining after all. We all benefit, and the occasional heated argument never erupts into anything more than a resolution, often merely to agree to disagree, all remaining supportive friends.

 

The thing I hate most about banning is, well, two things:

 

1 - it scares others into NOT participating, and the site becomes drab

 

2 - we loose customers to whom we can sell our old stuff, and from whom we can buy some neat stuff.

 

Why ban our own potential cu$tomer$? $illy, no? ;-)

[phil hall]

You are of course right Peter......But you have 2 judge the levels of beer consumed by said people...Damn time for another one....LOL

[steve_renwick]

>>Can we review THAT idea here instead of arguing about rules/no-rules or multiple !

And ? ?<<

 

Why, sure. Read on.

 

>>What we have a problem with is the RANDOM INFLICTION of moderator whim, often at

odds with what we thought were the rules, and mostly anonymously (the thread just

"disappears" one day), and always at the expense of those who contributed valuable

content, and at the expense of future visitors who will not be able to see that content.<<

 

I don't see moderators' actions as being done at random or at whim. Nor have I seen most

killed threads as having held valuable content.

 

>>And enhancing the post engine to include a spell checker is w-a-y overdue, don't cha

think?<<

 

No. A spell checker would not flag substitutions of "bloke" for "block," for one example.

 

>>All we are asking is that moderators back off and be patient, or participate and set an

example, RATHER than delete entire threads.<<

 

I think they're doing the best they can. Many already do participate, guide, and set

examples before deleting threads. I think that more effort is an unreasonable request.

 

Bottom line: It's all a gray area, and my vote is that I like it fine the way it is.

[c.r._hips]

If you want to experience, igrorance and unbridaled harrassment with no moderator controll,

just visit one of my pictures in my NIN folder. Tear Down My Reason. Great reading, for the

terminally and aestheticly lame.

[snakecharmer]

I met a street preacher once who was a low and ugly man. He preached on the corner next to the library at my university. He called girls whores for no good reason at all, and he told everyone who passed by that they were going to Hell. He had a small but very loyal following among the fundamentalists Bible Belt so-called Christian crowd; the rest of us despised him. He was allowed to stay on the corner, though, because removing him would have been a violation of his freedom of speech.

The same preacher refused to allow others to voice their opinions, however. When anyone tried to argue with him about their "saved" status or tell him that he was narrow-minded and was not doing what God would want one of his followers to do, he would interrupt, talk over, or otherwise impair those around from hearing this different perspective. I tried to shout over him once, but it was hard; he had a loud mouth and was determined that no one hear any point of view but his.

I was really angry about this and stewed about it for days. Then I started to wonder why. Why was it so important to him to drown me out? I think that the reason was because he was so afraid that someone would prove him wrong.

I don't think that ugliness is a good way to get one's point across. But I also have come to believe that we should just let people's actions and words speak for themselves. By deleting threads, Pnet becomes the bad guy. By leaving an "irrelevent" thread, Pnet lets us decide for ourselves the relevence, as well as the quality of the source. By leaving a rude or hateful thread, Pnet lets us decide for ourselves that someone is a rude or hateful person, and in time that person will start to lose friends as he/she pisses everyone off. In cases of true harrassment, moderators could issue a message to the harrasser threatening to revoke their priveleges if they do not leave said person alone.

So, yeah, there are some ugly people out there, but it seems to me as well that several of the moderators are just like the street preacher, not allowing some points of view to be heard just because they disagree. I know; it has happened to me.

[emma-3828]

Good evening all,

 

I suppose now is as good a time as any to put your collective theories to the test.I have been observing for quite some time now how this site operates and then does not,i am also outraged by many of its subscribers homophobic tendencys. Censorship is a dangerous thing and i understand Philips point and support him entirely,it would be of great assistance to me as an outsider who as yet has not made up her mind whether it is worth joining as yet, which issues are you refering to? I have seen many threads and as you say they for whatever the reason just vanish, i have also heard from others who are subscribers it is often better to stay away from these feedback sesssions as you may make yourself a target. So Philip as this is your thread please tell me exactly has happend to offend you?

 

Emma

[ben conover]

Hi, I agree with philip, Jenny, and Emma. I would add however that you are unfortunately barking up the wrong tree folks. photo.net is a privately run site, and as such all you can do is conform to it's rules. That is where the problem starts, but also where it ends. Me a conformist? Nah, but I won't waste my time with anarchy trying to change others who will never change. The problems arise where people from the right make insulting and purile comments about people from the left, or vice versa! That's obviously a different problem which is also avoidable, but only with compromise, considering the majoritiy of users are white American males in their 30's and 40's....

 

Cheers.

[scott_jensen]

Philip, Here is a quote of you "I am not condoning rude comments, but i do feel that each of us can see the woods through the trees....look that up"

 

You said you don't condone rude comments. Yet you assaulted me by calling me mad (another quote)"Scott ....you truly are mad.." Seems a LOT rude to me.. Maybe you need to take your own medicine?