Post by x on Oct 30, 2007 23:52:11 GMT -5
Alright folks. Here's my rebuttal to the criticisms over filtering that have come up over the past few days. First and foremost I want to make it clear that the reason that these policies exist it to make the board useable. Each of the things that have been done were in response to something negative directed at the board. Those of you who have been around a long time might remember when we allowed guests to post and didn't require registration. That was abused, so we had to make registration mandatory. The next step for those who were determined to wreck the board was to create accounts and attack. The offending accounts were deleted. The offenders came back and made even more accounts. Do you remember the problem that happened were new members were not being approved in a timely manner? That was part of the response to the attackers. That didn't work out very well. I wish we could just throw off the people who attack the board, but unfortunately all of us have real jobs and real lives and we can't be babysitting the board 24/7. If someone wants to pay me a living wage to run this place, I'll certainly consider it. I'm pretty sure that isn't happening though. Thus there are multiple things that need to happen to keep the damage to a minimum. Another part of that damage control was to ban certain key words or phrases that the attackers get their kicks over. That's where the current dust-up started. At one time there was judged to be a need for it. Whether that need still exists or not can be debated, though that's a separate issue. At the moment, that name is in the list. That could change. I don't have the authority to make that change. (A side note, I probably have a lot less power than you think I do.)
We also have a rule that prohibits trying to get around the word filters. This is simply common sense. If the word itself is banned, there's a reason. Trying to get around it means that you're trying to do something that you've been told not to. There are other ways to communicate what you're trying to say without running afoul of the rules. The last time I saw it, there were dozens and dozens of words in the ban list. How often do you run into one? Not often by what I see.
Now, to address the charge of censorship. Nobody is censoring anything. There's no law restricting whether you can say certain words or not. None of us here can control what you say anywhere else. You're perfectly free to say whatever comes into your head. The only thing we can say is "not here." If you want to give a 2 hour speech on Ms. Lake in streaming video on YouTube, go right ahead. Nothing's going to stop you. Censorship means you are forbidden from doing something. That is not happening.
I'd also like to address grimbasement's "thought police" comment. It's very rare that posts are removed. I really hate doing that. I would say that on average months go by without me having to delete a post. There has to be a really good reason. I will always try to steer the person who made a problematic post away from doing that again. There are virtually always ways of not running afoul of the relatively small number of rules we have here while still getting your point across crystal clear. If you do that, everybody wins, so why not?
There is a comment thread in the Off Air board to respond. And only there please.
We also have a rule that prohibits trying to get around the word filters. This is simply common sense. If the word itself is banned, there's a reason. Trying to get around it means that you're trying to do something that you've been told not to. There are other ways to communicate what you're trying to say without running afoul of the rules. The last time I saw it, there were dozens and dozens of words in the ban list. How often do you run into one? Not often by what I see.
Now, to address the charge of censorship. Nobody is censoring anything. There's no law restricting whether you can say certain words or not. None of us here can control what you say anywhere else. You're perfectly free to say whatever comes into your head. The only thing we can say is "not here." If you want to give a 2 hour speech on Ms. Lake in streaming video on YouTube, go right ahead. Nothing's going to stop you. Censorship means you are forbidden from doing something. That is not happening.
I'd also like to address grimbasement's "thought police" comment. It's very rare that posts are removed. I really hate doing that. I would say that on average months go by without me having to delete a post. There has to be a really good reason. I will always try to steer the person who made a problematic post away from doing that again. There are virtually always ways of not running afoul of the relatively small number of rules we have here while still getting your point across crystal clear. If you do that, everybody wins, so why not?
There is a comment thread in the Off Air board to respond. And only there please.