Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
Grow up or get out
Published on March 24, 2004 By Draginol In Blogging

In many ways, JoeUser is an experiement. It is the only blog site on the Internet that combines the strengths of all the individual bloggers together. When you make a post or comment on someone blog, it is distributed across the thousands of blogs here on this site. And, because JoeUser.com is so popular, your article is likely to get picked up on search engines.

Which, needless to say, creates a temptation for abuse. People who intentionally try to humiliate others by taking advantage of these features.  After some discussion internally, we've decided how we're going to react to this.

1) You may NOT create attack articles about other individuals on this site with your blog site using the person's name or derivative of that name as part of the article title.

2) You should avoid criticizing other users of this blog, by name, in your articles if you have black listed or prevented them in some other way from commenting on your article. Generally speaking, it's cheesy to abuse other people in your article.

3) Related to #2, it IS OKAY to write a counter article. That is, if you disagree with someone else's article, you can certainly reference that article (linking to it is fine) and disagree with the article.

4) Debate the issue don't attack the person. I'm getting so sick of reading flame articles by people that are nothing but hate mongering against other people. I don't care if you think someone else is racist, homophobic, atheist, fanatically religious, whatever. It's irrelevant. If you disagree, then disagree. Explain why you disagree. But to just say "You're a racist" or "You're going to burn in hell" or some other nonsense is obnoxious. 

Bottom line: If you want your blog to be full of hatred towards someone else, then go away. We didn't put all this effort to let people's blogs get a lot of attention so that people could use it as a blunt instrument to attack other individuals by name.

One other note: I also get tired of those who think they have some first amendment right to heap personal abuse on people. You want to write a "I hate <insert person's name here>" articles, go make your own site. Whiney "You're a facist, you're censoring me" articles get old in a hurry.

JoeUser is meant to be a place where intelligent thoughtful people of ALL political persuasions can get together and talk about whatever they want. And they can't very well do that if they have to worry that some hate monger is going to write up a post entitled "<User X> is a jerk!" or whatever.


Comments (Page 3)
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on Mar 24, 2004
A good 'for instance'. They are still bashing away on "What JeremyG believes'. I made a post, and he deleted it and blacklisted me. I said that he could have easily said "racism is a slippery slope", or "racists tend to believe these things also". Instead they took the third grade route and started name calling, lying, etc. They have been going to other people's blogs who have no knowledge of this bullshit and making statements totally unrelated to the bystander's blog, dragging their garbage here and there. I am really tired of it. The "JeremyG" post should go. It is a golden example of what not to do. If I were Brad I would ban them both for this, but I'm not.

Allowing it to go on will just lower the site as a whole and people won't want to face the peanut gallery when the time comes to post their opinions.
on Mar 24, 2004
I remember the first time I saw a blogger insult blog posted it was called, "blogger Want abs needs to die," I thought it was funny so I created one called "people that Wahkonta admires" I remember that Wahkonta was really friendly about the joke, and took it real well, he even thanked me for reading his stuff. I only wish now that Wahkonta would stop referring to this site as some right wing Republican forum, cause it is not.

I reacted to Jeremy’s blog "I dislike Jews and Pakistanis" because I was a bit surprised and taken aback by the fact that he wrote it, I go to his site regularly to read his kooky liberal thoughts, then suddenly, out of the blue, I find what I consider to be blatant bigotry. If someone that I expected that type of thing from posted it, I would have just moved on, It is safe to say that although I never agreed with Jeremy about anything, I still held to Jeremy to a higher standard than posting a racially charged diatribe such as " I dislike Jews and Pakistanis" the suggestion that Jews need to "get over it" in regard to the holocaust is highly inflammatory, I question if Jeremy knows anything about the holocaust, I had neighbors when I was a kid that were tattooed from Auschwitz, they lost everyone and everything there, how were they supposed to "get over it," it’s just a really unfortunate choice of words from someone that I held to a much higher standard, that’s the last thing I will say about the controversial post.
on Mar 24, 2004

I find two things very interesting



  1. Somebody misquoted me as "I dislike Jews and Pakistanis" instead of "I don't like Jews or Pakistanis".  That misquote has caught on, so to speak, and I dont think most people differenciate between the two anymore.

  2. A few posts earlier, when talking about religious customs I refered to Hisidic Jews as "dispicable people" who's methods were "disgusting" and nobody said a word. 
on Mar 24, 2004
Statement number #2 is also deflamatory.
on Mar 24, 2004
4) Debate the issue don't attack the person. I'm getting so sick of reading flame articles by people that are nothing but hate mongering against other people. I don't care if you think someone else is racist, homophobic, atheist, fanatically religious, whatever. It's irrelevant. If you disagree, then disagree. Explain why you disagree. But to just say "You're a racist" or "You're going to burn in hell" or some other nonsense is obnoxious.


I AGREE FULLY, BRAD........... I MAY BE HOMOPHOBIC, A RELIGIOUS FANATIC, OR WHAT EVER.......... BUT I HAVE NEVER NAMED ANYONE IN ANY OF MY ARITCLES. I DONT ATTACK INDIVIDUALS.

PEOPLE SHOULD NOT USE BLOGGING TO TRY AND BRING HARM UPON ANYONE. BLOGGING SHOULD BE USED TO GIVE YOU VIEWS ON VARIOUS TOPICS.
on Mar 24, 2004
Marvin, why are you yelling?
on Mar 24, 2004

Never thought I'd hear myself say this-- but Brad is right--his house (joeuser), his toys (the site), his rules. If you don't like it pick up your toys and play elsewhere. This isn't a government sanctioned site that has to allow everything...as Bakerstreet said, it has the right to refuse. (wow, agreeing with Bakerstreet and Brad in one post--something must be wrong).

So, now that we are all playing by the same rules...let's go back to the important stuff--bickering over the legitimacy and construction of political arguments.
on Mar 24, 2004
That's nice Brad, but I have a feeling you're gonna need to go into more detail on exactly what is/isn't acceptable here.


I hate to see JoeUser come to this... but at the same time, it had to happen. I think that as bloggers we all share in the responsibility for this action. I've been pretty anti-censorship throughout the development of this site, but given recent actions, I agree completely with this move. I don't think this amounts to censorship, and if it weren't for a need to be explicit, this article could have simply demanded common courtesy.

Brad- this is somewhat tangential, but is there any way we can give how-to issues to you? I always hate to post blogs with "how do I do this" questions.

Peace, JoeUsers. I hope this all settles down quickly.

~Dan
on Mar 24, 2004
It comes down to whether you want romper room or a blog site. Like all the "What's your problem Dan Cashew" stuff. I have seen that on probably a half dozen different blogs. Nothing else, no comment on the bloggers point, just an unrelated poke at Dan. Look at the comments on I'm back with pics!. I'm not crazy about the blog material (adult, be warned) , but no one deserves to have comments used as a jungle gym.

I'm not saying the place has to be the Mclaughlin Group, but damn, it doesn't need to be some sort of Don Rickles impersonator convention either.
on Mar 24, 2004
I don't see why people would be against a few rules. Does trying to start melodrama with others that important? Besides, we don't want this site to become crap, do we?
on Mar 24, 2004
All I can say is:

Yay Brad! I don't like reading hate articles.

Way to take the mature way and say "No More!"

~Anne
on Mar 24, 2004
Hear Hear! I'm glad that this community is being clean, and people are taking care of the bad apples in the barrel.

As for Anthony R though, that Google picture is HIGHLY slanderous. Talk about personal attacks, he put it right in the post about NOT doing so!

Let's please keep JU an intelligent community of civil human beings that don't need to put down each other to make a point.
on Mar 24, 2004
While we're on the subject, please note that the same rules apply to the irc.stardock.com channels as well...(no names, you know who you are)
on Mar 24, 2004
Super Baby: *nod*

I love slashdot, but then I never read the comments. Ever. Good example of how all this suppose free speech stifles expression. If people start ignoring comments on articles because of all the wacky hijinks, only the poster's perspective gets seen.
on Mar 24, 2004
Good lord, DT, I only showed up one night and you called me plenty of names. I haven't been back since, and don't plan to.
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