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 4)
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on Mar 24, 2004
I certainly won't miss you, after your repeated rufusals to accede to requests from many of the users that night...but I'm not going to debate you here or anywhere else on this. I'm simply going to have a drink to celebrate your decision to never return.

Cheers!
on Mar 24, 2004
I totaly agree with you friend,We don't need any more hate in this world than is already here. Say what you want but say it with intelligence and feeling, not rhetoric and anger. This country was founded wiht freedom of speech as its main basis. Lets leave out the hate ok.Peace
on Mar 24, 2004
DT: Many users... There was no one else talking, not even the ops were there. I told you at the time if there were any other conversations I wouldn't interrupt, but you said that the channel wasn't for conversation, so I left. You were pissed at TechCat because of the whole Wincustomize thing, and jumped me for talking to him. You called it spamming, called me a bunch of names, and I left, and haven't been back. Honestly, I haven't even thought of it since.

You win. Feel better after all this time? I do think, though, if you are gonna be the hall monitor for Stardock chat, you oughtta have the op symbol by your name and post the unspoken rules.
on Mar 24, 2004

Just so that we're clear - our main objection is the use of using people's names in article titles. The people who do that know exactly what they're doing -- they're using the fact that article titles get displayed all over the place as a blunt instrument to whack those they don't agree with.

For the record, I don't agree with many of the articles (content-wise) that people have written that have gotten people angry. But I will defend their right to put forth their position. We won't put up  with, however, crude attempts to humiliate other people into silence through the exploitation of the article title feature.

on Mar 24, 2004

BTW, just to add one other point: The real people practicing censorship are the ones who try to humiliate others who have "incorrect" opinions through the user of personal attacks in article titles.

So in essence we are practicing a little censorship (on article titles) to prevent big censorship (people being intimidated into not writing about unpopular views). When people shriek charges of racism or homophobia, they aren't debating. They are trying to end the debate. Why discuss issues if you're going to be branded something nasty? JeremyG's article on jewish people isn't one I agreed with. But the reaction to it was a very crude attempt to end the discussion entirely.  Different cultures have different ticks. There are people, shockingly enough, who don't like Americans. Are they racist too? Or maybe they simply don't like the general American culture of being loud, extroverted, resource intensive, and materialistic.  We can all learn a great deal from one another if we listen to other points of view. I've been accused of not doing that but I don't try to stifle the discussion by trying to humiliate my opponents.

on Mar 24, 2004
Can someone call Bakerstreet off of me?
on Mar 24, 2004
JeremyG is abusing this site's Google connections to spread his anti-semitism all over the internet. His article should be deleted.
on Mar 24, 2004
Er...Tech-Cat....your reposting of his [JeremyG] content was for what end?
It is significant that I found your thread yet had never seen the JeremyG 'original', ergo you were disseminating it farther and wider, which is counter-productive, don't you think?
The only conclusion that can be reasonably drawn is that it was your intention to raise/enhance controversy or likewise attention to yourself, neither of which is particularly noble....or clever.
It is significant that two incidences of transgressed 'rules' here can be attributed to yours truly.
Its agenda sparks curiosity.
on Mar 24, 2004
oops...double post
on Mar 24, 2004
I'm simply going to have a drink to celebrate your decision to never return.






Well Goodbye



on Mar 24, 2004
to debate a subject or point of view is what this site was made for .. to attack and bash others is an abuse of this site .. if you have a valid point to make .. then do so .. if not go away...its better to be thought a fool ,than to open your mouth and remove all doubt ...............
on Mar 24, 2004
Again I ask who takes the moral right to decide what a acceptable title is?
I have seen many many inventive titles used to get people to look at a article, some offensive. Brad himself admits he is about as good as it gets at inciting reads by his inventive and inciteful titling. We've all seen titles un-related to the blog, done to get a person reads. I mentioned the one he did on "The left and hatred"recently. How far are we from deleting 'left' posts if the owner who, claims he will decide what hate is decides the left is hateful as he says in his blog? Consider what you are endorsing here folks.

I have obviously missed a pervasive point in the title used to slander on a search engine, but it has nothing to do with this site what a search engine shows, whether an ad for Bush re-election in response to a name entered or a quote on the person by another. Morris Dees has a site that monitors what he calls 'hate sites'. He once had a friend of mine up to number 3 of most hateful. What did this mean? He devoted so much energy to exposing the site he hated most, he gave it all the publicity it wanted. Just ignore it and it goes away.

What would Al Franken have to say about this discussion of name calling in titles? or Bush, Jr.? We are being mighty thin skinned to go to this extreme and make anyone but ourselves the censor of our blogs. They made the blacklist button - whatever that is as I would never use it - the banned option for the owners, taken away rights to post public domain information here, and all on a site the owner created with a point system to NOT be censorous.

You are all on a path paved with good intentions to say "YAY"[sic] for Brad eliminating 'hate'. What is hate to you? Is it the same as to me? Shall we vote what hate is? How and what is the way to censor? Today a 'hater' is anyone who opposes our foreign policy and believes a detainee in Guantanamo Bay has civil rights. One can and is placed on government watch lists for being a sympathizer for such a position. Tomorrow you can be on the list if you dare to defend me, or I for you. It is not a virtue to censor without appeal, notice, hearing, or even objective standard agreed to. You are making your opinion a whim to actually cheer censorship.

Who decides what is hate? or hateful? I say I decide on my own blog and you decide on yours. It is not an argument to say 'the owners have the 'right'. That is an admission of faith they won't abuse their power. It has happened on blog sites all over the net and Brad is testimony to it in starting this site to get away from it here. I tell you the pigs are on two feet (reference to 'Animal House' not a slander of anyone personally. Note how this could be mis-construed and the blogger could say I referred to him as a pig because he is slightly overweight and who is to say not so if my words are deleted without notice or right to defend them against such a mis-understanding?)

It is a slippery slope to say the least and the Courts have discussed it in-depth finding censorship is always at best a necesary evil. We like to say no one has the right to stand and yell "FIRE" in a theatre. But who is at fault if the fire is there and only the one person saw it in time but can't say so? I say this for those who will come to say government committed a crime and this is deemed hateful of America and deleted. Don't tell me it won't happen, people here blacklist any of another political party all the time. If this is acceptable then all becomes matter of degree. Everyone is standing on the steps saying "It can't happen here". It is happening.

I am at a loss to be even arguing for your own right to censor as YOU decide not as the owner does. To read these replies it is clear you willingly are determined to de-limit yourselves and submit to such a subjective standard. I do not make personal atacks in my own blogs, but am now once again chilled further by the thought Brad may now on a bad morning decide I am hateful for saying he is silly to blog a blog I disagree with. Don't you see the next step?

Where does it end? Whereto and what for, I ask ? Those who are new haven't seen the degrees of it over time. I have always accomodated as best I can the decisions and even argued FOR the owners for peace' sake. Now I see another and realize it is all builiding up to something and won't stop here anymore than it did the last time censorship excuses were introduced and held up as just, villainizing members as justification.

I find no voice other than SIr Peter Maxwell here and that is ironic in itself as I have used his name in a blog and been shown to be false in my claim. He alone defends the right of self-detemination with me here. So be it Stardock, Inc. I'll say no more on this, a fool fighting for freedoms of expression people here clearly no longer wish to have.

A little freedom for security you say? You'll end with neither.
on Mar 24, 2004
Can anybody think of a community on the Internet or in the entire world in which there are no rules against what one can publish or say (including hardcore pornography and advertisements for penis enhancers, as those are protected by the first amendment)?
on Mar 24, 2004
Wahkonta: You have to understand "freedom of expression" doesn't apply here, or in any privately owned place. JoeUser isn't a government agency or public property. It isn't "censorship" when you toss someone out of your house for behaving like an idiot, and it isn't here, either. The person who owns the site decides the tolerance level of the site. I'm not seeing the confusion. Brad doesn't want petty vindictiveness, and he can decide what petty vindictiveness is. You are liable for what you say even under the guise of 'protected speech'. You still have standards of truth and decency that you can be harshly penalized for violating.

I just wonder where this idea that you can say anything you want any time comes from? I can't remember a time in my life when i could look over at the guy next to me and proclaim that he was a nazi without facing at least expulsion from where I was at the time, and maybe a lot worse.

on Mar 24, 2004

Wahkonta - it's pretty easy for you to take those positions, you don't use your real name. You're using a pseudonymn.  You talk the talk but you're not exactly walking the walk. You hide your real identity so why should you care if someone uses your handle in a thread. 

But many people here do use their real names or have handles that matter outside this site. Speaking for myself, I wouldn't be too thrilled paying so that when someone at say IBM looks up "Brad Wardell" on Google they end up saying "Brad Wardell is a <insert insult here>". If someone wants to create articles savaging another individual by name as the title of the article, they can set up their own site.

I just find it so incredibly hypocritical for you to talk about the rights of openness and free speech when you hide behind a pseudonymn. You don't really have anything at stake so of course you can argue that we should just let the site become an abuse-a-thon.

Besides, you could at least acknowledge that the ony reason people include other people's names in the article titles is because they know thoat article titles will get displayed on EVERY page on this site so their insults will instantly be seen across tens of thousands of blogs by tens of thousands of users.

In my estimation, the object of the insulting titles is to try to shame those who have opinions they find disgusting into not writing anymore. In other words, they are trying to censor the works of others.

 

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