Censored Posts
 

Thought I'd start this thread. It provides a place to live for posts that have been (or might be) censored in other weblogs.

"The Internet views censorship as damage, and routes around it."

-John Perry Barlow

in "Mother Fucking Sigh"
 

Aren't you used to mood swings from dham yet?:-)

No secret, really. http://www.cellar.org/showthread.php?&threadid=2091

dham would evidently like to ban me from posting in, or even reading this forum, but the Cellar doesn't work that way. Instead he simply deletes posts he doesn't like in this forum, hoping to annoy the poster into going away. Of course he could put up his *own* blog instead of running a forum on The Cellar, and lock out people he doesn't like from the get-go.

I don't intend to start filtering my reading of "View new messages" or responding to threads appearing there, based on which forum they're posted to. If I'm annoyed enough at a post's deletion, or think it's likelty to be anyway, I'll just put a copy over in thread 2091.

<blockquote><i>
The Cellar is not about me, it's about you. A lot of sites that aren't business-driven are ego-driven. Not here. This message and the official History are the only two bits that I really control. I set up the message areas, but if anyone wanted a new area I'd surely create it. Also, you can hate me, it doesn't matter. (I will only respect you more for it.) My goal as a virtual community operator is to do right by the community itself. Disagree with me if you like; I'm often wrong and need to be taught a lesson. Disagreement and honesty are critical to a community's health.
</i></blockquote>

Undertoad, do you have anything to say about this?

Yes, I think Mag's creation of this thread is the correct response.

My basic instinct is that dham should be allowed to operate his section any way he sees fit, but I am always willing to entertain arguments on either side. I doubt I have the wisdom to see all the compelling arguments even if they are hinted at right before my face. So if defence and prosecution would like to make closing statements, ga.

Okay, fair enough.

It's pretty simple, juju. Maggie is free to say whatever she likes. I encourage her to write whatever she feels like writing. But she's shown, on a number of occasions, that she has very little valuable to contribute to my weblog - but a whole lot of negative. That's fine, so I asked her to stop - and put her on my ignore list. All seemed well for a while, until she started posting there again - with comments that are designed to provoke a response. Okay. I respect her freedom of speech, but at the same time, I don't need to tolerate it in my weblog.

I don't aim to censor; I am to <b>discourage participation in my weblog</b>. If you want to write, cool! If you want to say I'm a dick, cool! If I think you've crossed the line with something, I'll ask you on numerous occasions to cut it out.

I've taken a hard line stance on deleting Maggie's posts because if I leave any of them, they are obviously not unwelcome. That's not what I want to convey. I want posting in my weblog to be a waste of time to Maggie. <b>That</b> is what I am trying to accomplish. I can't think of a better way (after having asked her several times to lay off the weblog) to do it.

Like I said, she can post her responses in this forum. I've no problem with that, and I have no problem with her saying anything she wants to about me. I politely asked her to keep it out of my forum on a number of occasions, and when she refused, I started removing posts.

dham for President. I can hear him now ...

"I respect Americans' freedom of speech, but I don't have to tolerate it in my country."

Hm. More like "I respect your freedom of speech, but I respect my right to pursuit of happiness as well, and if you're being an asshole in my home, I respect my right to kick your ass out."

This is your opinion. I think she is quite intelligent and has a lot to say. It's a shame that you have the power to make this decision for all of us.

I disagree. Her posts aren't designed to provoke a response at all. It's just that you can't maintain control of yourself when you read them.


???

When Maggie suggested that maybe my wife and I weren't right for each other, that really set my blood boiling. I was mad. I went off and posted a bunch of crap. But then, I realized that my response was just an emotional one. It wasn't logical at all. I realized that the problem lied with me and I calmed down, and accepted her words as constructive criticism. And today, she repays me by continuing to expand my mind with intelligent counterpoints and discussion. I guess you and I just have different ways of dealing with this.

Well, i'll butt out now. Unlike you, i'm content to voice my opinion, and then <i>agree to disagree</i>

You're blowing this way out of proportion. Did anyone cry "censorship" when UT decided to enforce that only he post new IOTD's, with all others going to Quality Images? No, UT wanted to maintain a certain set of standards in IOTD, while still allowing people to post what they want in less-restricted areas. I thought it was a dumb move at first, but now I agree with it, because IOTD is high-visibility (that's how myself and I'm sure many others originally came to the Cellar).

I don't agree with dham's deleting of posts, but that's irrelevant. It's his house, and so his rules stand. He's not "making a decision for all of us", he's making a decision for himself. If you don't like it, don't read his forum. If he wants to say only people whose names begin with "D" can post, or people can only post on Tuesdays, so be it.

And Maggie is welcome to do just what she's done -- bitch about it in a public place. And now she's drawn attention to it, which I'm sure was her intention. I don't see the problem here.

In case you missed it the first time around.

Since that covers most of your post, I'll respond to the other parts.

News flash! dhamsaic decides what goes into his weblog!

Don't like it, don't read it. You'll be missed. Really. No, really. I'm being totally serious. No, I am, I swear. Yes, for real.

I addressed the comical "control" notion above - read it over again.

Many of her posts <b>are</b> designed to provoke a response. Your ignorance or inability to remember them is not <b>my</b> fault. I can <b>easily</b> and <b>within 10 minutes</b> find you at least 5 posts of hers where she does not offer constructive criticism but, directly or indirectly, calls other Cellarites names. <b>Easily</b>. How about you go re-read some of her posts to jaguar, sycamore and myself before making such absurd claims?

This is where you and I differ; my response is not emotional. It is based upon a fleshed-out line of thought (discussed with and agreed upon with a number of Cellarites) that many of her posts are inappropriate in another person's weblog and that the best way to discourage her from posting them is to delete them. I'm not angry with Maggie. I simply want her to stop posting in my weblog. You read too much into things. Sometimes it really <b>is</b> that simple.

<i>Did anyone cry "censorship" when UT decided to enforce that only he post new IOTD's, with all others going to Quality Images?</i>

Actually, I think Nic suggested that it was evidence that I don't "play well with others" and perhaps there were frowny-faces as well.

Yeah, I remembered that, but I don't think anyone actually accused you of censorship, just that IOTD would suffer.

Of course, that was before some of the more expressive smileys, so you might have gotten worse than frowny-faces if you did the same thing today. :finger: :shotgun:

Hmm... perhaps you're right. I withdraw my objections and apologize.

I think there's a profound difference between a forum where *topics* are to be started by only one person and one where *posts* are deleted to silence particular Cellar users. Last I saw, anyone was free to post unmolested in IOTD threads.

Fine. Let anyone do whatever they want in Maggie's Weblog. That's your prerogative.

Utopia is still not an option.

Actually, I'm fine with how The Cellar itself has been run for these many years.

I do think it's a shame, and a serious departure from Cellar tradition, for forum ops to arbitrarily delete posts because they simply "don't like" the post or the people who posted them.

Cellar forums in the past have been a means of creating broad categories of topics, usually hosted by someone with interest or expertise in the subject matter: (Toad's Wine Cellar, MMM's Arms Locker, etc.). They were never merely the borders of personal fiefdoms, and that philosophy is reflected in the quote I posted from "What is The Cellar?"

I think going in that direction will seriously erode the Cellar's sense of community that has served it so well all this time. Maybe this kind of balkanization is an inevitable result of the vastly broader reach the Cellar now has.

I hope not.

I'm flashing on highschool. I never did find a group friends that could get along, sit at the same lunch table. And I liked them all dammit. I like strong personalities. Mags, Dham, I enjoy the contributions from you both. You both can be insightful, self-righteous, obnoxiously funny, and purely obnoxious. I appeciate that. Keep your humor.I hope you can coexsist, if heavily armed. Dave- be patient, Maggie-give some space. Maybe the jaws will unlock. I like that our coffeeshop, so far, has different discussions moderated at different tables, but has had no locked back rooms with private parties. But whatever.

Sounds like a blend of the moderation schemes at Slashdot and Plastic. :-)

The changes to IotD made a lot of sense in the context of the evolution of the IotD Blogview that UT was planning at the time.

It wasn't censorship as much as it was organizational change.

My comments at the time were in the nature of a :p

If anyone wants to see real, unedited community in action, just check out your local Usenet groups. There are a few that have survived, but for the most part Usenet is a wasteland.

Look Mags, you don't *want* to get along with Dave, so posting in his section against his wishes was uncivil to begin with. Come on, it's not that hard to recognize where a message area is.

The choice becomes one between allowing Dave to delete your messages, or having his community self-police by creating their own little war with you if they want to maintain their sense of what his community is. Or for them to leave. How is that healthy to the community?

You know, when Nic said that Quality Images would be more interesting than IotD, I felt like that was probably a good benchmark for me to watch, for whether this sort of rules change is in fact productive. There are often quality images in Quality Images, and I've posted a few there myself. But I do feel like IotD is still more interesting than QI, and all that means is that I care about chasing stuff down and sharing it than the rest of you combined.

(I just flashed on Nic's statement as if he were saying it as "We will bury you!" aka Khrushchev yelling at the US in the 50s.)

When IotD improved (IMO) with rules changes, it made me feel like maybe rolling the dice with rules isn't such a bad thing.

Hey, in the end, it's just a message board, right?

Right.

If "civility" is a requirement, a review of a *lot* of people's posts are in order. It's awfully hard to look like I "want to get along" with somebody who''s conducted a campaign (with nothing other than a desire for revenge, certainly no actual evidence) to convince folks I sockpuppeted that stream of dull-minded abuse from "parmenion".

I didn't think I should have to play kiss-ass (in English *or* German) with a moderator to use The Cellar. The Cellar in the past has always permitted all users to post in all areas. If someone's behavior became egregiously bad, their access was revoked completely. Even barak never got to that point...parmenion did, and I certainly agree with your judgement on that one.

If there's gonna be new rules now, then that's fine; the Cellar is your baby and has been since long before you bought it from Lisa. *I* think this departure is bad news. And I do think "What is the Cellar" needs some revision if that's where we're going, because what that describes isn't what we're talking about now. .

I think that's right at the crux of this. Will The Cellar continue to be *one* community, with one set of standards and rules? Or is it going to fragment into a collection of co-hosted blogs, each having it's own local laws and governance? Is there going to be "his community" and "her community" and "that community over there" ...or "the community"? I don't *want* "my own blog where I can ban whoever I want"; if I did, I'd have it already.

They're certainly your dice to roll.

I don't think there's anything at all wrong with a forum where threads are initiated only by the moderator...that allows a kind of forum-level branding that's difficult to get otherwise. At the same time, I think routinely subsetting the users allowed to <b>participate in a thread</b> (even to <i>read</i> a thread, a desire dham has already expressed) is a 'way different thing.

Continue on in this vein, and we can completely recreate the canonical 1990's BBS, complete with "user levels" , "secret sections" and "elite access".

That's "delete" access to you, Maggie. ;)

I get it now: you wanted to use the policy as a wedge, and the policy gave first.

You know, I'd estimate that approximately 3000 people have been users of the Cellar and then stopped. As opposed to the 100 or so who've kept up with it. What is it that needs to be *maintained* here? Maybe it should've been different all along.

Find me 100 people - hell, find me 3 people who are willing to put up with each other 100% of the time.

As to the slippery slope, anything can happen with a dictator who thinks he's benevolent. But what I've been thinking about recently is how a society of imperfect humans can compromise on perfect principle and still NOT go down the toilet. It seems to happen all the time.

Actually, I was just thinking that it still was a policy. But I hear you saying it isn't, so that's your call. You solicited input on the change, I gave it. 'Nuff said.
I think three percent retention on a site like this is actually doing pretty good...considering the scope of people that now have access to it, as opposed to the days when having USENET was actually a major draw.

But if you're not happy with 3%, then the rules probably do need changing...a lot. You could have the next Plastic or MeFi. Or Salon. It sure won't be The Cellar as it has been, but maybe that's not what you want anymore.
If "putting up with each other 100% of the time" is the target, you can have a zillion three-person communities that just love each other all the time. And again, maybe that's what you want. Personally, I think that's a space that's already filled with chat rooms (and bots and op lists), but that's just my opinon.
Oh dear...is this the Long Dark Night of the Libertarian Soul? :-)

I'm happy enough, it's not a question of not being happy, or what I want.

The rule change is not, like, a major change in direction... just a consideration that maybe it's better to have it this way. Maybe people are better served this way, maybe they like it better, maybe there are tradeoffs and everything isn't black and white.

I do think a lot about community, and what people really need, and how to provide it. I just haven't come up with a really good idea yet. If I did it doesn't go without saying that it would be applicable to the Cellar. Maybe it woud be, maybe it wouldn't. If it was something that would just tick everyone off, or that was totally commercial, I wouldn't do it here.

Nice shitstorm maggie has managed to start here i see.

Frankly, its dhams section, he should be able to delete whatever the hell he wants, and block if he wants too. I had a private forum on here for use for a project that then got moved to its own message boards. It was access to selected members only (for refrence none of those members were/are active participants on these boards). On that basis alone Dham should be able to do the same. Its a private section, not the main boards, nuff said.

I'm entirely behind dham on this, he's spot on. This thread is proof enough, a quick browse though maggies post makes the point clear.

I thought what you were saying was that you thought perhaps changes were needed because only 3% of folks who registered actually participated.
Well, I really have to disagree. I always saw your policy of deleteing posts only in the most extreme circumstances as a key element in making the Cellar what it was, and maintaining it's egalitarian feel. That policy, and the values that gave rise to it, were at the core of what made The Cellar different from the pile of power-driven BBSs that it has long survived, and I think The Cellar History and your "What's The Cellar" essay make that clear.
<center>
<b><i>Disagreement and honesty are critical to a community's health.</i></b></center>
...ipse dixit.

Well, jag, you don't actually *know* what was purged, because most of it's just plain gone...right into Winston Smith's "memory hole". What you see over here in this thread is stuff I rekeyed from memory, or in one case pre-copied over to here because dham made it clear he was going to purge anything I wrote...including going back to stuff that had been up for a while.

In some of the cities I've been to and lived in, there are certain neighborhoods where residency permits are used. If your car does not have a residency sticker, you either can't park your car there, or you can only park there for a few hours. (Chicago's north side has a ton of these. Philadelphia has them in Queen Village, off South Street.) And this is the analogy I use when it comes to Dave deleting Maggie's posts.

As I see it, The Cellar is a virtual community, where you have various "neighborhoods." And while the general laws (or in the case of the Cellar, rules) apply to all neighborhoods, some neighborhoods may be more stringent (e.g. have residency permits) in order to maintain a "high quality of life."

Based upon the relatively loose general standards, and the level of carte blanche in these parts, I think Dave can do with his forum as he wishes. In fact, I respect Mr. Ham for making that decision. He and I had a conversation a while back, in which I wished there was a way to block all future Maggie posts in the Manifestos. The main reason I have not deleted any posts in the Manifestos (other than the accidental thread deletion) as of yet is b/c I don't really want to be a censor, no matter how ridiculous I think the posts may be. That's not one of us being better than the other...though our forums are somewhat similar, the purpose of each is rather different. In the end, I think this is much ado about nothing.

Look Maggie, I don't like you, and don't have much respect for you. You make some great posts, but are notorious for baiting, flaming, and being outright insulting. Many of us (myself included) are guilty of the same things, but you take it to another level, IMO. It's cool though...you probably won't lose any sleep over it, nor will I. You can't like everybody in a community.

So, Dave can pull posts, Maggie can post them here, and we'll all be one big happy dysfunctional community. :)

Look at it on the bright side. All those moronic things I said will be preserved for eternity! Whoohoo!

No maggie, i meant the crap you've posted in here, not other threads. Sadly that's still here. Syc's dead on, although the existance of invisible boards should be taken into account.

My only constructive comment on this interestingly introspective thread is that personal blogs not governed by the same rules as the rest of the cellar should be clearly deliniated with different colors/fonts/graphics as to cue the dwellar of a different realm.

I agree that deletion is censorship. But I also agree that it should be allowed where noitice is given. Personally I would not use deletion as a tactic. But I put less effort into expressing my 'community self' than others so I find no need to blog. Stupid posts deserve getting ripped to shreds by witty intellegent posts not deletion. This is what makes /. fun to read.

I dunno if it's possible, but I have no problem with that...my blog is already a different color than the standard Cellar setup.

I've seen the word "rules" mentioned at least twice now, and one of the sentiments seems to be that Dave is trying to make his own rules, or change the rules.

When anyone registers, there are 3 rules listed:

1. Don't use the system to break the law.
2. Don't try to break the system.
3. Don't be 'intolerably irritating'.

Number 3 is incredibly vague, and we could probably come up with 900,000 interpretations of what exactly that means. As I see it, Dave has decided to enforce rule 3. I can't speak for Mr. Ham, but as evidence:

Free speech is a beautiful thing; however, one must realize that there may be consequences to what you say. Why was there no talk about "changing rules" when Parmenion was booted? After all, why should it be silenced, just because it slammed me, Dave, and Rho? I think that was a perfect example of rule 3 enforcement, and judging by other posts (or lack thereof), most people seem to be cool with Parm's demise. But that's only my thinking. We generally rely on UT to enforce rule 3, and I personally think he's handled that well. But...who's to say that he's necessarily right? Who's to say that Dave enforcing it is necessarily a bad thing? Who's to say that Maggie's behavior or Dave's or mine or UT's isn't "egregiously bad?"

It's a judgment call in the end. I still think that the Cellar is a champion of free speech; however, I am keenly aware that there are absolutes to free speech, whether there should be or not. And those absolutes can and will vary.

Well, for as long as I've been here, it's been Tony's call. And as I said earlier, I've liked how that worked. "Who's to say" is basically Tony, it being his effort that makes the Cellar happen; this is the "LIttle Red Hen" principle. T'was ever thus.

Now he's delgating that role....which, being the Little Red Hen, is indeed his call. I think it will make the Cellar less like what it was and more like everything else that's out there. Just my opinion.
Um...variable absolutes? "Limits", maybe?

"Intolerably irritating" is indeed variable...and ignore lists were created here to allow for that variability of irritability. Some more irritable folks use them a lot. For others that's not enough; beyond not listening to those they don't like, they want the people they don't like silenced so *none* will hear them, and if they had the tools would make their entire domains invisible to the unpersons.

The Cellar, which had been under a single management, will now have several zones, each with it's own governance. Rather like laws varying between states; what is forbidden in New Jersey or California may be "legal as church on Sunday" in Pennsylvania. Essentially what was one blog is now multiple co-hosted fora.

Now we'll get to see what the results will be over the coming months.

My guess is that it will be you posting less in my weblog.