See just when I am willing to leave this place I come across someone new to argue with.  It seems like that has become what blogster is to me a place to express my beliefs, opinions and a venue to try to make the world a more logical place, logical always means better in my book.

 

So before I begin quoting the latest dilemma I wanted to give a fine example.  My friend Jen, Chihuahualover, and I used to be bitter enemies.  Many people, we will call these folks window-lickers, enjoyed our constant bickering, arguing and out and out battling. Now, you see, up there I say “bitter enemies” now does this mean I was going to rush to Jen’s house and throw a brick through the window or set her kid on fire or perhaps that she would come spray paint slut on my house and key my car?  No, we argued on the internet. We said some ugly stuff to one another that we meant at the time.  We hurt each others feelings even if some of the stuff both of us said was true we were big ol’ butts to each other. 

What did was find it in ourselves to resolve the issue to make things better for ourselves and others.  We do not pretend to agree on everything and I am sure if she disagrees with me she will say it as will I because we want to get our own individual massages out through use of our blogs. We both learned, sadly from each other, that you will run into jerks along the way.  However we have both come to understand the right of the other person to have their views even if we find it morally repugnant.  I think we have also come to understand that even if we find something we completely detest in another human that we will always have common ground with them. We all share this world and there are very few people who have NO redeemable qualities.

So having gone through all of this and knowing what we know now are we still going to defend our beliefs and comment on others blogs that we disagree with?  Absolutely! I cannot speak for her here but I feel I have a moral responsibility to do so.

Which brings me to the issue at hand with a fellow blogger.  We are having a discussion in the article by Team, Thought Process involved in Revised Blogster TOS, you see I have been here at blogster for three or four years and in that time their have been, what, maybe a dozen issues concerning censorship here.  Censorship being where blogs, articles and comments are deleted, Let me be clear here all but maybe three were under the current ownership. It seems to me this has happened because the current blog owners took sides on the issue and decided who was wrong. Prior to this it was a rarity and only when it was genuine harassment.  For example, here at blogster I have only asked for comments to be removed by one person and he is long gone now because Eddie nuked his entire blog. All of his articles were about me or a female doctor who I think is still here on blogster and after I rejected him in a private email (he suggested in lurid detail the things we should do) he then began post on all of my blogs, no matter what they were, about how I should “Have Johnny stick and ice cream cone up my ___________filled asshole and have him eat it out” He found a ton of new and unique ways to rephrase that exact sentence over and over again. This being his only contribution to the community, he was deleted then all his new blogs he tried to make were deleted and finally he was ip blocked. Now I have called for Joe’s blog to be examined and something to be done but hey with all the features blogster now has there is no need. He can block me, ignore me and I can do likewise if I am too weak to handle the likes of him, but alas I am not.

So here is the issue, FlyingLion, a new blogger here on blogster suggests firstly that blogster should limit the amount of comments allowed. Claiming that it works well at another blogging site, mind you one I have never heard of and is not on the 100 most popular blog sites(blogster is).

I cannot believe this was even a suggestion

FlyingLion Some thoughts or perhaps sugestions.

I know it would be a pain but using the confirmation tag (four random letters and numbers should be enough) for each blog or comment posted.

First 5 Blogs of a user have a TOS(short version) accepted.

Almost anything can offend and there is little that any individual can do about how another interprets what you write.

Community approval: If any Blog receives more than # (5?) Negative votes then that blog is banned from being accessed by any except the original author. Three strikes in a short period of time (3 months?) permanently removes that user. (Problem of one person creating a 'gang' to rid themselves of another with this idea though)

What the hell are you thinking? Do you know how many wonderful bloggers would be gone if you did this?  This is not survivor, we are not voting people off the island.  If this were the case there would be NO diversity and everyone would have to compete to be as pc as possible and never disagree with anyone else.  In fact you might win the million by being the only one left on the island!  I certainly would have been the fist one gone because the moral majority here certainly thinks I need to leave since I am a phone sex operator and an adult web designer and believe in FREE SPEECH.  f*** I would have been of the Blogster Island after writing my profile page.  You have the tools to control your own blog why don’t you just stop worrying about other people’s blogs and take care of your own. Mommy and daddy blogster do not have to do it for you. Why would you want to give the power you have over your own blog to the powers that be or even worse yet to the bible thumping, homophobic, Islamic genocide wishing, and bigoted racist assholes?

FlyingLion

mmmhollywould's blog also prompted this reply from moi!

I quite like the policy set up they have over at Matchdoctor. A user can choose to approve a comment or allow automatic approval or allow only friends to comment.

They have put into operation that only one comment on a blog per user is allowed except for the right of reply is given to the original blogger.
I think this is because they wanted to stop 'discussion' from occurring after a blog.

 

So you suggest that we stop discussions on blogs.  I see two problems with this.  You see part of the reason a blogging community works is because of the replies.  It keeps traffic coming to this site and staying at this site.  So say I am reading a politically charged debate on a blog and comment.  The next day I will come back to read the reply to that comment and see what others have said. Then I will comment and others will do the same. It keeps the traffic moving.  If blogster should do what you are proposing they are cutting off their nose and their traffic.  It would be a very poor decision on the part of blogster.

Not to mention more people would leave because it is just a way to censor people and their opinions and the discussion everyone liked will be gone just like the chat room is.

Further the reason people go to match doctor is not the same reason people come here.  Most would leave blogster  if they made this into a dating site and what works for a dating site will not work here. The two sites get traffic for different reasons.

FlyingLionI have heard of people who have been found innocent in courts of Law and yet have found that their lives to have been almost destroyed by people who set out to disrupt their life by a group of people who think they were not innocent.

Car set on fire, brick through the window until boarded up, front door smashed in and living space wrecked. Phone calls in the middle of the night, that general sort of thing. The world is full of determined people who think they are doing good and do not need 'proof' of guilt before committing themselves to actions another may find unpleasant.

Would that be sufficient reason for limiting the discussion?

So you are going to compare these things that happen in real life to blogging? I do not understand how either of the two can be compared? I have yet to hear of a a blogger here calling another blogger in the middle of the night unless of course you are talking about me. I invite calls from fellow bloggers in the middle of the night.

Here at blogster you have a block user button, you can delete comments on your blog, you can even go private so what would be the point of limiting comments to one if you have begun a discussion?  You have total control of what is on your blog.

 Even major news papers now have discussion forums at the bottom of the article if you look.  Why would you want to limit that for others when you can do it yourself on your own blog?

In addition all the successful social networking sites do not limit a discussion.  I do not know why you want blogster to do what you can do yourself?

So you think someone is going to throw a brick through your window because you wrote a blog?

FlyingLionBeing able to delete a comment if fine if you are always online. Now, and I am only speculating, Unk-nutter can email their thoughts to the friends list you have. Post their comments about your blog in their own blog.

I have encountered some fairly vile and clever people on the net. I am not against disscussion. I am against people disrespecting each other and finding ways to hurt them in any way they can.

If your blog is private, so is your friends list I believe.  If youa re so worried about this you can go private.

I am doing just that now, writing about you and your comments in my blog and personally there is nothing wrong with what I am doing.  I feel a moral responsibility to do so as you are suggesting major reprehensible changes to the free expression and free speech we have almost always enjoyed at blogster.

If you do not like what someone has to say too or about you press the block user button.  If you want to control everything that is said on your blog you can go private if you are afraid of what the comments will be. I have never deleted a comment or tried to limit those who comment on my blog except the one time it was affecting the other commenters. The ice-cream guy.

While you may be against people hurting others(with words) and or disrespecting them it is their right to do so and the person on the receiving end has the tools to stop it and prevent it.

All of what you say is true. Now if you see someone about to set fire to a child do you try to stop them or say 'oh I can't stop people being horrible, just let them get on with it, I can't control their behaviour'!

This is a multi-cultural, multi-opinionated place, where if users believe in freedom of expression, then it would be nice if the users understood that they are going to read things they do not like, but it does not give them the right to campaign vigorously against another individual just because they do not like their views.

Setting a child on fire is absolutely not comparable to blogging.  We are not comparing apples to oranges here. Blogging is just words. Even if I wrote a blog on how I like to butcher cats and eat their entrails on weekends.  That does not make it true, it makes them words. It is also not a crime for me to write about doing so. When speaking of being a in a room where a child is being set on fire you have brought up a whole different scenario that is not relative to the writing or commenting on blogs.

 

I see you would really like it if you did not have to control your own blog but let the powers that be do so.  I also can see that you are not really interested in freedom of expression. In real life I can come up to you and say, “You have a really ugly shirt.”  I can even say to you,” your morals are as ugly as the vomit colored shirt you are wearing” and I have the right t say it.  Depending on what provoked those comments decides if it was appropriate or not. Why do you want to control what others have to say.

 

Why doesn’t it give them the right to “campaign vigorously against their views?” That is the basis for freedom of expression and speech. 

 

Finally if you think blogging and commenting on blogs is comparable to lighting a child on fire you need to take some time off the internet, you take it entirely too seriously.

In addendum I wanted to say that while I do understand the power of words that is exactly why your ideas do not work.