Important: Censorship. Would you like to be silenced?

Field Reports & Anecdotal Experience Men's Pheromone Advice & Field Reports
1

I don’t have a lot of time today, but I’d like to know your thoughts on forum censorship.

If you’d like, you can just skim the bulk of what I write here, and just present your thoughts in response to the question at the end.

Now, as you know, we basically do not censor this forum, and we NEVER read your private messages.

As we like to say “They’re called private for a reason”.

1. For the most part, as long as you’re not a spammer or an outright nuisance, I tend not to care.

Most legitimate users here are as respectful as they would be when talking to other people at a store. They’re polite and informative.

You rarely see executives of Sony commit hari kiri when a Panasonic product is mentioned on the “sacred” corporate grounds of the “Sony Store”.

“Every time Panasonic is mentioned, a Sony executive dies!”

No. Hardly.

You know darn right well that a kitten dies. (sorry, couldn’t help it!)

2. The bulk of our “moderation” has involved live links, and occasionally fixing a spelling error or other fubar that reduced comprehension.

We’ve only had to delete a spammer once.

3. On the other hand, I have acted as a referee of sorts when things get out of hand.

When there are personal attacks between forum members, for instance, I ask the parties involved to remember that they’re talking to live, flesh & blood human beings, each with their own thoughts and emotions. People that probably mean well, just like you.

The first posts by user “Fire & Ice” show this very well.

Example:

4. I also ask people to please “moderate themselves”. To be responsible, thinking adults.

5. I’ve also tried to post something positive in threads that are overwhelmingly negative. (the LS thread comes to mind, where I added positive comments about “competing” products such as “The Edge” and “Pheros”)

Overall, this “adult” approach to “injecting sanity” seems to work well. Very well. There are forums far smaller than ours with far more problems.

As some of you know, I’ve always asked for dissent regarding our own products, and our business processes.

The only true dissent I received was in response to my request itself! (i.e., something along the lines of “Why would you ask for negative comments on your products and business? Are you nuts??”)

I’m sure users such as Rbt can chime in here, and remind us of how crazy everyone thought I was for making such a request :slight_smile:

(Fact is, dissent might appear to “hurt” in the short term, but it makes everything better soon enough. As anyone who’s ever made something of durable value knows, you can ONLY grow as quickly as you receive honest & accurate feedback!)

Now despite our success at running a very open forum, with no real moderation or censorship to speak of, we’re recently received a request by PM to censor our forums “as a courtesy”.

A. There are some very real legal issues behind why I don’t want to do this. (legal precedent, starting with CompuServe and Delphi Forums, show that significantly moderated or censored forums mean that the forum owner takes legal reponsibility for their users words & sometimes even their actions)

B. There are also ethical reasons. I don’t want to act as “thought police”. I’ve never felt comfortable with that. Moreover, it’s not something I want done to me, so why should I do it to others?

C. I’d also rather not weed the forum selectively, so it would become no more than a sort of Bonzai tree made of words, showing a distorted or “remixed” view of reality.

I view the selective weeding of posts and deletion of users themselves to be little than tools of covert propaganda, much like the selective presentation and deletion of information in history books.

D. I view our forum as a means of honest discussion, not a means of propaganda.

People like our products or they don’t. If they don’t, I’ll work on them. Simple as that.

Furthermore, all of the better stores I actually trust have referred to me other stores when elsewhere there’s a product that would serve me better. “Professional courtesy” is a common practice at all high end department stores.

I like, I practice it. We have nothing like “Pheros” cologne, for instance, so we recommend it.

E. I also don’t like people feeling as if they’re being closely monitored, or that they can be punished for a plethora of unwritten, “secret” rules.

Ask anybody who lived in Red Russia, Communist Cuba, or Nazi era Germany. The worst thing you can possibly fear is the unknown, especially unknown laws and rules. It has a very real chilling effect. In fact, I’d dare say it kills the soul.

Now, those are some of my views.

I have more, and through intelligent discussion, I could probably be convinced to change or update some of those views. I’ve been wrong before, and I’ll certainly be wrong again. :slight_smile:

**This is where you step in.

How do you feel about being censored or silenced? PERSONALLY?**

Often times, censorship is all fine and dandy when it’s happening to someone else… not you. That’s why I’d like you to imagine it happening to you, and answer from the perspective of the person being censored.

Moles: noticed more L/S forum moles on the AD forum? Why do they care what we say?
2

The more popular AR gets the more likely that unharmonius elements will filter in. At some point if things are left the way they are this forum won’t be the great place it is now. As the forum evolves, so too must the means to keep it such a nice place. The first thing that comes to mind is a collective way of modding people off the forum. Everyone gets a vote and when you have enough votes against you, you’re gone.

3

I certainly don’t want to be censored, and if you read the latest posts in the LS thread on the front page here, you will see just why I think a good few members will agree.

I can also guess EXACTLY who sent the PM requesting censorship be put in place, but I do not deem it necessary here, at all

This forum and site are both run like a very well-oiled machine, and I for one think that machine works - brilliantly. Just as it is now.

Ail :slight_smile:

4

the using of pheromones itselfs attracts a wide variety of open minded people who are more likely to express themselves without censorship even when it is requested. my humble opinion is that nomatter what the result of this thread is, the forum will evolve accordingly and the pherousers will continue the way they are now, only they will be removed…or not. :slight_smile:

5

I see nothing wrong with censorship as a means to maintain constructive discussion around the forums…in fact as the community here grows larger in the future, I think it will become a necessity. I like thresholds idea of voting abusive users off. When censorship becomes overly obtrusive, however, to the point that it manipulates the views of the community, it becomes a problem…theres a difference between censoring to “keep the peace” and censoring to maintain control.

I too have a good hunch of who PM requesting censorship came from, and its understandable why they would request such.

Like you, I see nothing wrong with criticizing a company or product openly, so long as its constructive, or at the very least, well-founded and tasteful. The venting done by various posters both here has always been very tasteful, and never has it been a matter of mindlessly bashing another vendor, though more than a few of us have been personally subjected to that kind of behavior. There is a great deal of consistency in the way many users here were treated, and in the opinions of the posters here regarding various products. Many of us here still post positive remarks about products offered on LS, and we still openly incororate their products in our mixes. We’re allowed to mention LS products here, but any mention of androtics’ products on LS gets immediately deleted…no bueno.

I think if LS wants to rise above the negative comments on our end, they should use them to model the improvement of their own operation, instead of trying to shove it under the rug. Thats the wonderful thing about competition afterall…it sparks continual improvement for a given industry as a whole. Those who can’t keep up simply fizzle out of existence.

*edit

How does it feel to be personally censored? I don’t think anyone would like the idea of being censored for making a legitimate comment, or refraining from making a comment out of fear of facing retribution for doing so.

6

I’ve now updated this post, including the question at the end. Hopefully, this has made it clearer.

If you can answer in terms of how you would like to be censored, I would appreciate it.

I think most people don’t understand the reprecussions of such matters until it affects them personally. This, after all, is how fascism rose in Germany, Italy, Cuba, Russia and other countries.

What you allow to be done to others, eventually creeps up on you and affects you, too.

What you used to think was good for you, you eventually realize was good for nobody.

To me, this forum is ultimately no more than a small country of like minded people.

If something as giant and varied as the US, under it’s current administration, can survive with the “Freedom of Speech” amendment to the Constitution, I think a forum can fare just fine, as well.

7

I think one of the great things about this board is that it is censor free. We are basically able to discuss just about anything phero related. I guess I just don’t see at this point what really needs to be censored on this message board. Doesn’t seem to be a lot of spam like you mentioned. The arguements I’ve seen haven’t been huge and for the most part have been civil. Newbies get there questions answered and there seems to be friendships blossoming here and there. I don’t think I’ve seen any cursing. There has been some sexually charged language but that’s to be expected on a board talking about pheromones. I guess the only things I can think that should be considered for censorship is extremely bad language and posts that are targeted and hostile towards an individual poster. Otherwise let the conversations flow.

8

If it’s not offending someone, it’s not free speech!

There are, however, definite differences between senseless flames and personal attacks, and controversial discussion.

I do not like censorship, and I am here in large part because I am free to speak my mind here.

9

I started to post my experience with a totally unmoderated forum in the bash Love Scent thread and deleted it as I felt it was was a bit of a digression. I’m glad I did as this thread seems more relevant.

First of all, philosophically, I’m an anarchist. Not the bomb throwing kind, but I feel that there should be no laws except for those that protect individual rights to property. MHarris made a John Galt reference in another thread. Anyone familiar with Ayn Rand or Libetarians may understand what I mean. But I also feel society isn’t ready for anarchy until they become honest enough to police their own behavior. Until then, laws are a necessary evil.

I’ve been online since the mid to late 1990s. The first forum I participated in was a Deepak Chopra forum hosted by Random House. That place was great. It wasn’t a threaded forum, but rather, the latest post was the top post and you scrolled down to read older ones. And it wasn’t moderated one bit. I loved the anarchy of the place, though Chopra topics were probably one tenth of one percent of the posts there.

A couple of months after I discovered the place, a poster who called himself “Cool Font Phooey” started challenging people’s new age beliefs. He often got rather insulting in his attacks. One woman in the group started a private chat group and I was invited to join. Our private group quickly turned into a gossip area to criticise posters at the Chopra forum. We became a “clique.” Among our members was an Iranian Brit and an expatriate American, both of which felt they were spiritually advanced over most of us who posted at Chopra’s. The Brit had some kind of mystical (or psychotic) experience and the expat had spent a lot on Chopra seminars and in some people eyes, moved to Europe to escape his problems in the US.

Things went along well for the most part, until the US started gearing up to attack Iraq. The Brit and expat started posting anti war/Bush propaganda. In retaliation, someone (who was suspected to be the “Cool Font” person), started spamming the site with long cut and paste posts from other forums and very high graphic images, which slowed down the site so much that no one could load it. This was before cable and DSL connections and it was impossible to access the site on a dial up connection when the spam would happen. Even my connection at work had trouble with the place.

Meanwhile, there were problems in our private group, and I was asked to be the moderator. I declined as I knew it was a thankless job. The woman who took the job was buddies with the expat and ended up ejecting a husband and wife couple who constantly disagreed with him. While this was happening, conversations in the private area started to get pasted at the Chopra public forum. The expat later admitted that in his frustration with this couple, he gave out the password to someone else, who had cut and pasted the private stuff into the public area. He’s lucky I wasn’t the mod, he would have been ejected right then and there.

Back to Chopra’s, the spam became terrible. The pig headedness of all parties involved was extreme and no one would budge. I pointed out privately to the expat and the Brit that they were as much to blame as the spammer. If they discussed anything other than their anti war/Bush propaganda, the spammer wouldn’t retaliate. I told then that they were ruining the site for everyone. They recountered claiming a right to free speech.

The Brit and a woman in the private group contacted Random House over this matter, asking that this spammer guy be censored. Random House’s remedy to all of this was to close the site down and wipe their discs of its existance. They opened an Ezboard threaded forum which was a joke and a mere shell of the former one.

I got attacked from everyone in the private group for suggesting that the Brit and expat were as much at fault as the spammer. One guy, whom everyone looked up to, jumped in to my defense and got dogpiled on too. He ended up quitting the group right then and there. I didn’t quit, but didn’t feel I had anything to say to those people anymore. I was going in daily to read, then weekly, then about once a month. The woman who contacted Random House was somewhat a control freak, and didn’t like the idea that people read without posting. What was I to do, type “hi” every time I popped in? Screw that. Well after a few months, I tried to go in to read and found the password had been changed.

For a bunch of self proclaimed “enlightened” people, I had never seen so much discord and back biting. My feelings weren’t hurt one bit when I was locked out. As I said, I no longer had anything to share with the others. I was much more unhappy to see the Chopra forum crash and burn.

So anyway, I moved to a place called “The Straight Dope Message Board.” If you want to see strict moderation, check out that place. But after my experience with Chopra’s I now feel some kind of moderation is necessary. The SDMB is a great place and I think a good example of how a moderated forum should be. I quit there though, when they started requiring paid memberships to post. I paid for the first year but I was wasting so much time at the place didn’t renew after my year was up. By then I had started participating at Love Scent. I had been frequenting the Xtreme Mind board but after their third crash in a span of a few months last year, I kind of lost interest there. I now divide my forum time between here and Love Scent.

Ok, now to try to make sense of my ramblings.

We are guests at these forums. The owner has the final control over what happend at these places as he or she pays for the bandwith. So free speech is not necessarily a given in their house anymore than it is at my house or where I work.

So whatever level of censorship the owner of a forum decides is right for his place is ok by me. If I don’t like his rules, I can move on. Like I said, in a perfect world there would be no rules, but the world isn’t perfect. I like the openess of this place but at the same time, am disturbed with some of the slamming of Love Scent that goes on here, most of it sounds like sour grapes to me and seems counterproductive to this site.

10

in that case, i would have to say i as well am here for free speech. anyone misusing the forum does so at the risk of no one wanting to reply, no one wanting to hear about it, behave like a child and get treated like one. censorship is uninteresting. i get very bored easily at “other” forums for no other reason than “same sheet different day”. it becomes emotionless…monotone…bueller… bueller… :roll_eyes:
i personally enjoy even the ranting. its personal. im getting to know people here on a level i wasnt anywhere else, and i am more than willing to hear someone totally dis my statements or fav products so that i experience the contrast. helps you decide what you really want when your confronted with opposite thinking. i rather respect it when its done with curtousy. when it isnt… my opinions of that person are MY opinions,not anyone elses. :cool:

11

My turn:

I do want to clarify that the only objection/comment I made concerning asking for “negative” comments was the way the question was worded. It just sorta “implied” to me (while wearing my “business person marketing” hat and my “scientific researcher” hat [blame my experiences in grad school psych department]) that negatives were a given. That there WAS something wrong wtih the products. Rather than “what are we doing wrong?” I would have opted for “what do we need to improve?” sort of flavoring. I felt the question was starting out creating a negative impression and possibly biasing the results.

Anyway: I’m a big supporter of freedom of speech and expression of opinion. If I were to step over a line (and who would decide where that line was?) I would accept a “talk”/consultation by a neutral as possible higher power with a request to moderate myself, or face possibly a three stirkes you’re out policy. Some of the yahoo groups I have joined are “moderated” meaning that the posts are first checked by someone before made public. This restriction is usually lifted after one has “proven” themseves, but can be reinstated if someone gets out of hand.

I think what bothers me the most is having someone just “pull the plug” on me without first intervening to point out that perhaps I have been a bit too rude or the like, and/or at least listen to my side of the story. And I think some sort of public reasons should be given. I am still very troubled by what I see as “mysterious” bannings on “that other forum” that I can see no reason for. Conjurs up visions of a "1984"ish secret thought police. (Okay so I’m just a little paranoid…)

I could possibly see a restriction on public posts, but would be less inclined to restrict PMs, or base “banning” based on PMs unless there was a serious breach (threatening messages, spam, “denial of service” style attacks by filling up someones PM mailbox with malicious intent, etc).

There is an icon on each message post in the lower left corner to “report a bad post.” I’m not sure how it works from the administration end, but I would think it could be a means of public voting on the behavior of forum members. Someone who oversteps enough times based on those reports could face some sort of discipline.

And yes, this forum is new. LS forum has been around long enough to attract all sorts. I fear that someday this forum will also fall victim to similar lowlifes who often seem to join groups for the sole reason of being jerks and stirring up trouble. Right now we are enjoying the fact that just about everyone here is intelligent and mature (I’m not so sure about myself sometimes…), but the overall odds are against us. Based on the normal distribution curve we learn about in statistics class, for every one on the high end of the scale, we are going to have someone on the opposite end… It’s only a matter of time. Yes, someday we may have no choice but to have moderators on this forum as well, with the power to pass judgement, censor posts, and wack some users upside the head.

Reality bites.

12

I spend my time here because I want to talk about my pheromone experiences. That includes AR products, LS & a few others. Topics include how the products works, alone or in combo, plus the good & bad sides. Any seasoned user would know, no single product on Earth works on everyone. Try to accept the fact other products will work better for someone & vice versa.

Much depends on the attitude & direction a forum wants to approach (a clear objective). This sets the underlying tone for all discussions. While everyone could agree to disagree on any topic, it really boils down to what a forum wants to provide & deny.

Trying to impose a failing standard from elsewhere to this forum seems futile. Honesty is the trademark here (BNOL OD anyone?)

Laughable is the motion to crucify “hoax products” when their own fraud is exposed. Trying to censor it here is horrid OD.

Muster the courage to admit & correct. That is the way of true souls.

i2w

13

I don’t mind really being censored or silenced. I think the forum would do better being a ‘bonzai tree’ like you say but you or Jasmin and whoever else may not have time to read every little thing on here to correct it appropriately. It is your forum after all and you should have the power to do as you wish. Be tough when you have to.

Just give us some kind of **warning and reasons **before you start banning people if you ever decide to do that. Unlike the ruthless mob over at LS lol…:stuck_out_tongue:

Visionary

14

I thought IP had a great post.
Seems that this is not an “all or nothing” issue. There may come a point in the future when some moderation will be in order, but right now, I would say a few simple things would work. Dump SPAM and the spammers. While allowing reasonable “debates”, immediately lock any “flame wars”. If someone is a repeat flamer warn them if they continue, dump their butt. Nice and simple.
Just my 2 cents.

15

I’ve been moderating online forums for nearly two years now, but I do NOT see moderation and censorship in the same light at all.

All forums, as many have pointed out, benefit from kicking out repeat offenders and spammers, but restricting and/or deleting legitimate, informative posts then banning the people who posted them, as is currently happening “elsewhere,” is a very different matter altogether, and is one of the main reasons they are losing a good few of their regulars right now.

I also feel that there is a great sense of community, and that people actually thrive on the input from each other here, as pointed out by Sigma - and I also feel far more at home at Androtics in the short time since Dolly pointed me here, than I EVER have, over yonder.

Ail :slight_smile:

16

I have Administered 2 forums before. I held a policy of free speech and told everyone that as long as things don’t get out of hand, there will be no moderating. That policy worked because people respected the forum.

The way I see it, if people didn’t have rules to break, they won’t do any harm. Normally people like to break rules purposely, and that is why I believe a censored forum will cause even more chaos.

I don’t think we should be censored. However, if things do get out of hand, and the posts turn into flames between members, then tightening the grip on the forum would be necessary. But as things stand right now, there is no reason to moderate.

17

I have been amazed at the consistent high quality and civilised tone of the discussions here. Despite the growth over the past months, it is still rare that a thread is (inadvertently or otherwise) hijacked.

That said, since at least the days of fidonet (I wasn’t around before) there has been a fairly consistent life cycle for unmoderated lists (there is a classic piece of observation of the social dynamics on this around somewhere, possibly by Tom Jennings).

In particular I suppose there are a couple of concerns.

The first settlers of a new land in the ideosphere tend to be the most energetic, curious, thoughtful etc. As membership grows, I wonder if it is inevitable that the entropy of the discussion deteriorates so that one misses sophisticated and nuanced high-level discussions about pheromone craft due to the posts from new joiners asking ‘what is androstenone?’. The forums seem to be some way away from this, but at some stage this might happen.

I am sort of sympathetic to the challenges faced by the moderators of the other forum as I have seen over the years several wonderful places decay into informationless mush. Much conversation and gossip (that is discouraged on that other forum) works very well and actually increases co-ordination and creativity within the groups provided the number of active participants is at a certain size. Then at some point, without some greater structure, the whole thing phase shifts to becoming out of control. Focal points and shared standards of behaviour are important, and the way those moderators at that other forum have chosen to address the issue is not one that I personally would have chosen. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be at some point a similar question to address here.

I suppose having a section where one asks to join (a la A314 Lounge) and some basic screening is done would make sense should this juncture be reached. I don’t really have any insights on this though.

Wrt censorship, I don’t understand the implications wrt various jurisdictions that might be involved. Also whether the board can hide behind common carrier type status vs being more of a newspaper.

I personally don’t see that there have been any messages here that anyone could legitimately feel has crossed some line. (And in the particular case of the other board, there have been occasional opinions expressed by users there about products from here that are factually inaccurate at best and surely more worthy of removal than a complaint here about the way they have moderated their board - where I don’t think there has been much dispute over facts).

18

If, (when,) you get to the point where censorship is necessary, log in and have a few PM’s with the mods at ocforums.com
They have a huge, well-moderated forum, with reasonable censorship. Compare them to hardforum.com , a forum with the same subjects, but tons of stupid BS going on.
I don’t know what they’ll tell you at ocforums, but one thing I can say is, “LISTEN!”