Draginol Draginol

Some of you are on thin ice...

Some of you are on thin ice...

Grow up or get out

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.

15,308 views 80 replies
Reply #51 Top
Can someone call Bakerstreet off of me?
Reply #52 Top
JeremyG is abusing this site's Google connections to spread his anti-semitism all over the internet. His article should be deleted.
Reply #53 Top
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.
Reply #54 Top
oops...double post
Reply #55 Top
I'm simply going to have a drink to celebrate your decision to never return.






Well Goodbye



Reply #56 Top
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 ...............
Reply #57 Top
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.
Reply #58 Top
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)?
Reply #59 Top
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.

Reply #60 Top

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.

 

Reply #61 Top
Alright guys, I just re-read the policy. Does that mean "Capt. over and out! ™" isn't allowed then?

Capt. over and out! ™
Reply #62 Top
After much reading and soul searching, Ive determined I have no soul. As one having spouted one too many juvenile and pointed outbursts I will no longer attack anyone making a point in such a way as to appear abusive ir belligerent. I especially apologize to NickyG, who it seems, has taken the brunt of my ill-tempered missives. This also applies to anyone, who, in my muddled mind, I have possibly offended or annoyed. Henceforth I will be a good boy and constructive reply to the shiny objects that catch my attention. Ahh, now I feel better!
Reply #63 Top
Hurray voodoo! lol

~Dan
Reply #64 Top

I am confident that I am not one of the offenders from this, since I try not to insult people in my comments, but rather satiric or simply in jest. My articles are usually straight forward but left-leaning, and I appreciate that you not only allow it but with a spirit of encouragement, which, I feel, strengthens the diversity of the site. 

I agree that some bloggers do tend to be rowdy and indiscreet. 

Reply #65 Top

Hardly anyone is guilty of violating any of these things. Unless you've literally put "<Username Here>" as part of the actual article title, you're fine.

If someone dislikes smoeone's article they have every right to respond to it. They just shouldn't put that user's name as part of the title and if they are going to use that person's name in teh article, it should a) not be libelous and b) allow that person to respond.

Yesterday we had Tech-Cat, who has since been banned for writing a bunch of "Jafo is a Nazi" posts (apparently voluntarily wanting to demonstrate how to get kicked off) over on WC, writing articles about JeremyG that were libelous. Which, btw, is another reason why we have to clamp down on that kind of thing. We don't want to be held liable. The first amendment doesn't cover libel.

Reply #66 Top
NO WONDER I NEVER USE MY REAL NAME AT A BLOG SITE...........
Reply #67 Top
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.

Thanks Bakerstreet! I've been sitting here reading through, waiting for someone to say just that. Some people on the web feel that the webpages they pull up are government property and therefore subject to constitutional rights. the only right that applies in this case, and so many like it are : you have the right to choose whether or not to view this subject matter.
Though I daresay, if you surf to a government site, you're liable to be prevented from typing certain things there as well as anywhere else.
Reply #68 Top
hmmm... I pressed the quote button but it didn't make it a quote on my screen.... apologies bakerstreet if it doesn't look like a quote to everyone else.
Reply #69 Top
I'm actually quite amazed that people think that the owner of a site doesn't have the right to have rules in place! It belongs to Brad, so therefore wouldn't you expect Brad to put some rules in place?? I totally agree with not naming people in a blog title just to flame them etc. I certainly disagree with a few on this site, but try to do it without just saying "You're a bigot", although I think I may have been guilty of that once... ah, well. We learn from our mistakes!!
Reply #70 Top
Wahkonta, you wrote: "Who decides what is hate? or hateful? I say I decide on my own blog and you decide on yours."
You are 99% correct. You decide on your own blog SITE and others decide on theirs. This is not your site. As others have pointed out already, if you feel you are being treated unfairly you are perfectly free to set up your own server and run your own site. And it will probably be a whole lot cheaper than starting your own newspaper, for example, because the editors at the current paper won't print your letters.
Reply #71 Top
You decide on your own blog SITE and others decide on theirs

I think that's what Wahkonta meant. Stop villainizing her, she's not that bad. She just gets carried away sometimes.

~Dan
Reply #72 Top
i like ice... especially in my sweet tea... even if it's thin ice
Reply #73 Top
I'm actually quite amazed that people think that the owner of a site doesn't have the right to have rules in place!


Indeed. I wondered about that. Like everything else, there IS limitations on freedom of speech.
Reply #74 Top
If people still want to attack and flame others, they could always make a blog group called Flametopia so that people who want to see those posts can join it. I don't think that'd be against the rules.
Reply #75 Top
Stumbled here to JoeUser from WinCustomize, and this seems like a fun, interesting site. Being as new as I am, my 2 cents should probably be taken with a grain of salt, if I may mix my metaphors, but I wanted to comment on the article. I feel the stated rules are far from censorship, but also, a blogger who posts insipid rants, even very specific ones, usually falls on their own sword (...or mighty pen, or keyboard - metaphors getting out of hand now). I mean to say, discerning readers are able to call a greifer a greifer, and decide for themselves if an argument is well stated or nothing more than a diatribe. And readers can decide whether to return to read more installments or not.

Also, when I see warning like this, I always wish links had been included! Now I have to search for the most likely extremely rare rants so I can point and laugh.

Again, I feel a site owner has every right, and often responsibility, to monitor the site's content. In fact, I'm no lawyer, but I wonder who exactly could be held responsible if a blog was determined to be libel or slander.