It doesn’t take a computer program to see that posts are down as are new threads. One of my colleagues feels that this fall-off hit hardest after Angst pulled the thread “What makes a good prostitute?” Promoting illegal behavior? Please.
Some of the earlier posters were indeed infantile and irksome but the whole mix was one of a livelier forum. Now, with the stuffed shirt concept that we must all be Miss Manners and erudite to boot, it seems that the whole deal is being avoided as a place that just isn’t very fun anymore.
Perhaps this is what Gus and Angst wanted: a forum for posting For Sale ads and info on where to buy a chilidog or get better Internet connections for the home.
Now the discussions on the open forum (an oxymoron?) are dominated by a half-dozen die-hards.
Has the pendulum swung too far the other way?
My sentiments exactly. Perhaps I really don’t have or need any information on what makes a good prostitute, but I would open and read it because it was interesting. Perhaps it was annoying when someone writes messages that are specifically engineered to annoy, but who cares? Half the fun was watching someone get bent out of shape over other people’s postings.
Dbbowman wrote:
“Perhaps it was annoying when someone writes messages that are specifically engineered to annoy, but who cares?”
This appears to be in breech of Article 3 of the Terms and Contitions of Oriented:
One cannot:
“Post material that is unlawful, obscene, defamatory, sexually oriented, libelous, threatening, harassing, abusive, hateful, or embarrassing to another Site visitor or any other person or entity, invasive of a person’s privacy, or is otherwise objectionable as determined by the Company at its sole discretion;”
Dbbowman, you are dancing on the razor’s edge of encouraging “annoying” posts and may be considered not refined enough to understand and follow the rules.
Lawyers at this very moment are deciding what punishment you should be subjected to. Several are advocating reading Hey Christine.com EVERY DAY FOR A YEAR!
I think something less severe is in order, like having hot pokers plunged into your eyes, but of course, common sense WILL prevail.
At any rate, watch your future postings – they are watching you!
quote[quote]This appears to be in breech (sic) of Article 3 of the Terms and Contitions (sic) [/quote]Never mind Oriented's [url=http://www.oriented.org/terms/]Terms & Conditions[/url] - What really irks me is bad spelling and grammar! In the weeks and months to come, all bad spellers may very well find their accounts at Oriented abruptly terminated. :laughing: :raspberry: :smiley: :smiling_imp:
Wolf,
I can’t see any “erudite” or “Miss Manners” ethic in this policy. My argument in favor of the moderators taking a harder line is that the posts I was reading were deteriorating into petty squabbles.
Most of the posters are voicing their opinions in a way that would get their asses kicked in the real world. Not because of their opinions, but because of the way they were expressing them. The content of their message is usually very mild, but their way of expressing it reduced most of the debates to petty bull***t.
There is a skill to disagree with somebody and keep the conversation going. There’s a skill in listening to somebody’s argument and going beyond the anger & ranting and actually finding something worth considering OR finding the weaknesses and tearing their idea apart.
What bothers me is that very few people really have radical ideas. And those that do seem to voice them in a way that I believe it’s anger rather than reasoning that fuels their debate.
But as for the deleting of the topic of prostitution, I don’t know. Why did the moderators delete it? Was it getting too graphic?
brit, so some people don’t express themselves in a way that’s up to your standards. So what? If you read the posts a lot, you’ll begin to recognize the names of posters YOU don’t like. However, III may love them. You can just avoid rading these posters. If Gus and Christine love them too, there is nothing you can do except follow Gus’s advice and set up your own site if you can’t tolerate it. I do have to agree with the gist of Wolf’s post. This site was set up to be the model for an eventual dot.com/profit-making site. The more ‘offensive’ posts might scare away a sizeable/profitable market of consumers- that’s just common sense. So, anyone got the time to do a minimally moderated site? I don’t.
Britai –
i like the gooder posters to, but even the stupider ones are part of the fun. I think the moderaters should stop pettie phudes and things off the topic, (whsich they don’t very oftem) and i enjoy at good post and a well argument.
But i to HATE PEOPLE WHO CANT’ SPELLING!
Well look at the number or should that be the lack of new postings per day…is this not a reflection of the number of people that look at this site currently? Not to run down the site but these moderators have turned these forums into a Mainland China/LA Times newspaper( censored, can be interesting to read, if you have got a couple of hours to read one thread, with no spice or wit), instead of letting it be a sensational tabloid newspaper type…two minutes per thread…where the people who write in it… are willing to throw caution to the wind and say anything…this has the effect of at least stirring up interest and debate and getting new people to frequent the site or make people who have visited to visit on a more regular basis.
Or maybe these forums are getting less frequented cause all that needs to be said about Taiwan has been said and read and argued and said and read.
Anyway, all I have really noticed is the number of postings and I guess from this I can conclude the number of visitors or registered users who used to take time to read and write have dimished. The threads are one of the few things that makes this site interesting. Otherwise, now it is of no real interest to me. I have read all the other stuff on the site and there is never anything new or interesting.
Maybe you should try and diversify the site into something else and update it more
I think there has to be an influx of new people to make the forums more interesting. And to get more people, you have to let them know about it. I found out about this site through an email from a friend, but resorting to spam would not be a good way to advertise the oriented forums.
How about the Oriented star chamber work out some kind of barter deal with a few local media outlets … let oriented place a small ad promoting the forums, and oriented will allow the publication in question to get a free banner for a week.
Or Oriented could pay for the ads … but I have a feeling that there is little in the way of funding for ads that will merely add more submissions to the forums, rather than making the site more profitable.
I agree that many threads that could be useful deteriorate rapidly, and that stronger moderation has improved the situation (thanks, angst, gus). On the other hand some of the petty squabbles were fairly entertaining. They provided a good opportunity to vent, and many of the more offensive posters often had something interesting to say. Is there room on Oriented.org for a “rants and raves” forum that is more no-holds barred? Or maybe a “let’s take it outside” forum that is not as strictly moderated?
Oh, no. Here we go again. The moderators have either done such a wonderful job of elevating the level of conversation that they should be looked up on as saviors…or…they are thunderously narrow in their definitions of what Open forum should be and have all but put out the flame of creativity and freedom.
And now we are floating right back to the issue that closed the whole section before: What is “Rants and raves” or “Open forum”? Shall the section be closed again to think over the question again?
Perhaps the better question is what kind of moderators should be involved in the project and what overall impact they should have. I think this is where the problems lie.
Ummm… Wolfie? Did the moderators delete one of your posts? I mean all we hear from you lately is Wah-wah-wah! I haven’t really noticed any heavy handed ness except maybe some prudishness in shutting down the origianl prostitute thread. I thought they were really open when CBRKStilles and his wife were embarassing themselves on the world wide web and getting laughed at for it. So what’s your issue(s)? Have they been yanking your posts? Tell us, tell us! DBowman, ditto…
As long as you, Wolf, are not asked to a moderator, it would seem that Oriented is good to go. All in favor say “aye”.
I say aye!! Wolfie likes to complain complain complain bitch bitch bitch stew stew stew
usually I skip W’s rantings but this one might get interesting.
hey moderators, you have my vote!
wolfie, this one’s for you 
Hey my first post! Sorry W.R., but you DO seem to complain complain alot!
To the rest of you: how far can we go here before the mods crack down? Just curious.
There are other sites you know! Today I checked out one “Taiwangenie”. The site isn’t very buzy but it looks pretty cool. The forums here seem pretty much the same old stuff. And what’s this bull with career-job,teaching career-job? Why do they have to separate it?
Interesting that there is an icon, that moves even, that if expressed in words would be: FUCK YOU! Now that’s more like it! :o
What could possibly be the logic behind leaving out the letter when someone writes: “f*ck you”?
I realize that some posters wouldn’t have a clue what letter goes there (“Is it a vowel?”), but for those of us whose knuckles don’t drag on the ground it’s pretty clear.
Who does this censorship fool, really? Is there some legal issue here, because it is certainly not protecting the identity of the expression. Why bother?
Yeah, and why do they “digital cloud” out all of the good stuff in the skin flicks? It’s been so long since I had sex, I’m afraid that if the opportunity ever does present itself again, I won’t get turned on unless I wearing glasses with coke bottle lenses that distort the view!
There is no real issue other than the question of whether the censoring of ideas, no matter how idiotic, is a good or a bad thing. I must say I don’t understand the reasoning behind not censoring “cbkstile and his wife” (where people insinuated that cbkstile’s wee-wee was very small and his wife was a lesbian) or the guy in this thead (who called wolfie a bitch), but then censoring a discussion about prostitution and Scanlan (who like to talk about his proclivity to making love to cows).
Of course, this is a private site, and the powers that be (Angst) can censor whatever he/she/it wants, but wouldn’t the site be more enjoyable for everyone if there was complete freedom or complete repression (i.e., rules everyone had to stick by)?
But, whatever, let’s talk about grammar, the museum and why the shortcomings of this site… sound like interesting topics to me. 