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Author Topic: Censorship in all the forums? Whats up with that!  (Read 6235 times)

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« on: June 13, 2008, 12:50 »
0
All this talk on censorship in the various forums is senseless.
It's a business, not a state run democracy !

The scenario:

I am a young businessman with an established car dealership.
I display all the awards my franchise has won over the years along the walls of my show room.

In the snack area where the coffee and snack machines are is a cork bulletin board with letters
we have received from happy satisfied customers. You wander over and read them and you are
impressed by the amount of praise our dealership has received from former patrons.
The End

Do you not think that there have been complaints as well as praises? So where are the complaints
the customers have bothered to sit down and write so careful in choosing their words?

QUESTION

Why in the name of "Fairness" do the complaints display a conspicuous absence?

Don't play dumb on this one....you know the answer.
My second question is: Do you blame them for not posting them?

Cranky MIZ
The voice of reason


« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2008, 13:05 »
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I agree with you Miz.  It would be stupid to leave anything on their forums that is harmful to them.  The other day I saw a thread on Fotolia about getting people to sign a petition against  the site.  It was quite obvious to me that it would be deleted as soon as an admin saw it.

cphoto

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« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2008, 13:16 »
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Well I would disagree.

First of all not all forums have censorship.  As a matter of fact post/threads are never edited or deleted on SS (it happened may be once or twice for some extreme cases).

Look at the 20 pages long thread where people complained about the SS raise, well not only they let the thread run for a couple of days, but they never deleted a post, or even edited one.  And some users did not have very nice words for SS at times...

I agree that users should obey the forum rules, but to take a concrete example with FT: editing a post to remove a sentence saying that "Fotolia could consider charging more sub credit for larger size", where there is no mention to other site, no bad words, no rules broken, is unacceptable, don't you agree Miz master?


« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2008, 13:20 »
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....I thought I made it clear in my post: "Don't play dumb on this one...."

Cranky MIZ
The voice of reason

« Reply #4 on: June 13, 2008, 13:28 »
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You know , there are countries where every company is obligated by law , that they should have a book of complaints , and it should be available to any customer in any time. You don have to frame it near the entrance to show it to the world , but if someone wants to write a complaint or see what were the previous customers or partners experiences with that company , you are obligated to show it to them. On the other hand if complaints are not only moral but messing with the law issues , the government inspectors are reading this books every now and then.


And , I wonder why are you always writing this moral business topics ? Weren't you the first one to brake them or don't agree or insulting inspector etc  , banned from forum, then from a site   so I guess you learned it on a hard way .  I just don get it why are you opening all those company defending, moral ,get as they give you , don't complain , you are getting on my nerves , be professional etc kind of topics ? 

lisafx

« Reply #5 on: June 13, 2008, 13:31 »
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Miz, I agree with you on several points.  Freedom of Speech is a right which applies to our governments allowing protests.  Private companies are allowed to impose their own restrictions on speech within their property (including forums). 

I also agree it is perfectly legal and reasonable for businesses to delete posts in their forums which they feel will be harmful to their interests (although I very much appreciate the sites that DO allow dissent, and I think they are the stronger for it)

What I don't think is reasonable is EDITING people's posts beyond removal of forbidden links.  If someone speaks in a forum, their name is associated with their thoughts and it is not right to change someones words to misrepresent what they said and think.  Better to delete posts altogether than to distort people's messages. 
« Last Edit: June 13, 2008, 13:33 by lisafx »

cphoto

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« Reply #6 on: June 13, 2008, 13:46 »
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What I don't think is reasonable is EDITING people's posts beyond removal of forbidden links.  If someone speaks in a forum, their name is associated with their thoughts and it is not right to change someones words to misrepresent what they said and think.  Better to delete posts altogether than to distort people's messages. 

Yeah, I hate when they "edit" my posts when I obviously did not break any rule.  And worst the post does not even show to other user that it was edited.

Like you said, better to delete the post rather than distorting what I am saying.

Even Istock do not have this level of censorship....

« Reply #7 on: June 13, 2008, 14:17 »
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Well I would disagree.

First of all not all forums have censorship.  As a matter of fact post/threads are never edited or deleted on SS (it happened may be once or twice for some extreme cases).
...
It's not valid to compare the SS forum with those of their competitors. Most sites allow forum access to both buyers and sellers. Buyers cannot access the SS forum, which thus exists solely for the benefit of sellers. It's an easy guess that the SS forum would be be administered a little differently if buyers could see what sellers are writing on it.

« Reply #8 on: June 13, 2008, 14:18 »
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Censorship is censorship. As long as the post contains a modicum of respect, even though the content is clearly raising a high level of objection to company policy, the post should be allowed to stand. To think that nothing objectionable should be said or discussed just because its on a company supported forum is nuts. We know they censor so why believe anything that is written there? If all we are allowed to do is write, "You rock, I love you..., ... rules" and other inane comments it makes the forum a useless source of information. Then it might as well not exist. I'm curious if there is correlation between how well a company is doing and the amount of outright censorship they are involved in.

« Reply #9 on: June 13, 2008, 14:26 »
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I'd like to think that the forums are more than just a corkboard showoff. They are there as a means for contributors to communicate with each other and the site officials, a place to get answers, inspiration and friends. At least thats how they appear when you look at the structure of the forums. It seems the intention of the sites was to create a community around the site and not a brag sheet.
The forums would be more comparable to a huge lunch room/canteen, where people chitchat.
If what they want is a corkboard showoff, it would save a lot of time and effort to just shut down access to the forums for everyone and create bots using different names that post random stuff praising the site.

Of course they can censor as much as they want. Its their forum. What would you expect? Its up to them whether we think it morally acceptable or not.

Thats just lucky for forums such as this :)

Edit: sharply_done: also a good point. No company, say a cardealership, would allow their salesmen to go around and badmouth cars to the customers. "I only get ten percent of the salesprice as a commision if I sell this chevy to you, its crap. But if you buy this Dodge I get 15, you should go with this one instead. By the way I wanted to import a few suzukis but the boss wouldnt let me. He is dumb as an ass, knows absolutly nothing about the biz."

« Reply #10 on: June 13, 2008, 15:06 »
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What I don't think is reasonable is EDITING people's posts beyond removal of forbidden links.  If someone speaks in a forum, their name is associated with their thoughts and it is not right to change someones words to misrepresent what they said and think.  Better to delete posts altogether than to distort people's messages. 

Fully agree on this statement.
It shows low/non respect to the person posting a question, statement by deleting parts of the topic.

Patrick H.

cphoto

  • CreativeShot.com
« Reply #11 on: June 13, 2008, 15:09 »
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It's not valid to compare the SS forum with those of their competitors. Most sites allow forum access to both buyers and sellers. Buyers cannot access the SS forum, which thus exists solely for the benefit of sellers. It's an easy guess that the SS forum would be be administered a little differently if buyers could see what sellers are writing on it.

Sharply, 2 comments:
1. Anybody has read access to SS forums even if the link is not published on the buyer side; and anyway I highly doubt that buyers would spend time reading these photographers forums, they have more important things to do, LOL.
2. StockXpert has an open forum to both buyers and photogs, they had a heated thread on subs and they never censored anything or delete any thread as far as I know.  They even took into account inputs from us to change their sub model.  What a concept ;)

dullegg

« Reply #12 on: June 13, 2008, 18:23 »
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talking about censorship in forums.
i think we forget that it is almost everywhere.

has anyone ever tried writing a comment to a news report on yahoo?
i did. and guess what, they not only disallow your whole comment to be submitted, but some of the catch phrase are absolute no - no, even if it is the topic in the news.
eg. say if the article is on sex, or homosexuality.
and you type in sex, or homo,... guess what?
you get a prompt on pressing SUBMIT saying: "oops sorry we cannot allow your submission" , or something like that.

so, my point is, censorship is alive and well on the web. :-X

cphoto

  • CreativeShot.com
« Reply #13 on: June 13, 2008, 21:07 »
0
talking about censorship in forums.
i think we forget that it is almost everywhere.

has anyone ever tried writing a comment to a news report on yahoo?
i did. and guess what, they not only disallow your whole comment to be submitted, but some of the catch phrase are absolute no - no, even if it is the topic in the news.
eg. say if the article is on sex, or homosexuality.
and you type in sex, or homo,... guess what?
you get a prompt on pressing SUBMIT saying: "oops sorry we cannot allow your submission" , or something like that.

so, my point is, censorship is alive and well on the web. :-X

True, but at different level.  SS and StockXpert have -almost- no censorship at all, while Fotolia seems to be the worst among micros.

« Reply #14 on: June 13, 2008, 22:19 »
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So there are some forums to go to that the level of censorship is low or void.  Those are the areas that should be used then. If you don't like a forum don't use it. Nothing catches my eye quicker than going to a forum on a stock site and seeing that the last post was made 2 or 3 months ago or even longer. If the forums are used by both buyer and seller, the buyers may be turned off by the lack of activity by the sellers.  Bottom line,,if you don't like a sites business practices,, don't support their efforts. Just my opinion.

dullegg

« Reply #15 on: June 14, 2008, 09:23 »
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If the forums are used by both buyer and seller, the buyers may be turned off by the lack of activity by the sellers.  Bottom line,,if you don't like a sites business practices,, don't support their efforts. Just my opinion.

good point ! a silent revolt . what's a forum without participACTION? 8)

« Reply #16 on: June 15, 2008, 00:20 »
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Well I would disagree.

First of all not all forums have censorship.  As a matter of fact post/threads are never edited or deleted on SS (it happened may be once or twice for some extreme cases).

Look at the 20 pages long thread where people complained about the SS raise, well not only they let the thread run for a couple of days, but they never deleted a post, or even edited one.  And some users did not have very nice words for SS at times...


Quite Wrong here that post was well monitored, a number of posts within this thread where base <$500 contributors challenged the zero raise were removed, including mine and I also recieved a forum ban for this thread, for saying about thier misleading annoucements and a raise of zero is just not a raise in anyone's book and maybe they should look again at the raise, as this devalued the work of new contributors.

A number of posters that challenged SS have been banned and reinstated prior to this, so open forum = "no", that why I post here and I no longer have a SS portfolio.

David
« Last Edit: June 15, 2008, 00:43 by Adeptris »


« Reply #17 on: June 15, 2008, 00:37 »
0
eg. say if the article is on sex, or homosexuality.
and you type in sex, or homo,... guess what?
you get a prompt on pressing SUBMIT saying: "oops sorry we cannot allow your submission" , or something like that.

so, my point is, censorship is alive and well on the web. :-X

Most forum software come with a set of "Bad Word Filters", these are to protect young persons, because you cannot control who reads a public forum, or who hears your spoken words in a public place, how would you feel if a young family member asked "What does that word mean on your monitor?", it is a form of censorship but these words do not challenge the companies ethics or promote thier competitors, thats where censorship comes in on some forums.

The difference is that unless a post attacts another forum user, the deletion or editing of Forum posts is to protect the company not the general public.

David   
« Last Edit: June 15, 2008, 00:41 by Adeptris »


 

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