Quote from: lisafx on May 29, 2013, 13:50

Quote from: rubyroo on May 29, 2013, 13:41

It frankly creeps me out to see people who already have their names exposed through choice, advocating that everyone else should do so (i.e. have their choice removed). I'm not a fan of the mentality that says 'What is right for me is right for all'.

^^Same here.  I feel the same way about gay marriage and legalization of pot, although I am neither gay nor a pot user.  Not everybody has to make the same choices as everybody else, and forcing them to is just wrong.

What are you being forced to do? You can choose not to participate.

Gay marriage and pot are illegal, thus taking away any choice for people who want to mary their gay partner or smoke pot if they please to. I think thats what Lisa meant. People forced that illegality on others.

Quote from: Mellimage on May 29, 2013, 14:07

Quote from: JPSDK on May 29, 2013, 13:55

People who dare not come foreward and speak with their names are not worth listening to or taking into the debate.

There is a time when a man must do what a man must do.
And it starts with saying who he is.
If you are anonymous, you can say all kinds of s..... and it wouldnt reflect on you. It is free. And cost nothing.
If you use your name, you would have to mean what you say. And your statements would cost, as they should.

And then all this business with the agencies coming after you for opening your mouth.
So be it. If they do that, they operate on low business ethics and no pride... and they wont last.

pride is important and in pride lies your name.

Consider following example - someone says something using with his or her real name. The stuff turns out to be idiotic or just a mistake. It gets quoted outside the forum with the real name - spreads through the internet like wildfire. Person has meanwhile realized his mistake and apologized in forum for it. Forum members are fine have forgiven that person - the rest of the world does not know about that - and knows the person as an idiot - including people who have nothing to do with the forum task, but who may matter to that person in other areas of life.

I think your scenario is a stretch.
Leaf's suggestion: Everyone on the forum has to add a portfolio link and their real name to their profile (at least first name.. or possibly first name and last initial.. for example).  Their name will be displayed under their user name but will NOT show publicly .. only to logged in users.  The user name is all that will show publicly.

Let's hope it is a stretch, unfortunately, I know it is not as much as a stretch as you may think it is. And maybe just the first name and the first initial makes it less dangerous. Still it does not prevent that some quote could be posted outside the forum revealing the real (first) name. Which may enhance the danger of the reveal of the persons real identity and this having repercussions in life outside of the photography business. 
Another point, if leaf as a site admin just knows first name and first initial - how is this any different then just having a nickname with regard to verification of contributor?
Portfoliolinks are potentially problematic as newbies interested in contributing but not having a portfolio on any agency yet might be excluded from posting.

telling a name/portfolio link may be fake also, we can all create a portfolio (2 or 3 pictures) at an agency (we have 100 for that effect) and we are clean again to join MSG, this may be time consuming but nothing a troll wouldn't love doing

... Throughout history people have uttered their opinion, at revolutions, in KZ camps or in internet forums....

Starting comparisons between KZ camps and internet forums because of some anonymity issue is a bit of a far stretch to put it very, very, mildly.

...But nothing ever happened by anonymous statements, only chaos and undermining from all sides. The ruler continued to rule.

And Leaf, as the ruler, will do whatever he deems necessary, leaving it up to him whether any of my personal statements are considered "undermining" this community.

...When you are anonymous, you are free to speak, and can say everything. And such over the years everything will be said by anonymous people: obscenities, hatred and slander.

Please, point out to me when I have been obscene, showed hatred towards another member or committed slander on this forum. Because if you make statements here that are unsubstantiated then you are the one who is hiding behind this anonymity. You are generalizing anonymous folks, you are putting me into the same pot with trolls and members that do not respect one another. I do not appreciate that.

There is no payback, no one can be held guilty.

Yes there is. They will be banned. IP will be blocked. Email will be blocked. And btw. you say "there is no payback". Are we going back in the days to an eye for an eye? I thought we are some civilized bunch of microstockers here. Let some troll have his 5 minutes of fame. Eventually they will be removed, end of story.

I think the basic interaction between men is the rule of law: people can say anything to each other, but it counts.

Since English isn't my native tongue I hope I interpret this correctly: That everything somebody says should be thoughtful and well considered before insulting or disrespecting your conversation partner. I'm all for that. Me being anonymous should not change this one bit.

Quote from: fotografer on May 29, 2013, 14:35

How about just enforcing these rules on suspected trolls.  Or just delete trolls as soon as they start trolling rather than leaving them so long before deleting.

Poor Leaf can't be reading posts 24 hours a day. What about appointing some pseudo-administrators to help out? I don't want to propagate a police-state, just get some help for Tyler if this is the solution.

Yeah, it is a bit of a daunting task to keep up I admit.  Threads that I know are friendly I skim.  Controversial threads I try to keep up to date with.  I have avoided having additional moderators because I fear it would just open up another can of worms that would be hard to regulate.  I like having myself only to blame for what happens here and setting rules for other moderators would be tough as there are many grey zones.

Many people report out of line posts or plain spam posts which is appreciated, and members with over 1000 posts can move threads to a hidden area if things get crazy while I'm MIA.

Click...
What you say is reasonable and I do not disagree much, we could dig into nuances and find or not find consensus.

Im not accusing you, im pointing a finger at the whole anonymous mechanism.

Which I dont like, it is not productive.

Click...
What you say is reasonable and I do not disagree much, we could dig into nuances and find or not find consensus.

Im not accusing you, im pointing a finger at the whole anonymous mechanism.

Which I dont like, it is not productive.

What is not productive is trolls!

It has nothing to do with people that are anonymous!

Anonymous members don't equal trolls.

However, 99% of the trolls are anonymous.

So you're basically shooting birds with canons by eliminating anonymity. That's not a very eloquent approach IMO.

Leaf pulls the strings, he should "rule" over who he deems is worthy participating on his forum, although this already sounds a bit weird... - Point is, Leaf will have to ban the exposed trolls.

And let me throw something out there for a second for everyone to think about:

Assuming all microstockgroup members would have their identities revealed instantly, right now - do you really believe that fact would make all the discussions more "refreshingly positive and constructive"?

Seriously, by taking the members that already post here any given day, if we change all of their identity status, would we really have better discussions? It' still the same people, same opinions...

Call me ignorant or whatever, but I cannot see a correlation between existing forum members having "better" discussions because now they can look at each others portfolios.

Anyone, please, what am I missing?

Lobo's loving every minute of this....

actually he is quite sad coz he won't be able to troll anymore

Quote from: JPSDK on May 29, 2013, 14:59

Click...
What you say is reasonable and I do not disagree much, we could dig into nuances and find or not find consensus.

Im not accusing you, im pointing a finger at the whole anonymous mechanism.

Which I dont like, it is not productive.

What is not productive is trolls!

It has nothing to do with people that are anonymous!

Anonymous members don't equal trolls.

However, 99% of the trolls are anonymous.

So you're basically shooting birds with canons by eliminating anonymity. That's not a very eloquent approach IMO.

Leaf pulls the strings, he should "rule" over who he deems is worthy participating on his forum, although this already sounds a bit weird... - Point is, Leaf will have to ban the exposed trolls.

And let me throw something out there for a second for everyone to think about:

Assuming all microstockgroup members would have their identities revealed instantly, right now - do you really believe that fact would make all the discussions more "refreshingly positive and constructive"?

Seriously, by taking the members that already post here any given day, if we change all of their identity status, would we really have better discussions? It' still the same people, same opinions...

Call me ignorant or whatever, but I cannot see a correlation between existing forum members having "better" discussions because now they can look at each others portfolios.

Anyone, please, what am I missing?

You may be right.. and might not be..  I don't really know.  That would be what the 1 month trial would find out.

And I'll repeat myself just so no one misunderstands.  If I decided to implement this (as a test or permanent) everyone's identities would not all of a sudden be revealed.  People would have to physically type in their identity, which would then be shown.  Nothing would be automatic.

I think what you are suggesting is too much of a reaction to cure the problem. I can think of only 3 forum members I'd like to never hear from again, two of them I think have been previously banned.

Wherever you go in life, there's always a small number of people spoiling things for everyone else.

It seems to me that all you need to do is re-ban people more quickly - as soon as you realise who it is, and that doesn't take long.

I think what you are suggesting is too much of a reaction to cure the problem. I can think of only 3 forum members I'd like to never hear from again, two of them I think have been previously banned.

Wherever you go in life, there's always a small number of people spoiling things for everyone else.

It seems to me that all you need to do is re-ban people more quickly - as soon as you realise who it is, and that doesn't take long.

I have never lived in a place without having a neighbor who harassed or annoyed the sh!t out of me. There are "weird" people everywhere... even on the internet believe it or not.

But I ask you to convince me:
What are the advantages for the forum (not for the individual) to have anonymous participants.

You wouldn't get to hear me anymore if anonymous participants weren't allowed.     If that doesn't convince you I don't know what will.

He owed money, someone else had to pay for his escapades. I have no respect for people hiding because they owe money to other people.

Speaking of someone not having respect for someone else:

OT here, sorry I had to, did anyone hear about Apple's practices how to avoid being taxed (at all) ?

By founding a company in Ireland that handles most global sales (left column, blue border).

American tax law states:
A company has has to report to the tax authorities where the company was founded.

Irish tax law states:
A company has to report to tax authorities where it is being managed.

According to the graph below (sorry it's German) - it just illustrates the simplified version of Apple's subsidiaries, Apple is able to completely avoid taxes on sales for most of their products (billions of $$$).


Apple users please take this into consideration whenever purchasing their products.

Although I'm all for paying taxes, I think the governments should have bigger fish to fry than some photographer not paying his taxes...