Some thoughts on the new tribe changes prior to redefining the argument.
people.tribe.net/mike_c/bl...13ddcfefdb
CENSORING ON TRIBE
**"obscenity" tends to be something which represents a community standard. This differs from "sexually explicit conduct" in that the latter is defined tightly in Section 2257.**
If the community standard is Tribe itself, by creating community flagging without a vote "you" are implimenting an action that will override the community and kill Tribe. This may not be your decision -- it may be the advice given to you by a professional government sponsored 'advisor' or your lawyer following a memo from the advisor. If you would like, you can substitute advisor for 'troll' at any time in the discussion.
**Since you're in the numerical minority on this, you will be censored. It's quite simple.
People who want to discuss the dominant version of monogamous heterosexual relationships will still be able to.
Sluts, queers, polyamorists, BDSM practitioners, and basically anyone who is in the minority will be censored - because our very existence "offends" the majority. Forget free speech, "community standards" apparently trump that, even though there is nothing in the Constitution about "community standards." **
Will there be a standard or dividing line? The law is purposely vague on that as it bases obscenity on community standards. If you were to go back fifty years, community standards were Jim Crow and black people seated at the back of the bus. This proves that going by community standards doesn't automatically make it right and when the case comes up, odd are the lawyers are going to point this out at the trial. The same rule goes for alternative lifestyle issues.
However, on tribe there will be no dividing line. In order to be completely safe, they will delete all sexual material because it would expose a hypocrisy and make them 'the bad guy'. Not only straight sex or gay sex will be deleted but implied sex, blue language and innuendo. If someone wanted to visit my 'catastrophic plumbing tribe' and having read about having to work in a shower of shit or crawling through a dead cat when it was in the way of an enclosed space repair, that might be considered obscene. If somewhere online, the government speculates that there's some Albert Fish wandering around jerking off to the content, doing the repair might be considered 'sexually explicit'. The same argument says that eliminating child porn = eliminating all sexual content, the logic again being that smoking pot leads to shooting heroin.
Shatter should immediatly say that this is an absurd argument, and he's right. The question here is who gets to decide what's absurd. Absurdity is relative when you start throwing in words like 'community standards', something that's amazingly hypocritical when you consider the amount of 'pornographic' and pay sites online. Child porn online may be what the government is cracking down on, but it's convenient as a trojan horse to get all the racy material out of the way. And as you get the racy images out of the way, mature content begins to get redefined as community standards change.
Wade, Warren, Paul, Gary: The amount of work you are going to do in censoring Tribe is going to be extrordinary. Maybe in the first week, it will be a novelty -- but eventually it's gonna piss you off, get you sickened with the whole mess and make you lazy with evaluating community flags. If you are looking for obscene images, you are going to have to look through everything . . . unless there is something Shatter knows about where data or code itself has tags on it that are automatically obscene, even home movies and photos. The digital camera doesn't take the picture knowing it's a penis, nothing in the code betrays anything. It's pixels -- it could be a penis -- it could be a banana.
Rather than go through every image personally, the revised TOU will conduct a word search using a program and flag itself in order to keep the government from jumping in and shutting down Tribe. The 'community' will do some of it but most of that community will be represented by the outside 'advisor'. To keep from pissing off the advisor and giving it the excuse to shut you down, you will 'tag' the hot topic words yourself.
You (Wade or Warren) or a team of 'advisors' are going to go through the entire website -- flagging 'words'.
It's condescending that you're pretending we don't know this -- especially you Shatter. Don't think I don't appreciate everything you know about code and security because I do. However, everyone around here knows the issue isn't about code at all, it's about words and words being 'hacked' for content and as a writer and as a person who participates on several writing tribes, I find that insulting.
Now on to something obscene.
In Thomas Harris' book, Hannibal; the lead antagonist is not Lecter but a child molester who fed chocolate to the kids in Bible Camp in exchange for sexual favors. Harris, being somewhat fluent in law enforcement lingo, understands where the use of language came from. 'Taking the Chocolate' is a term you might find on a playing card in 'Candyland', on the surface it's a very innocent term. The game in prison begins in all innocence, an offer of an actual candy bar to a new arrival in a 'friendly' gesture, something that looks on the surface like 'welcome to the prison'. The new guy eats the candy bar in gratitude, maybe thinking 'well, prison won't be so bad. Now, fifteen minutes to a half hour later, the guy who gave you the candy bar asks to get it back. And in the mouth or in the ass, he's going to get it back because you 'took' it from him. There in a brief introduction to some of the language found in jail. In jail, it is a prison term for rape. Rape has nothing to do with sex. Rape is all about coercion, power, violence and intimidation.
For a new guy who doesn't know the language, it's a trap. For someone who does know the lingo, it creates an opportunity to make decisions.
A seasoned vet of the prison system knows to hit immediatly without hesitation, or with just enough hesitation to throw off the opponent's game. Hit the big guy in the throat, kick him in the balls, dig out his eyes and rip off ears. That's a really tough decision to make but considering the alternatives, some will just decide to make it instinctively. If you refuse the chocolate, there's a measure of respect and that might be enough to get you off the hook, maybe. At the very least, it will buy you time.
The other option is taking the chocolate, figuring that since you're gonna get raped either way, you might as well get a free candy bar out of it.
Some of you are implying that Warren is selling out by running ads. That's stupid. It's stupid to think that it's all about the advertising because it isn't. He didn't start Tribe for that reason. He started Tribe because he was interested in people and he wanted to be entertained by reading these posts. He named it tribe because he had a sense of community and that probably hasn't changed.
He also knows that here, 'we' are the media and the entertainment, the big show and the reason he is getting a lot of those ad dollars. Warren, Wade, Paul et al, are probably infuriated that the government is wandering in here and raping their business, just as it is infuriating to us because it's raping our words and work. I don't blame them for doing what they're doing to Tribe.
At the same time, I dislike seeing posts that say 'everything is all right' with the decision and that arguing points with you won't change anything. That's trying to slant the issue without actually giving us any real information or answers to direct questions. Arguing with the guys who cobbled together the obscenity policy insults 'my' intelligence by wasting it. Honestly, I have better things to do.
Now Shatter, saying the lawyers are going to handle it is also condescending as it implies that none of us have any personal responsibility on the matter. That kind of thinking should be checked, as even some utter dumb shit participating in a free society and free media environment can pull off a phrase that changes the argument, even if it just means responding and cutting back on them. Being a troll, you should know that as you probably get it often. I know I do -- scholarship is part of the fun.
**This brings up the idea of civil disobedience and some options I've found in dissecting an 'obscene' metaphor.**
Delete my 'obscene' material because Wade sent me a memo because that is the equavilent of taking the chocolate. I won't leave tribe voluntarily since that equals refusing the chocolate but accepting your eventual rape. I won't fight pre-emptively because I'll just get my ass kicked anyway and add insult to injury by making assumptions.
What I will do is 'know' the language and spend my time playing chess in the yard. I'll post just as I always have and it will be flagged. I will document the flag and the reason for it as a means of defining what 'obscenity' is. Then as each posting is inevitably deleted I will post something else, which will eventually disappear. As the borders are defined and the patterns of thinking becomes apparant, I will deal with the 'advisors' the same way Hannibal dealt with Krassner and eat their brains as they wander in. Each one of you should do the same.
Possibly I will disappear as a result of playing this game. If so, my profile will be gone. It won't be unsubscribed, it will be gone.
That won't mean I ran, that will mean 'Tribe Inc.' took me off tribe and ended the fight.
Now, if and when you are deleted, take your act to myspace or to one of the other tribe alternatives that are going to spring up. Take your gripe to the press and learn to write a letter or a press release. But most of all, remain loyal to Tribe and the opportunity for dissent and scholarship that Tribe provides. After all, it is 'your' forum until they say otherwise.
people.tribe.net/mike_c/bl...13ddcfefdb
CENSORING ON TRIBE
**"obscenity" tends to be something which represents a community standard. This differs from "sexually explicit conduct" in that the latter is defined tightly in Section 2257.**
If the community standard is Tribe itself, by creating community flagging without a vote "you" are implimenting an action that will override the community and kill Tribe. This may not be your decision -- it may be the advice given to you by a professional government sponsored 'advisor' or your lawyer following a memo from the advisor. If you would like, you can substitute advisor for 'troll' at any time in the discussion.
**Since you're in the numerical minority on this, you will be censored. It's quite simple.
People who want to discuss the dominant version of monogamous heterosexual relationships will still be able to.
Sluts, queers, polyamorists, BDSM practitioners, and basically anyone who is in the minority will be censored - because our very existence "offends" the majority. Forget free speech, "community standards" apparently trump that, even though there is nothing in the Constitution about "community standards." **
Will there be a standard or dividing line? The law is purposely vague on that as it bases obscenity on community standards. If you were to go back fifty years, community standards were Jim Crow and black people seated at the back of the bus. This proves that going by community standards doesn't automatically make it right and when the case comes up, odd are the lawyers are going to point this out at the trial. The same rule goes for alternative lifestyle issues.
However, on tribe there will be no dividing line. In order to be completely safe, they will delete all sexual material because it would expose a hypocrisy and make them 'the bad guy'. Not only straight sex or gay sex will be deleted but implied sex, blue language and innuendo. If someone wanted to visit my 'catastrophic plumbing tribe' and having read about having to work in a shower of shit or crawling through a dead cat when it was in the way of an enclosed space repair, that might be considered obscene. If somewhere online, the government speculates that there's some Albert Fish wandering around jerking off to the content, doing the repair might be considered 'sexually explicit'. The same argument says that eliminating child porn = eliminating all sexual content, the logic again being that smoking pot leads to shooting heroin.
Shatter should immediatly say that this is an absurd argument, and he's right. The question here is who gets to decide what's absurd. Absurdity is relative when you start throwing in words like 'community standards', something that's amazingly hypocritical when you consider the amount of 'pornographic' and pay sites online. Child porn online may be what the government is cracking down on, but it's convenient as a trojan horse to get all the racy material out of the way. And as you get the racy images out of the way, mature content begins to get redefined as community standards change.
Wade, Warren, Paul, Gary: The amount of work you are going to do in censoring Tribe is going to be extrordinary. Maybe in the first week, it will be a novelty -- but eventually it's gonna piss you off, get you sickened with the whole mess and make you lazy with evaluating community flags. If you are looking for obscene images, you are going to have to look through everything . . . unless there is something Shatter knows about where data or code itself has tags on it that are automatically obscene, even home movies and photos. The digital camera doesn't take the picture knowing it's a penis, nothing in the code betrays anything. It's pixels -- it could be a penis -- it could be a banana.
Rather than go through every image personally, the revised TOU will conduct a word search using a program and flag itself in order to keep the government from jumping in and shutting down Tribe. The 'community' will do some of it but most of that community will be represented by the outside 'advisor'. To keep from pissing off the advisor and giving it the excuse to shut you down, you will 'tag' the hot topic words yourself.
You (Wade or Warren) or a team of 'advisors' are going to go through the entire website -- flagging 'words'.
It's condescending that you're pretending we don't know this -- especially you Shatter. Don't think I don't appreciate everything you know about code and security because I do. However, everyone around here knows the issue isn't about code at all, it's about words and words being 'hacked' for content and as a writer and as a person who participates on several writing tribes, I find that insulting.
Now on to something obscene.
In Thomas Harris' book, Hannibal; the lead antagonist is not Lecter but a child molester who fed chocolate to the kids in Bible Camp in exchange for sexual favors. Harris, being somewhat fluent in law enforcement lingo, understands where the use of language came from. 'Taking the Chocolate' is a term you might find on a playing card in 'Candyland', on the surface it's a very innocent term. The game in prison begins in all innocence, an offer of an actual candy bar to a new arrival in a 'friendly' gesture, something that looks on the surface like 'welcome to the prison'. The new guy eats the candy bar in gratitude, maybe thinking 'well, prison won't be so bad. Now, fifteen minutes to a half hour later, the guy who gave you the candy bar asks to get it back. And in the mouth or in the ass, he's going to get it back because you 'took' it from him. There in a brief introduction to some of the language found in jail. In jail, it is a prison term for rape. Rape has nothing to do with sex. Rape is all about coercion, power, violence and intimidation.
For a new guy who doesn't know the language, it's a trap. For someone who does know the lingo, it creates an opportunity to make decisions.
A seasoned vet of the prison system knows to hit immediatly without hesitation, or with just enough hesitation to throw off the opponent's game. Hit the big guy in the throat, kick him in the balls, dig out his eyes and rip off ears. That's a really tough decision to make but considering the alternatives, some will just decide to make it instinctively. If you refuse the chocolate, there's a measure of respect and that might be enough to get you off the hook, maybe. At the very least, it will buy you time.
The other option is taking the chocolate, figuring that since you're gonna get raped either way, you might as well get a free candy bar out of it.
Some of you are implying that Warren is selling out by running ads. That's stupid. It's stupid to think that it's all about the advertising because it isn't. He didn't start Tribe for that reason. He started Tribe because he was interested in people and he wanted to be entertained by reading these posts. He named it tribe because he had a sense of community and that probably hasn't changed.
He also knows that here, 'we' are the media and the entertainment, the big show and the reason he is getting a lot of those ad dollars. Warren, Wade, Paul et al, are probably infuriated that the government is wandering in here and raping their business, just as it is infuriating to us because it's raping our words and work. I don't blame them for doing what they're doing to Tribe.
At the same time, I dislike seeing posts that say 'everything is all right' with the decision and that arguing points with you won't change anything. That's trying to slant the issue without actually giving us any real information or answers to direct questions. Arguing with the guys who cobbled together the obscenity policy insults 'my' intelligence by wasting it. Honestly, I have better things to do.
Now Shatter, saying the lawyers are going to handle it is also condescending as it implies that none of us have any personal responsibility on the matter. That kind of thinking should be checked, as even some utter dumb shit participating in a free society and free media environment can pull off a phrase that changes the argument, even if it just means responding and cutting back on them. Being a troll, you should know that as you probably get it often. I know I do -- scholarship is part of the fun.
**This brings up the idea of civil disobedience and some options I've found in dissecting an 'obscene' metaphor.**
Delete my 'obscene' material because Wade sent me a memo because that is the equavilent of taking the chocolate. I won't leave tribe voluntarily since that equals refusing the chocolate but accepting your eventual rape. I won't fight pre-emptively because I'll just get my ass kicked anyway and add insult to injury by making assumptions.
What I will do is 'know' the language and spend my time playing chess in the yard. I'll post just as I always have and it will be flagged. I will document the flag and the reason for it as a means of defining what 'obscenity' is. Then as each posting is inevitably deleted I will post something else, which will eventually disappear. As the borders are defined and the patterns of thinking becomes apparant, I will deal with the 'advisors' the same way Hannibal dealt with Krassner and eat their brains as they wander in. Each one of you should do the same.
Possibly I will disappear as a result of playing this game. If so, my profile will be gone. It won't be unsubscribed, it will be gone.
That won't mean I ran, that will mean 'Tribe Inc.' took me off tribe and ended the fight.
Now, if and when you are deleted, take your act to myspace or to one of the other tribe alternatives that are going to spring up. Take your gripe to the press and learn to write a letter or a press release. But most of all, remain loyal to Tribe and the opportunity for dissent and scholarship that Tribe provides. After all, it is 'your' forum until they say otherwise.
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