Thoughts about communities & free speech

[ladyofshalott06]

To those involved, it's obvious that this post is in reaction to the shit-storm at simply_hugh_jen, but my opinions apply to communities in general here. I'm not trying to piss anybody off or offend them, but I can see how someone might take offense to this post. Just a warning.

Comments

[pyewacket_1975]

I agree. I don't think screening comments is necessary. If there's a personal, vicious attack against someone then by all means, the mod has the right to delete it, but screening every comment that comes through? Nuh-uh. Especially when the moderators aren't around to unscreen them in a timely manner.

If I respond to someone's comment with a valid point or an opinion, or simply just to say "Hell yeah!" I don't believe it should take 2-3 days or even longer, in some cases, to appear. By then it's obsolete and makes no sense.

[ladyofshalott06]

Agreed... Like I said before, in communities with moderated entries (not comments), they literally have mods on schedule around the clock to make sure things run smoothly.

[ladyofshalott06]

I wasn't there for the entire thing, but what it amounted to was that some person or people got offended or unhappy about something. Part of it had to do with people not wanting to talk about Huddy or House (the show, not the man) anymore, at least in posts that weren't specifically about the show. Some people were unhappy about the negativity in some posts, so basically it amounted in a ton of new rules, completely moderated comments, and a lot of people either afraid to comment or angry that they don't feel they can express their opinions.

And when I say "some people" it's because I legitimately have no idea who was involved. All the posts and comments involved were deleted, and the first I knew of it was a posts with a small explanation and a ton of new rules.

And yeah, IMO, screening all comments is definitely a little extreme. I've never been part of a community who did that even temporarily until now.

[ally_cam]

Trust me, we are not happy about it either. We wanted the community to be a place where people can celebrate Hugh and Jen and their projects, but also where they can express their disappointment about how things went (on the show, in the fandom). In fact, I hate that I have to censor other user's and my own thoughts and opinion about certain things, just because it might be too negative. After all life is not just sunshine and rainbows. But that's what people wished for, and screening is the safest way to go.
The problem with unscreening is also a LJ problems, at least as far as I am concerned (I don't know if the other mods have the same problem, I just found out). Despite the right settings I don't get notifications when there are comments to unscreen, and I guess everybody understands that there is a life outside LJ.
Anyway, I used to love our community the way it was. And I still hope that we might be able to go back to it one day.