You know, I have stated often that the BOI needs to be pretty rough and tumble, and the rules concerning attacks and higher levels of cross examination (yeah sometimes even personal attacks), need to be allowed there because such pressure will oftentimes push a bad guy to displaying their true selves to all of the viewers.
Well, I need to reconsider this. I am personally under attack, and I feel I probably have much more self control then a lot of people. Not patting myself on the back, it's just that my skin has gotten abnormally thick from running this site. And honestly, it is quite difficult to keep this control in check from constant badgering and repetition of the same arguments being presented. I can easily see where anyone, no matter what the truth of the matter in a business deal may be, would have a very tough time keeping their cool under constant fire. As such, perhaps the pressure is allowed to reach a level that is more then it should be. Perhaps I am just flat out wrong in allowing it to get to the levels that I thought were necessary to make the BOI effective.
Quite frankly, I am coming more and more to the conclusion that people, if not just solely within this business, cannot be trusted with the freedom to openly and continually bash someone else with free abandon.
The issue, of course, is how to know what point is appropriate to applying the brakes? Honestly, from what I have seen lately, I believe it will be better to err on the side of courtesy rather than the side of open antagonism. Not only has this been a continual complaint of many people who dislike the BOI for this atmosphere, but I am certain that quite a lot of participation has been squelched because of the fear of such attacks.
I believe the time has come to reduce that sort of characterization that the BOI has become to a lot of people. It is time to PUSH harder to make the BOI more professional and less combative and a mud wrestling ring to all involved. Granted, I tried to do this once before, with a lot of resistance to it, but I believe I tried to make that change too abruptly and too harsh in the penalties for even the first infraction. But change it must. I honestly do not have any faith any longer in the abilities of most people to be able to handle unfettered freedom of expression. I am certainly disappointed by this conclusion I have had to come to, but the conclusion is certainly inescapable, which means the steps I need to take are unavoidable.
But do it I must. Yes, there will certainly be people who will not like the change in atmosphere and the resultant restrictions on their antagonistic personas online, but that is simply unfortunate as well as their wants being irrelevant. They can either adapt, move on, or be evicted.
This really won't be any noticeable change to those people who don't already have this antagonistic slant to their posting, but perhaps your reading pleasure may be noticeably reduced when those more colorful individuals have their postings needfully reduced in color in order to remain here.
Pretty much personal attacks that have nothing at all to do with the business incident at hand will be restricted to the point of being unacceptable. Blatant harassment, especially across multiple threads will need to be curtailed. Basically I just want to clean up the joint to make the BOI effective but not so fearsome that most people are afraid to actually use it for the purposes it was intended.
Of course, I am just typing this off the cuff and haven't ironed out all of the details, but I wanted to get this off my chest while it is still fresh in my mind.
Well, I need to reconsider this. I am personally under attack, and I feel I probably have much more self control then a lot of people. Not patting myself on the back, it's just that my skin has gotten abnormally thick from running this site. And honestly, it is quite difficult to keep this control in check from constant badgering and repetition of the same arguments being presented. I can easily see where anyone, no matter what the truth of the matter in a business deal may be, would have a very tough time keeping their cool under constant fire. As such, perhaps the pressure is allowed to reach a level that is more then it should be. Perhaps I am just flat out wrong in allowing it to get to the levels that I thought were necessary to make the BOI effective.
Quite frankly, I am coming more and more to the conclusion that people, if not just solely within this business, cannot be trusted with the freedom to openly and continually bash someone else with free abandon.
The issue, of course, is how to know what point is appropriate to applying the brakes? Honestly, from what I have seen lately, I believe it will be better to err on the side of courtesy rather than the side of open antagonism. Not only has this been a continual complaint of many people who dislike the BOI for this atmosphere, but I am certain that quite a lot of participation has been squelched because of the fear of such attacks.
I believe the time has come to reduce that sort of characterization that the BOI has become to a lot of people. It is time to PUSH harder to make the BOI more professional and less combative and a mud wrestling ring to all involved. Granted, I tried to do this once before, with a lot of resistance to it, but I believe I tried to make that change too abruptly and too harsh in the penalties for even the first infraction. But change it must. I honestly do not have any faith any longer in the abilities of most people to be able to handle unfettered freedom of expression. I am certainly disappointed by this conclusion I have had to come to, but the conclusion is certainly inescapable, which means the steps I need to take are unavoidable.
But do it I must. Yes, there will certainly be people who will not like the change in atmosphere and the resultant restrictions on their antagonistic personas online, but that is simply unfortunate as well as their wants being irrelevant. They can either adapt, move on, or be evicted.
This really won't be any noticeable change to those people who don't already have this antagonistic slant to their posting, but perhaps your reading pleasure may be noticeably reduced when those more colorful individuals have their postings needfully reduced in color in order to remain here.
Pretty much personal attacks that have nothing at all to do with the business incident at hand will be restricted to the point of being unacceptable. Blatant harassment, especially across multiple threads will need to be curtailed. Basically I just want to clean up the joint to make the BOI effective but not so fearsome that most people are afraid to actually use it for the purposes it was intended.
Of course, I am just typing this off the cuff and haven't ironed out all of the details, but I wanted to get this off my chest while it is still fresh in my mind.
