IC and us

Posted by lili on Thu 24 Nov 05, 7:38 AM to lili's blog.

i've been trying to think of how to word this weblog for quite a while now. My initial reluctance in writing it mainly stems from the fact that 99.9% of members on IC are fantastic and i have absolutely no issue with the majority of people here whatsoever.

i'm lucky enough to have made more than my fair share of great friends through IC and, of course, thats how i met Tanos himself - but IC has it's down sides.

On more than one occasion recently there have been hints or blatant accusations that we don't like criticism and are inclined to ban people from the site for criticising us.

On the subject of not liking criticism - well yes, personally i don't like receiving criticism particularly when it's not constructive (who does?) it still doesn't earn anyone a ban and never has.

Generally speaking if someone starts a post with something along the lines of "this will probably get me banned..." we can pretty much guarantee that the following message is at best unconstructive and critical at worst it's downright rude. Still doesn't earn anyone a ban (and lets face it if we banned people just for being rude then there would be quite a few less IC members around .)

We do not ban people lightly and out of the few people that have been banned only one was banned for abuse against just us (and on that occasion we withstood more than 3 months of verbal and physical threats before the ban was imposed.)

Every other ban issued has been as a result of using the site to abuse other IC members and hence breaching the AUP which everyone signs up to when they join.

We believe in freedom of expression, we feel that everyone has the right to express their opinion and open debate is far more healthy than censorship. We do not remove posts that are openly rude and critical of us (and in actual fact are often in breach of the AUP.)

From a purely personal point of view i have my own experiences and opinions and express them rarely (in 5 1/2 years i've only posted 237 messages) but all of the times i've expressed my opinion i've been willing to back it up with my reasons, and there have been times i've changed my opinion based on the healthy debate i've had with someone as a result. i have the deepest respect for people able to defend their position with reasoning, even when i strongly disagree with what they are defending. What i find offensive is opinions stated as fact without the courtesy of reasoning, but that's usually down to their ill manners or ignorance (in my opinion.)

Generally speaking people here are fabulous, there are a very small minority i'd happily click the ban button on (Tanos won't allow it.)

It is my opinion (based on living with Tanos for 5 years) that he is a genius, he must also be some kind of saint because i see some of the rude, abusive and demanding messages he gets from people from time to time and for what? For running IC......

If these people really don't like IC so much, why are they still here?

lili x

Edited Thu 24 Nov 05, 7:44 AM by lili