Forum Change Announcement

[Frank Petronio]

Dave, I agree that the moderators should have banned people more than closing the lounge to political and religious discussions. But sometimes web communities just go sour and they need some time to let the silly, evil trolls move on to infect some other community. I'm starting to see that was the case here -- perhaps they couldn't have banned enough people, and because some people were sneaking back with new aliases, it was a fool's errand to try to ban all the a-holes.

My comments were not aimed at you in particular and in general I'm sympathetic to what you're saying other than to remind you, "Please don't feed the trolls" (and they will go away.) By giving them so much attention, it just perpetuates the bad scene.

[davidb]

Get over it Spivak. No more politics here.

In your last 80 posts here, only 5 have been about photography.

[Scott Davis]

If my suggestions had been followed, this mess would have never occured with everyone I mentioned weighing on how much they dislike me. Their viewpoints were not called for and were irrelevant. Failure to listen to my suggestions and to ban the offenders caused the Lounge to deteriorate into mayhem at times ergo we lost the Lounge. Even with the loss of the Lounge, all of the offending parties' behavior should not go unpunished. If this forum is truly private, the moderators should not allow users who have launched personal attacks on others. Perhaps after a period of peace on LFF, we can re-visit the idea. Until then...

David-

I was about to say I'm surprised, but on second thought I'm NOT surprised that you think it was all about you. Certainly, the back-and-forth you experienced was a contributory factor, but as someone who more often than not avoided commenting in the lounge but still read the threads, there was plenty of puerile acrimony being tossed around on numerous topics, many of which you never participated in, enough to justify the moderators decision. I'll be glad to see it behind us, so I can go back to respecting the various fonts of photographic wisdom here for their relevant contributions, instead of wanting to ignore folks for arguing distastefully.

[Daniel Grenier]

Get over it Spivak. No more politics here.

In your last 80 posts here, only 5 have been about photography.

Indeed. The music's been turned off so get the F*&% off the dance floor David. And have a great day

[Juergen Sattler]

Indeed. The music's been turned off so get the F*&% off the dance floor David. And have a great day

Why is it so hard for some people to stay civil?

[domenico Foschi]

Indeed. The music's been turned off so get the F*&% off the dance floor David. And have a great day

It is just because of this inflammatory comments and attacks that we had that problem and,...hear hear, no political issue has been raised!

As you moderators can see and I dare say I think you know, the problem are some elements who are not able to have a decent dialog or at best apply self discipline to refrain their aggression.
So here you are more insults and nobody mentioned Palin, McCain, Obama who said he wants to kill Osama.

[Geary Lyons]

It is just because of this inflammatory comments and attacks that we had that problem and,...hear hear, no political issue has been raised!

As you moderators can see and I dare say I think you know, the problem are some elements who are not able to have a decent dialog or at best apply self discipline to refrain their aggression.
So here you are more insults and nobody mentioned Palin, McCain, Obama who said he wants to kill Osama.

Unfortunately. all too often the easy, expedient courses of action only address the symptom. As this thread has shown, the problem is members of this forum that exhibit unacceptable behavior without the consequences set forth in the guidelines. IMO, these forum members, that exhibit said bad behavior, have been encouraged and empowered by the lack of appropriate consequences.

Geary

[BrianShaw]

...these forum members, that exhibit said bad behavior, have been encouraged and empowered by the lack of appropriate consequences.

They should be spanked!

[kev curry]

If my suggestions had been followed, this mess would have never occured with everyone I mentioned weighing on how much they dislike me. Their viewpoints were not called for and were irrelevant. Failure to listen to my suggestions and to ban the offenders caused the Lounge to deteriorate into mayhem at times ergo we lost the Lounge. Even with the loss of the Lounge, all of the offending parties' behavior should not go unpunished. If this forum is truly private, the moderators should not allow users who have launched personal attacks on others. Perhaps after a period of peace on LFF, we can re-visit the idea. Until then...

David,

I just read through your post and thought that I would like to ask you some basic questions if I may?

1) Have you formally apologized to the forum member you recently attacked by accusing him of being a ''pedophile''?
(The moderators quickly deleted that disturbing post and I think we should continue to respect the members anonymity for obvious reasons)

2) Have you surrendered your other identities to the moderators yet?

3) If any objective assessment was made of your own past behavior based on the criteria that you outline above where do you think that that would leave you?

Look forward to hearing your answers
Sincerely
kev

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

A: It is possible, with the afformentioned users suspended or banned from this forum to have civil, intelligent discussions in a lounge about any topic.

B: I had posted my thoughts in this thread for many pages and not one person attacked me until I brought up the root cause for the Lounge being a certain number of users. Those users further proved my point by, you guessed it, attacking me.

C: If anyone were to research their posts, they would see I am not their only target. They have targeted other users as well. One such post told someone to "go masturbate somewhere else."

Plain and simple: These people need to be removed from this forum. If the moderators feel I've caused any of the ruccus, I would be more than happy to discuss that with them and would subject myself to whatever appropriate action they would feel necessary.