Dear EVOKE and EVOKE members,
If you've been to EVOKE today (April 24th) and checked the comments section, you'll have seen a blog called "Sarah O'Connor was suspended." by A.V. Koshy. This Sarah O'Connor is a very big contributor to EVOKE and brought about very interesting facts, and at an accelerated pace. Her efforts have been shown in the Leader Cloud at any given time, and has a wide selection of blog posts and images.
I have to start out by saying I understand your point of view. I understand that you do not want to offend those with certain images. I just do not agree with the suspension. Besides, I did not find anything inherently offensive in the images provided. They were however on the edgy side.
Now, there's an interesting paradox here. EVOKE is an opportunity for members for all over the world to come together to the internet and express themselves - what the moderators have done here is opposite; they have removed Sarah O'Connor temporarily. Now, I'm not theorizing that she was removed so that she couldn't win or anything of that matter. What I'm really here to say is that there was a lack of regulation here. Allow me to elaborate.
Now, I don't understand all the details here. so I might be wrong to a certain degree. I have not once found or read any rules about photos. I do have the Terms of Service open here, and it's only showing a few paragraphs; the rest of the page is completely blank... Besides, come on, no one ever really reads those. (:
The interesting thing is that the last readable line says
"The Ning Platform is not directed to children younger than 13 and is offered only to ...(it cuts off here)"
Interestingly enough, an EVOKE moderator's justification for the suspension was because it could possibly offend younger kids. If the Ning.Inc Platform is not for young kids, then kids have no place in this platform. I know we can't keep young ones out, but we could work out a way to lower the number of people offended. Here's a couple of ways we could go about this:
1) Allow the posting of images, but putting members through an age check (with the age provided during signup). Too young, and you're not allowed inside. Old enough, and you're through.
2) Allow the posting of images, but inappropriate ones get a warning if they are PG13. But all can see them.
3) The EVOKE member can set an age, appropriate, or organize an album with appropriate pictures, and one with PG13 images.
4) If you have any more ideas, please insert one in the comment section below.
I'm certain that your efforts were not to repress Sarah in any way, but more to uphold a certain standard on your site. However, the standards and guidelines were not clear, and maybe that could be something we could all work on.
Thank you very much for your time in reading this blog post. I hope you will consider your position on the situation at hand, and I hope that the reaction by not only me, but dozens of shocked EVOKE members, will guide you to take a different approach if the situation reoccurs.
Daniel Pisani
Please pass this blog post around; I would like it if it reached as many people as possible.
So what do you think? Was O'Connor in the wrong by posting the photos? Or were the EVOKE moderators to hasty in their decision to suspend? Please leave a comment telling me what you think.
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