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TractorPoint is SO MUCH BETTER than the other board
I've always believed this is the best board not withstanding the specialty antique boards. There's decent technical content and room to pursue subjects in some detail (and Lord I'm given to detail). We don't seem to have a star system or a bunch of personalities. Most important we seem to be able to solve our attitude issues on our own.
Censorship always is capricious and arbitrary since it's done from only one perspective. I believe that the 'content we receive' is an individual responsibility and if we allow content to fall to official censors we fail to exercise our individual responsibility. If something offends or pushes a button we have to object, and the objections have to be received. We've been able to do that here and do it well.
Ironically it was a variation of a censorship issue that resulted in me halting my participation over there. I was on the receiving end of a national joke. I objected (indirectly, which was my own failing). I didn't ask for censorship but suggested that the board owner could show some leadership in indicating appropriate content. What I got was the owner claiming not to have said things that were said and fluffing off my objection 'just good clean fun' you know.
I suppose I've got to say that I am a native born U.S. citizen. I came to my adopted country after four years volunteer Nam era U.S. military service (Never there thankfully). The experience gives me some very conflicted and painful (mostly scar tissue now though) perspective on some subjects. Somebody without my baggage might have objected and gotten in the jokester's face about it. I couldn't and got no support for how I did object.
Over there, I objected to content gently but the objections weren't received and I was out of there. I always liked this place better so there wasn't really any 'never looking back.' Now years later they've got formal censors over there it seems, but that's not what I asked for. My and the current experiences there aren't connected, but 'Go figure.'
Best to solve problems and censorship isn't usually a solution. Content is our responsibility and we seem to exercise it very well. We do real well with tractor content too. Dennis plays his ownership role very well as well as the technical role.
Some of this I hope is a commentary on how we might continue to avoid content problems, or at least that's my rationalization for length of this. We all have our baggage and our buttons, and we can't know what other people's are interacting through screens and keyboards as we do. Particular content may offend or victimize a particular person. I believe an offended person doesn't have a right to censorship but they do have a right to object and for the objection to be heard, but maybe not remedied. That's the way families and communities manage these things. Maybe that's what we're working on.
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TractorPoint is SO MUCH BETTER than the other board
The simple version of what I was saying is that we're doing something right here (emphasis on the WE'RE). Not anybody else; just us participants (emphasis on US).
The trouble I have with censorship is that the people who accept it usually don't have much to offer either. Everything becomes vanilla flavoured and ends up satisfying only vanilla flavoured people who don't really want much anyway. What I experience is my business. I'm my own censor. I either do something about what offends or go somewhere else. That's my own responsibility and letting somebody else do it just diminishes me and everybody else as well.
There were some comments from an interloper awhile back that ended with something like 'Well let's see how Dennis handles this flammer.' My point is that Dennis didn't, one way or another we did. That's how things work best. There is a role for leadership and on occasion we've had some of that too.
We're doing something right and I'm not sure what it is. I remember that 'flamming and response' pretty well destroyed the board (at)agriculture. Got so you couldn't find anything about tractors. The site manager tried a reformat. Flocks of 'I hate the new format and am never coming back' response. The site used to be the high traffic place and posts dropped from hundreds a day to about a half-dozen within weeks. The new format was better, I just think everybody was sick or each other. Censorship for spamming pretty well destroyed SSB as a discussion site. We've avoided appreciable censorship, been through format changes, charges, and flammers. We still here and going strong.
A word about flamming and response: There's an expression in boxing: 'Never dance with a dancer or hook with a hooker.' They only do it because they really can't punch, and if you get sucked into it neither can you. Punching is the game in boxing just like tractor content is here. Almost always, ya win if you can hold the centre of the ring and ya can't hold the centre unless you can punch. Of course boxers know that ya got to dance some to sell tickets. Politics etc. and flamming can be fun. Just don't get moved too far out of the centre and forget that tractors is why people come here.
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TractorPoint is SO MUCH BETTER than the other board
I'm entirely interested doing well here and preserving what is happening. Censorship is a general issue with me. This and YTMAG are the only boards I've read at all in years.
I probably had had some vanilla flavoured frustration when I was over there as well but my issue was not with the participants. I don't know how things are elsewhere now but I think we've got it good here and that's what I'm interested in.
Balance is good. Joe Lewis had incredible balance, which is probably why he reigned the longest. Had quick feet too. Nobody ever moved Larry Homes out of the centre. He did it all with the basics (jab and cross) and he reigned a long time. Never lost that fight either according to the pros I watched the fight with.
Oops, I'm lapsing into metaphor again so I'll stop and just say that to me censorship is being out of balance. Or at least it's an artificially imposed balance, which is why it doesn't really work. It's good here and censorship is what we don't have. It's what you get when people expect someone else to do what they should do for themselves.
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