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Newspapers can be jerks
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In my paper on the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), I examine
the history of newspapers’ hostile reception of new technologies and
competit...
4 days ago
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
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CENSORSHIP of the FORUM?
ReplyDeleteBravo to CD Baby´s leadership for keeping the forum open to all anons, pseudonons, and everyone. Considering the overall tensions in the situation, I agree with the anonymous poster who noted a couple days ago that no one has really crossed a line into personal attacks, and that most people can judge for themselves when trying to separate troll noise and corporate hackery from legitimate complaints and criticism.
Last weekend I spent a few hours looking over every thread since the re-launch, and with a very few exceptions I did not identify any obvious troll activity or plugs from the competitors´shills.
I find it distressing, however, that some are willing to lower the denominator with attacks on fellow artists. There is one pseudonym that keeps popping up on occasion but this is one who only ever gratuitously attacks a fellow poster.
I think it´s important to remember that even though we´re on the internet and nobody can see us, and even though many of us are boiling over and ready to lash out in frustration, we are all human. None of us are perfect, we all make mistakes, and it behooves us to treat one another with respect while CD Baby busies itself with this re-making of its fiasco of a re-launch.
Artists shouldn´t be attacking each other. And I feel, too, that artists should not be attacking specific corporate officers in a blatently inflammatory, highly personal way. By all means, present evidence of malfeasance and skullduggery, or clue us in to where we can find it on the web. But we should try our best to keep the viciousness out of the discourse because none of that furthers the debate.
And it´s clear that there are a helluva lot of topics to debate!Just look at what artists are suggesting for the future of the forums themselves, as just one example of many.
Maybe this bungled relaunch is all for the best. Think about it: the company never consulted us beforehand about what we wanted in the site, apart from a few things they´ve said (and claimed) that we wanted. But now, CD Baby is quite obviously responding to our suggestions in the forums. It remains to be seen how well they will follow through, but I think I feel a little more hopeful now.
Here´s my defense of the critics: we are the company´s very best friends, because we are the ones who love the CDBaby enough to write to them at cdbaby.org and to write about them here. We become their worst enemies if they ignore us and refuse to respond to our wishes. I believe there are plenty of smart & creative people in the frontline & upstairs. And I´ll bet some of them have even read Jeff Jarvis´s What Would Google Do? I remain hopeful, and I will try to be patient. Whatever happens in the long run, this has been a fascinating story to observe. I can´t wait to see what happens next.
I too have been impressed, overall. There are critics, and that's totally fine; but I don't sense much trolling nor much censorship, honestly. This is one of the cleanest internet 'situations' I've seen in a long time.
ReplyDeleteIf would be nice to hear from Pony again!
ReplyDelete