opinion

Today I spent some time on the Entrecard forums. For those of you that have not heard or have used Entrecard, it is a social networking site that helps you to promote your blog/website and generate traffic. It also contains a forum for members to visit (which are divided into different sections) where members can discuss a related issue within a particular forum.


In the past week, a lot of tension has been brewing within it's members and it has now erupted to the point that the administrators of Entrecard have had to open a new forum section called 'Firestorm' where "hostile, aggressive and uncivil posts only" can be posted. This is so that the most popular section, the 'Community' forum section of Entrecard can be contained and be a friendly environment for people to go to and express their opinions without too much threat from others (well, this is the impression I got after reading through the responses from members, moderators and administrators anyway).

I have also gone through the week's posts on the community forum and have also found threads removed and edited. This is the part I really have an issue with. Before I continue, I just want to make it clear that I also strongly believe that people have a right to express their opinion in a respectful way (ie: without putting another person down). The problem I have is when people's point of views are distorted, so that it will look nicer and friendlier when other people read a particular thread. I have an issue with this because:

1. It is misleading and dishonest. People have expressed their views and it is not being heard as it has been deleted/erased from the thread.
2. When the initiator of a post has edited their first initial entry (several days after) there is no history of the original entry (unless you have read it); therefore, the reason for the original arguement as to why certain members were unhappy cannot be traced back to the original thread. If this was applied to the legal system where evidence has been clearly tampered with, the evidence would certainly only benefit those that altered it.
3. By editing and altering the conversations between members, you are devaluing everyone's opinion. Therefore, why bother asking people's feedback if the answers you have received is not what you want to hear?
4. For the administrators to clearly take sides and punish those that did not instigate the original post makes me question their judgement. What punishment did the original perpetrator receive? I doubt they even got reprimanded for such behaviour, because today this person appalling tried to stir up more trouble, only to have the post mysteriously vanish again! I am really disappointed by this, plus the fact that there are no clear guidelines on why threads are edited, deleted or why they vanish into thin air! I am not sure if it is because of the new partnership that Entrecard is about to announce, that the administrators feel they have to present a happy, friendly and glowing group of members that participate in the community forums that they have acted in this way...it remains to be seen.

I am aware that there are constraints in our democratic world where we should be able to openly express our opinions as we can sometimes be bound by our society's expectations and having to be politically correct in certain situations. But visiting a social networking site in my own time, providing my feedback and opinions for free so that we can help build a strong community together, all I really expect back in return is that my opinion and other members' point of views are shown as they have expressed them within a post thread and that they should not be deleted just because it is not what certain people want to hear. If you can do this, you are showing respect for your members and valuing each of their perspective.

So what do you think?