More Thoughts on “Censorship” and Idiocracy

For all of you idiots out there who want to say that banning certain fictional themes from XN is not censorship, that it is needed/required/etc., then I would like to put my two cents worth here on my blog.  I choose to use my blog instead of posting on the forums over on XN for several reasons.  The first reason is that trying to convince an idiot that they are wrong is like trying to move a mountain with your mind.  The problem with idiots is that they do not realize they are idiots.  If they did, they wouldn’t have posted their idiocracy for all other members to see.

Here is the bottom line as I see it on the whole “censorship” issues that have been going on over on the XNXX stories and their banning of certain story themes.  First, since XN is a privately owned website, it is their right as the owner of the website to implement whatever type of rules, regulations, or censorship that they want.  They bought the bandwidth and are paying for their domain hosting.  They can do whatever they want with that bandwidth, within reason of the Terms of Services that they agreed on with their hosting provider.  If the provider chooses to force XN into implementing censorship, then there is little that XN or the members can do about it. 

As we are at the mercy of what the owners of XN say will and will not be hosted on their website, so the owners of XN are at the mercy of their hosting providers who also tell the XN owners what they can and cannot have hosted on their website.  Basically, the hosting servers and XN owners decide what will and will not be hosted based on ONE idea:  that anything that either the XN owners or their service providers deems “offensive” will not be hosted.  It is as simple as that.  It has NOTHING to do with some imaginary law that fictional stories depicting illegal activities cannot be displayed on the internet.  That’s not only the stupidest thing I have ever heard, one has only to browse through their local Barnes and Noble to know that such laws do not exist in the United States.  There is nothing “legal” about their decisions to implement censorship on a website that they own.  It has nothing to do with them trying to “better” themselves/website or be “politically correct” or because some self-proclaimed morality police pitched a tantrum at the owners of the website or even some sort of ploy to try to rake in more money for the business.  Bottom line, it is simply a matter of what the providers and/or XN owners deems “offensive.” 

With this said, I am sick beyond comprehension of hearing fucktards say that censorship is a good thing, that it “needs” to be implemented to a certain extent, or such ideas that XN deciding what they will and will not host is not some form of “censorship.”  Before you go sticking your foot into your mouth, you might want to look up the definition of the word “censorship.”  According to the online version of Encarta Encyclopedia, “censorship” is

1. suppression of published or broadcast material: the suppression of all or part of a play, movie, letter, or publication considered offensive or a threat to security

2. suppression of something objectionable: the suppression or attempted suppression of something regarded as objectionable “Censorship refers to the supervision and control of the information and ideas circulated within a society. In modern times, censorship refers to the examination of media including books, periodicals, plays, motion pictures, and television and radio programs for the purpose of altering or suppressing parts thought to be offensive. The offensive material may be considered immoral or obscene, heretical or blasphemous, seditious or treasonable, or injurious to the national security.”

 The very definition of the word means that any material that anyone finds offensive or objectionable that is then banned, left out, purposely edited, or, in the case of XN, no longer allowed to be hosted on a website, is, for all intents and purposes, being CENSORED by the website.  The reasons behind the censorship have no bearing on whether or not the material has actually been censored.  Whenever something that someone else deems “objectionable” or “offensive” or even “immoral” is not allowed to be posted in some type of media (such as newspapers, blogs, websites, forums, books, articles, etc.) then it has been censored, pure and simple. 

So let me restate this as simply as I possibly can: either the owners of the website decided that certain themes of fictional stories were “offensive” and decided to prohibit such themed stories from the website or the web hosting company decided that certain themes of fictional stories were “offensive” and would no longer be allowed to be hosted through their servers.  Regardless of who decided what, they implemented censorship on their website.  Their reasons behind the decision has no merit on whether or not something was censored.  By the very definition of the word, the owners of XNXX censored a previously uncensored site.  Since it is their website and they are bound by the Terms of Service they signed, it is their right to do whatever they want for whatever reasons they want.

So for anyone out there who still cannot see this simple definition and action for what it is, then I am sorry that you cannot seem to grasp such simple concepts.  Unlike you, I do not go around the forum drumming up more drama over something that has already been done to death.  Give it a rest.  All you are doing is reminding people why half the authors of a previously thriving site, along with a huge chunk of readers and members, left the site in favor of greener pastures.

Website Members are GUESTS in Someone’s House

With all the shit that is going on over at XN, I had to vent some rage and make some points about signing up for a membership to a website. 

When you create an “account” with a website, you are signing up to be a guest in someone’s house.  The owner, your host, was nice enough to give you access to a website, either for free or for a fee, which allows you to do various things or partake of various things that you find enjoyable.  In order to run smoothly and for the guests in that house to get along, the owner i.e. your host, lays out a few rules and guidelines.  When you create your “account” i.e. become a member of that website, you are asked to agree to those rules and to abide by them. 

When you click “create my account” you have agreed to the rules and guidelines set forth by the owner of the website.  You have agreed that the owner decides how things will be run and that you are merely a guest in that house, allowed to stay there by the good graces of your host.  You agreed with the way the site was ran, you agreed to the content contained within that site, you agreed that the owner reserved the sole right to add, change, and modify the website, the content, and the rules as HE sees fit, whenever he sees fit.  You agreed that if you did not agree to these rules or the content of the website, or you could no longer abide by the rules or continue to support the content of the website, you 1:  would not sign up for an account or 2:  would leave the site.

For better or worse, rather you agree or disagree, when you sign up for a website, you are not only agreeing to the rules and agreeing to follow those rules, but you are also agreeing with how the site is ran, the content, and the general feel of the website in question.  If, at any time, you no longer want to abide by the rules, cannot abide by the rules, or no longer agree with the way the site is ran or the type of content allowed on the site, you always have the choice of leaving the website and not returning.

This is what the average, prudent individual with a morsel of common sense would do.  Instead, the owner(s) of the website are being e-mailed to death by a handful of guests who, instead of simply leaving a site that they no longer support, are demanding that the owners change their website, their BUSINESS, to suit the individual tastes of a few house guests.  It is the equivalent of being invited into someone’s house and pissing on their furniture because you do not like the color. 

It is disrespectful, it is ungracious of the house guest, and it makes you look like a spoiled child who is throwing a temper tantrum to get what you want.

The overwhelming response to their rants and endless threads on the subject has been:  WE LIKE THIS PLACE JUST THE WAY IT IS.  Either YOU conform to OUR standards or GTFO.

And yet they continue to clog up the forum with threads and posts on the subject, they are upsetting other members who do not want the website to change and who knew that they were supporting the content by becoming a member of the website, and basically they are making a real nuisance of themselves.

To sum this up, the ungrateful members of that website who are complaining about everything and making demands of the owners not only KNEW what type of content was allowed on that site but they AGREED to it and the rules when they decided to create an account.  Now they are showing just how ungrateful and truly two-faced they are by demanding the owners change the website content, the rules, and how the site is run to fit THEIR own selfish desires.  I cannot believe the audacity of some people who would resort to signing up for a website and then spit in the owner’s face by telling the owner how to run HIS business.

In my opinion, I think anyone who signs up for an account on a website and then starts questioning how that site is ran, the rules and guidelines, and/or the content allowed on the website, or how the moderators do their jobs should be banned instantly.  I’d be damned before I would sit back and allow them to spit in my face after I was nice enough to allow them access to my website.

Socks, Socks Everywhere!

Sock accounts do more harm than good on most sites that allow membership registration.  In the case of XN, they are liken to a leech which is slowly sucking the life’s blood from the few decent writings left on the site.

Why would anyone need more than one account?  They serve no real useful purpose.  If you are going to portray 2 or 3 or 6 different personas on a website, then chances are the members of the website already do not want anyone quite that dysfunctional on the site associating with them.  Otherwise, they are being used to create fake “fans” of writers, the sock accounts always resurrecting ancient threads or keeping the same threads at the top of the forum pages while others steadily roll off the front page into obscurity.  They are also being used to systematically troll other stories, the sock accounts voting down stories that are in direct competition with the stories of the author who is using the sock accounts.  Likewise, the sock accounts are being used to systematically vote up the stories of the author who owns all the sock accounts.

So you may wonder why the owner of a website would even allow multiple accounts for the same user.  Simply put…numbers.  If you have 500,000 “members” of a website, that looks like a lot of members.  All those accounts are also rating on stories and commenting on the forum.  It looks like quite the busy little website.  But if all the multiple accounts were removed and only ONE account per user was allowed, that 500,000 “member” number count would be more like around 150,000.  That’s still an impressive number, but you don’t get nearly the traffic stats on the website when you lose roughly 3/4 of your user accounts.

A decently written story is doomed to the back pages of the story list on XN because of all the sock accounts, trolls, and underhanded writers on XN.  I have been writing for over 28 years.  I have won awards for my writing, I have multiple published novels, I have done freelance editing and proofreading jobs over the years and am a mentor to numerous budding authors.  I have tens of thousands of fans that send me well-wishes and requests for more novels.  It’s safe to say that I’m a pretty decent writer.  Yet when something that a published novelist writes immediately gets bombed down to a 50% rating while something like “man open the trunk and reach he hand into, grabbing for girl but she bites its hanand, jumps up out of trunk dashes away and bolts screaming.  Runs to forest, thinking man right on her heels.”* sits with a 100% rating, then OBVIOUSLY something fishy is afoot in the land of XN stories. 

Sock accounts brings down the entire level of quality of a website, especially one such as XN.  The site administrators and owners are allowing a few dozen really bad writers rule the site, slowly chasing off the few decent writers that are left.  If you think this is good business practice, then think about this:  Readers go to the site wanting to read some good stories.  Everything that sits on the first half-dozen pages all sound like the crap from above.  They assume that all the stories on the site are written just as badly and cannot even get past the first jumbled up paragraph to even take a chance at reading the atrocious thing.  Seeing that the ratings are above 90% and that the story has hundreds of positive votes on it, the readers can only assume that not only does the site have no standards for their stories, but that the “members” of the site are all idiots because NO ONE in their right mind would vote positive on such a badly written piece of garbage.  So they Google some more, and presto!  They find all your site’s competitors..the ones who have actual standards for their stories…stories that do not sound like a second grader wrote them…stories that have high rankings because the writer is actually good and not because he/she has an army of sock accounts in which to tamper with the ratings.

Can you guess what happens next?  Pretty soon all the real “members” and readers leave XN for some other site, leaving XN with nothing but the legion of socks and a steady dwindling of upset, pissed off, and fed up writers who are sick of seeing their hard work trashed by trolls and jealous writers.  What happens when you have nothing left but all those sock accounts?  I guess that’s the day that you realize you have run your own business into the ground and close the doors of XN forever.

*This example is of my own creation.  Any resemblance to any part or portion of any story, book, novel, or article on XN or any other website or anything in print was not the intention of the author and is purely coincidental.

Grey Areas in Rules Leaves Room for Interpretation

When it comes to making rules for writing forums, or any forum or website that has active participation from members for that matter, there is always going to be ‘grey’ areas in the rules.  Grey areas, when it comes to rules, leave a lot of room for interpretation.  Interpretation leads to questions about whether or not specific things are allowed since the rules are not detailed enough to take into consideration every possible scenario.  If these questions are left unanswered and the grey areas of rules are left undetailed, then these questions will lead to even more interpretation of these rules and thus the eventual individual decisions by the members of the site.  Depending upon these decisions, the moderators of the site, and even the individual decisions and interpretations of the rules by the moderators themselves, the decisions made by the writer to include certain aspects of a storyline can lead to them having their story rejected, removed, and in extreme cases, their member account banned for not following the rules.

It is for this reason that business owners and website owners must make very distinct and detailed rules when it comes to the regulations and guidelines of active participation by its members.  They must think about every possible scenario and adjust the rules accordingly.  And if a member should offer up a scenario that they themselves had not thought of, it is up to the owners to take this new scenario into consideration and hammer out the details of the rules to include this new question and subsequent interpretation of the rules.  Ignoring the legitimate concerns and questions of a site’s members is not good business practice for several reasons.

The primary reason why such concerns and questions should be taken into consideration is because the happiness of the members can either breathe life into a business or cause it to shrivel up and die.  If enough members become unhappy, they are going to leave the site for one that has more detailed rules that they can live with as members.  Aside from unhappy members leaving a website, those members are then going to talk.  Everyone in the business world knows that word of mouth is what can make or break a business.  A few hundred members leaving a site that boasts tens of thousands of members may not seem like such a big deal, but over time, that bad publicity from word of mouth can slowly chip away at the remaining members.  Those few hundred unhappy members tell everyone about their experiences with the website, which influences possible new members to stay away from it.  Those members then spread the stories of the unhappy members to other websites and even more people.  Eventually, the unhappy members will find a new website they like better and will make themselves right at home there.  They will then get in contact with some of their ‘friends’ from the old website telling them how great the new website is.  More and more people will eventually leave the offending website, slowly whittling away at the membership numbers.  Sure, it wouldn’t happen overnight, but over the course of several years, a formerly thriving website can see its membership activity shrivel up and blow away, leaving the business floundering and possibly going under.

Having very detailed and distinctive rules with participating members is fundamental to the website’s success and the overall happiness of the site’s members.  Unhappy members tend to leave websites for greener pastures if they do not like the way the site is being regulated or the rules of conduct that govern the site.  Likewise, a site that allows moderators to play god or owners who have ridiculously hard-to-follow rules will quickly see a drastic dwindling of its participating members.  Rules have to be fair, their enforcement has to be fair, and the moderating entities for the site have to be fair when enforcing the rules.  A site that does not have well-defined and relatively easy-to-follow rules, fair regulation and enforcement of those rules without favoritism, and moderating entities who fairly enforce those rules will not succeed in the highly competitive marketplace of the internet.

XNXX Censorship Drama Update

Okay all you XN users, here’s an update on all the censorship drama.

If you have not visited the forums in a while, or the site for that matter, then you may be unaware that XN has recently changed its previous “no censorship” of the fictional stories to state that they “will refuse and delete clearly pedophile stories.”  Okay, great, this is fine by 99% of the writers and authors alike.  But HERE is where this rule gets blurred and has a huge chunk of members, readers, and authors leaving XNXX in droves.

About 10 days ago we received a notice that ALL underaged stories were being taken off the site and were no longer being hosted there.  This left a lot of people scratching their heads and wondering exactly what “underaged” meant.  There are a lot of beautifully written “coming-of-age” romance stories on the site that depict budding emotional and sexual relationships between fictional characters that are under the age of 18.  Well, when the site announced that it was ‘clearly pedophile’ stories that were being tossed out, we all breathed a sigh of relief.  Okay, no problem.  The “coming-of-age” stories would be left while the “offensive” (I use this word loosely since what offends one person will not necessarily offend another) stories that depict graphic abuse of underaged characters would be purged from the site. 

Now here’s where everyone is going ape-shit.  First off, a huge chunk of those “coming-of-age” stories are being reported and yanked from both the stories site and the forum.  Anything that has any mention of a character under the age of 18 is being reported and yanked.  Likewise, a lot of these authors who did nothing more than write a fictional story around fictional characters are being targeted by the porn morality police, having their stories either reported or consistently voted down through the voting system. 

Those authors and members who were against the change are now being openly harassed and flamed on the forums.  Before the change, people said they didn’t mind the stories being there and that they simply ‘did not click’ on something that they might find offensive.  But since the rule change, this entire thing has turned into a witch hunt.  The mob has brought out the pitchforks and torches and are going around the forum and the story site harassing, flaming, and blatantly abusing the report feature and voting system to further harass authors. 

The entire site is quickly spiraling out of control, causing a lot of authors, members, and readers to flee the site in favor of a place that either does not have censorship or one that does not allow them to be openly harassed and flamed for voicing a simple opinion.  Ironically, the owners either do not know about this (which only goes to show that they do not actively participate in the running of their own website) or they simply do not care that the site is losing members, readers, and authors quicker than a leaky bicycle tire loses air. 

I, for one, will support the decisions made by the authors.  When it comes to writing, deciding on whether to stay on the site will be a very personal decision.  Since they own the copyrights, it is their right to pull their stories down and post them somewhere else, to stay on the site, or refuse to let anyone read their work at all.  Some authors are leaving because they refuse to bow down to the new rule and will look for another site host to post their stories on.  Since no one is getting paid by the owners of the website, I can totally agree with this choice.  It’s ridiculous to expect authors to jump through hoops like a circus poodle and write porn based on someone else’s idea of what is morally correct, all while NOT getting paid for the work in question.

Other authors are leaving based on principle.  The site operated under a ‘no censorship’ rule since it began hosting the stories.  If they found it morally objectionable, they should have thought about that before they let the stories be hosted there in the first place.  What they did was decide to host any type of story to build up traffic.  Then they figured that once they had lots of traffic and were top rated, they could change the rules and everyone would just shrug and carry on under the new rules like it was no big deal.  Well, the joke’s on them.  Dozens of authors said they would leave if the site changed their rules.  The owners thought they were bluffing and would keep right on handing over their hard work for free.  Guess the owners won’t believe that they may have cut their noses off to spite their face until the traffic dries up.  And in case they haven’t noticed, that traffic is already drying up quicker than a mud puddle in summer.

Readers are leaving because they either do not support the new rules or because their favorite stories are now being targeted.  Members are leaving because they are either sick of the drama, they do not stand behind the rule change, or because they are tired of being harassed and flamed on the forums for expressing their opinions on the matter.  A lot of authors are leaving for this last reason as well.

To sum this up, XN is already seeing dozens of authors request that their stories be pulled, regardless of the content of the stories.  In fact, I would be willing to say that the authors leaving are evenly split, with half of them requesting stories be taken down that contain characters under the age of 18, and about half of them requesting stories be taken down that did not have any characters under the age of 18.  As readers see their favorite stories getting pulled, banned, and reported, they are leaving XN for other sites that do not have censorship in hopes of finding their favorite authors elsewhere.  Members are getting tired of all the drama, of being harassed and flamed, and are either not posting on the forum or not visiting the site at all.  Right now the whole place is like a frenzied hornet’s nest.  But once everything settles down, I’m thinking XN will look less like a working beehive and more like an abandoned warehouse.