Why I avoid posting on the Forum, or

why it's so important to learn those language arts skills....

So what do proper letter writing etiquette, the ISGB's Forum and skipping Pam Dugger's excellent presentation have in common? Let's start with the middle item, the forum. At one time, this was a simple, anonymously posted deal, with one thread. It was rather freewheeling, focused mostly on people's questions about beadmaking, but occasionally wandering into other (dangerous) territory, like politics, people's pets, or jokes in poor taste.

It's funny, the things people get annoyed about. I was irritated that the ISGB purchased infopop forum software, when there's a perfectly good (free and open source) alternative (phorum, which as far as I can tell does everything infopop does) but not seriously annoyed, because beadmakers like most nongeeks haven't gotten the word about Open Source (though as nonprofits they should've). I wasn't thrilled about having to create a logon and password, but that isn't what really fried my bacon. What infuriated me (and a number of others) was the censorship. Or, to put it more precisely, the form of the censorship.

Deleting offensive posts has become ever more necessary, though the problem was not nearly as bad just the mere two years ago when this controversy flared up. However, good manners might dictate the poster be given the opportunity to fix the post, or at least a head's up that it's to be taken down. At the very least, on a public board, in which one of its own members is posting, the admin should at minimum show [deleted post] or something like that. That didn't happen here; the stuff just disappeared, poof!

The only other message board I had any experience with at that time was Slashdot, which has taken posts down only under the direst threat of legal action and certainly not without making an effort to notify both the poster and readership-at-large. Because the net is so mutable, this kind of behavior struck me as particularly heinous.

And, as folks wanting to avoid controversy so often are, the board was mealymouthed about it. The new logons would be to prevent anonymous posters from posting pornography; they would add ``security'' to the site. The only problem was, the logons became a requirement only after member posts of penis beads, slightly raunchy cartoons and the like offended various other members. Given that people doing glass are supposed to be reasonably mature anyway (it's dangerous, i.e. not for innocent kids) and that the ISGB is an arts organization, a few penis beads (which have a venerable history, by the way) shouldn't've fazed anyone. And the security? They email passwords in the clear, and could give me no technical assurances whatsoever that their system administration could resist crackers. In fact, since so far as I could tell they were using proprietary (and probably M$ based) products, I had (and continue) to assume the user names and passwords are not particularly secure. The whole security argument was nothing but a smokescreen; they simply hoped we were too ignorant to realize this.

Coming some 9 months after 9/11, their behavior seemed all-of-a-piece with the increasing paranoia, intolerance and censorship that have permeated this country since the terrorist attacks---not a pattern I'd want to encourage under any circumstances but especially not then (though, finally, people seem to be questioning a little more now, as of mid2004). But I think I could've endured the censorship if it had been handled honestly and felt the general membership had the opportunity for some dialog. As far as I could tell, the powers-that-be didn't seem make any effort to poll us about our feelings; most people just bitched on the forum itself about the new policies, which struck me as unproductive, especially since they were ignored. Since there wasn't an official way to complain, I wrote an email to the board.

My one sentence response to the letter? A promise to forward it to the board (well, duh!) and the following: `You, of course, are entitled to your opinion.' Well, my goodness, as a paying member, I should certainly hope I was `of course' entitled to my opinion. So why didn't Ms. Dugger simply write `thank you for your concern on this issue' which would've been perfectly unobjectionable? There's a reason this formula is accepted etiquette.

Maybe it's because she's a superb beadmaker and not so hot on the etiquette stuff; but I can't help thinking if one signs up to be secretary of an organization with a mid-five figure annual budget, one presumes a good command of not just language, but its finer nuances. Given that supposition, the only way to judge this response (the only one I ever got) was...condescending.

I've since posted on the forum exactly once---to get a roomie for Gathering this year. I no longer read it regularly, and certainly don't post any answers. If people haven't hidden their email addies, I'll logon, sometimes, just long enough to find that out so I can email answers privately.

And as for Ms. Dugger? It's not that I'm so great at making hollows that I couldn't profit from watching her expertise. Her beads are beautiful, and, to be frank, a major influence on my own frit and powders; but I won't buy them, don't want to talk to the artist, nor even feel comfortable watching her demo---all for a poorly written response she's probably forgotten years ago.

Moral of this boring rant? It pays to learn how to apply words exactly as you intend them.

Update: Ah, but sometimes there is a happy ending....