The end of KnoxViews?

Today a sad change has been made on KnoxViews.

A decision has been made by Randy Neal and the KnoxViews team to change the site rules so only “Trusted Users” can post to the KnoxViews site. The short hand for “Trusted Users” means liberal democrats.

This occurred after complaints from fellow KnoxViews bloggers that their posts had been removed from the front page. Mr. Neal patiently explained it was his blog and he and his team decide what is worthy of being on the front page. Mr. Neal made it clear he is the decider. On several separate occasions Mr. Neal changed the User Agreement to answer the questions from dissatisfied KnoxViews bloggers.

Each time the User Agreement was changed it became more doctrinaire, restrictive, and left leaning. The term “Progressive” was changed to mean “liberal democrat” because people questioned what progressive meant. Today it has been changed again to read, “KnoxViews is a progressive (i.e. “liberal”, although responsible opposing conservative viewpoints are welcome) community space for citizens of Knoxville and the surrounding community to meet, organize, and discuss news, politics, events, and issues affecting the community.”

The question now becomes who are the “responsible opposing conservative viewpoints”? Are there any?

The question of what the word “open” meant was also challenged. Tempers flared yesterday when Mr. Neal described fellow KnoxViews blogger, the former GOP Chairman of Knox County Chad Tindell, as one of the “token Republicans” of KnoxViews. Slowly but surely an open neutral blog drifted left until today it took a hard “left turn“.

Is KnoxViews representative of Knoxville? Or is it only representative of a small portion of Knoxville?

KnoxViews owner Randy Neal explained, “It was an interesting experiment while it lasted. Sadly it has come to an end, mainly because of the time involved in dealing with the complaints and policing the site.”

Did KnoxViews lose its openness today? Only the readers can make that decision. Without a level playing ground will KnoxViews become an echo chamber of only far left thinking? If so, will it have any relevance in East Tennessee?

Update: SayUncle Adds:

I do appreciate everyone’s lesson on capitalism and Mr. Neal’s property rights. No one is disputing that.

My issue is that when he first started it, he asked me to participate. So, I did. Now, my kind ain’t wanted there no more.

Update: Randy Neal Counter Point

Posted in uncategorized on April 10th, 2007 by #9 | RSS 2.0 |

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#9 Says:
April 11th, 2007 at 7:53 pm

Counter point from Randy Neal:

OK, one more time out of

Submitted by R. Neal on Wed, 2007/04/11 – 7:38pm.

OK, one more time out of respect for Uncle and Les who were welcome posters here before and are still welcome to participate in comments.

Uncle posted a silly poll on the front page that was long and took up practically the whole screen. I demoted it but left it published in the side bar. He bitched. I explained. He then went over to his blog and posted complaints about his treatment, bitched about me and the site rules in a mocking tone very similar to #9, etc. He suggested the site really wasn’t open at all. I let it go at the time. Before that he had posted a link to an offensive site and I asked him not to do that, and he complained about it, and this was after having previously been asked to tone down the language a little and bitching about that, too. I was fairly taken aback and somewhat disappointed by all this, because SayUncle and I have always gotten along OK and I’ve tried to be reasonable and diplomatic.

Les has some interesting and more mature posts from time to time, but he also likes to cross-post things that he knows are not welcome at this site. Apparently it’s not enough that the headline for his post at his blog and his post at Michael Silence both appear in the “Blog-o-Rama” sidebar where anyone who is interested can click on it and read it. One day I demoted something that was not appropriate for the intended purpose and audience of this site and he put it back on the front page, I demoted it again, he put it back, and this went on four or five times. I guess he thought it was cute or fun or something. But I let it go at the time. Then he cross-posted something again this week that I did not feel was appropriate or of interest to readers of this site (a gun post with a crude headline and a link to a site I do not wish to promote). I demoted it. He complained. I explained. He complained some more.

While all this is going on, #9 is going off the deep end about an argument between two other commenters that didn’t involve him, complaining about me, the site, the site rules, calling me a hypocrite, etc. etc.

I really hate that Les and Uncle are taking it so personally. I’ve met both of them, and they are nice folks in person, and they are both interesting bloggers. This is just blog business, and they have theirs and I have mine. I don’t tell them how to run theirs, and I would have appreciated the same in return. I note, however, that I can’t post on the front pages of their blogs.

As I said in the other explanation, this change has been in the works for a long time. I just don’t have the time or interest in explaining things over and over to people who complain about how they are treated or how I run this website. I was almost afraid to look at my own website in the morning for fear of what someone may have posted in the middle of the night in the unrestricted mode the site was working in (and there has been some really crazy, scary stuff). As I also explained in the other thread, there are limitations in the software that do not provide a practical solution for me to deal with it in a timely and efficient manner, and frankly I’m tired of the aggravation.

So we decided to take the site in a different direction and more strictly enforce the original “liberal/progressive” intent of the site, and to relieve me of the administrative burden of monitoring people who violate the spirit of that and then want to argue about it, and then have to spend more time posting stupid, lengthy explanations such as this. Uncle actually suggested it. He said the “asterisk should be by ‘open'” (suggesting, I suppose, that I should explain “open” similar to how I had to explain “progressive”). He was right. I have now learned that sadly you can’t have a truly “open” site on the internet and maintain any purpose or quality or mature conversation.

There are 237 users with blog posting privileges. Most never post to their blog. That number will fluctuate over time. Some will be added, some will be removed. Someday there might be updates or addons to the software that will allow a more streamlined and/or “democratic” process, but for now that’s the way it is.

So some people may leave, some people may get mad or get their feelings hurt (the discussion at the thread at SayUncle’s place is a pretty good indicator of the level of maturity and the motives of some previous posters here — it’s a Stalinist purge, I’m a liar and a hypocrite, KnoxViews readers are a mindless herd and/or pack of animals, it’s all related to Imus (?) etc. etc., oh, and I just now saw that Uncle is kiddingly but it’s not funny suggesting that his readers sabotage this site with a legal time bomb — nice!), and that’s too bad, but that, too, is what it is.

Metulj Says:
April 11th, 2007 at 8:36 pm

Hey, #9. You just violated R. Neal’s copyright. That’s not fair use. Take it down. Bwwwwaaaaahaaaaaaahaaaaa!

#9 Says:
April 11th, 2007 at 9:00 pm

Butterfly, that is why I like you. You have a sense of humor.

Metulj Says:
April 11th, 2007 at 10:21 pm

No. I am serious. You copied without comment. HYPOCRITE!!!!!!

rachel Says:
April 12th, 2007 at 12:15 am

Andy said to Nine: your ideology is the least of my concern with you.

The digit has an ideology beyond being the Internet’s masked crusader of the “little people”?

Nine: KnoxViews has more local readership than any other local Knox County blog.

Might be true. And I’m sure you think it’s because of your wit and wisdom and KnoxViews will just wither on the vine without you. Hate to break it to you but it’s not and it won’t.

Nine: The idea to separate users into classes is just another example of far left classism.

Would that be the collectivist far left or the New Urbanist fascist new left? I can never remember which evil thing I’m supposed to be this week.

SayUncle » State of the blog address Says:
April 12th, 2007 at 9:30 am

[…] Knoxviews thing has me kinda bummed (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, see here and here. Or here for the Cliff Notes version). It’s like losing an old friend. Or, you know, […]

#9 Says:
April 13th, 2007 at 1:23 pm

Was this how the purge started?

Called into action Darth Vader implements his plan.

The end of KnoxViews?

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