It all began with a suggestion I made, the kind of suggestion which really shouldn't have been a source of much drama:
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Being able to set our own titles
Jun 13, 2:02pm 1
An option I'd like to see: To be able to change the title for one's Stumbleupon blog. I'm not talking about changing the userid or the url, but merely the name of one's blog, as seen in that blue bar at the top of the screen, to the left of the name of the browser one is using. The default setting would remain what the title is for everybody right now
"username's profile - Stumbleupon"
with one's username in lowercase. Nothing would change on the sites of those who didn't want to make use of the option, but those who wished to personalise their sites with what they considered to be more descriptive titles would have the freedom to do so. This should be an easy option to implement, one requiring no more than a single added line on the preferences page, probably under "public profile" - "Title of your Stumbleupon blog". Certainly, Blogger, Wordpress, Livejournal and Tribe have had no difficulty implementing that kind of functionality, to take four examples that spring readily to mind.
The expected clusterloving of the newbie may now begin. 
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But "shouldn't" and "wouldn't" would prove to be two very different things, as somebody would soon find something to complain about and, having found her complaints successfully rebutted, round up a friend of hers who was "helping out" as an administrator to step in when she and an ally started losing the argument.
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Anitab Jun 13, 2:25pm 2
sounds harmless.
unfortunately.. i can see a lot of abuse of the feature.
Joseph Dunphy (me) Jun 13, 2:28pm 3
Such as ... what? Other services have offered this option for years, with no problems reported to date. A title is, after all, nothing but text. How much harm can one do with it?
Anitab Jun 13, 2:32pm 4
i'm just thinking of some of our more colourful stumblers that may use more colourful language to describe their blogs.
heh.. just words? some can be offensive, vulgar, hostile.. etc.
but who knows.. people could change. :)
Joseph Dunphy (me) Jun 13, 2:45pm 5
"i'm just thinking of some of our more colourful stumblers that may use more colourful language to describe their blogs.
heh.. just words? some can be offensive, vulgar.. etc."
- Users who wish to act like that can do so in the text of their blogs, anyway, and then go on to add even more offensive images. If we were to follow that argument to its logical conclusion, insisting that any option which could be subjected to misuse be eliminated, we'd then have to issue a call for the shutting down of all posting on the basis that somebody's posts might be offensive, which would then raise the question of what any of the rest of us would have left to do here.
- Existing technology does allow systems to scan for forbidden words and delete them, if that is really a concern. Proboards have been set to do so for years, now, and as have Bravenet guestbooks and forums on all free accounts. Of course, I suppose it is theoretically possible that the programming technologies of Stumbleupon and its parent company eBay are years behind that of both of those other services, and that StumbleUpon can't do what either of these other companies did with ease back in 2002, but I would prefer to think more highly of our host and its abilities than that.
Wouldn't you?
Anitab Jun 13, 2:58pm 6
1. i don't think the idea should be eliminated... just explored a little more.
2. i trust they know what they're doing, yes.
Joseph Dunphy (me) Jun 13, 3:22pm 7
"i don't think the idea should be eliminated... just explored a little more."
Discussion is certainly a good thing, but given that the concern you raised could be addressed by off the shelf technology six years ago, I wonder what we will be exploring. Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but it sounds to me a little like you're saying that Stumbleupon should wait on acting on the suggestion currently under discussion, indefinitely.
If so, then what, precisely, is the difference between stalling an action indefinitely and not taking it at all? If this is not what you mean, could you please explain your meaning at greater length, so that any misunderstanding may be laid to rest?
Anitab Jun 13, 3:22pm 8
um... ok. interesting idea.
let's see if anyone else is interested.
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I had a feeling, at that point, that she was going to go rounding up friends and see if she could prevail through politically, having lost the argument on points. I don't tend to have a lot of faith in intution, but this time, it wasn't wrong. Today, June 14, 2008, somebody began to play politics. The exchange began as I heard from one of Anitab's 15 year old supporters. That's not a snide remark on my part - the man's ... or should that be boy's ... own profile lists his age as being 15.
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Lokito 2:39am 9
5: It'd work if the text only appeared on the person's own page/review page, but it also shows up on the pages of those who have reviewed the stumbler. So, if I go to a G rated page and see that the G rated stumbler has thumbed down an R or X rated stumbler who has set their page title to something "vulgar" (which most likely includes the ever-popular AIDS related phraseology), my G rated preference settings have been interfered with. Considering also that someone who has their content settings on G or R can still see the header of an X rated page (minus the avatar), one could end up seeing an "offending" title right on the page that's supposed to be blocked. Also, while this may simply offend the sensibilities of some stumblers, certain stumblers like me aren't supposed to be able to view any R or X rated content due to age restrictions. I wouldn't care, but it's how the system is supposed to work.
So, word filtering. It's an easy solution, but in my experience stumblers go bat- let me rephrase - become rather upset when they believe they're being censored.
Which wouldn't be the case at all, but perception > reality where reality is a nonnegative integer.
Otherwise, yeah, good idea. :)
Joseph Dunphy (me) 9:56am 10
"So, if I go to a G rated page and see that the G rated stumbler has thumbed down an R or X rated stumbler who has set their page title to something 'vulgar' (which most likely includes the ever-popular AIDS related phraseology), my G rated preference settings have been interfered with."
Just out of curiosity - have you ever used a search engine? If so, then how did you deal with the fact that almost every site that appears in the search engine results was set up by a somebody who had that very same dangerous freedom that you're now fighting to keep others from being able to enjoy on Stumbleupon - to be able to choose the titles for their own pages? It would seem to me that you're complaining about the possibility of encountering a danger that you've implicitly accepted in the process of deciding to go online. It is as if you had gone onto a highway, and then demanded that all car dealerships be shut down because somebody might have chosen to drive recklessly. In other words, this seems to me to be a proposal that the freedom of others be subjected to unreasonable limitation, because you don't want to have to take responsibility for your own personal choices. Further, there is a fundamental unreality built into your argument:
"Also, while this may simply offend the sensibilities of some stumblers, certain stumblers like me aren't supposed to be able to view any R or X rated content due to age restrictions. I wouldn't care, but it's how the system is supposed to work.
So, word filtering. It's an easy solution"
Implementing word filtering on title selection would mean that the very bad words that would supposedly damage your delicate 15 year old mind beyond repair, should you see them, wouldn't be in the titles for you to see in the first place, either from a G rated account or otherwise, which I believe would leave you postulating an unreal scenario in order to raise a dubious complaint.
"but in my experience stumblers go bat- let me rephrase - become rather upset when they believe they're being censored."
So, we are to respond to this by preemptively censoring everybody indiscriminately, which I'm sure will leave the users absolutely delighted?
But thank you for stumbling onto a key point in the course of making a joke - anybody who thinks that teenagers need to be protected from swear words hasn't heard them talk at any point in the last few decades. They know these words already, and the mere presence of them most certainly does not render a site "R-rated", although those words may certainly be most inappropriate. For a site to be R rated, one needs the kind of violent or sexually explicit material that even the most imaginative writer is most unlikely to be able to squeeze into a few words. A title is not an essay, it is a name, with no pictures or videos included - and I think that you know that.
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My response had been, under any sensible standard, perfectly civil and perfectly reasonable, but I had shredded the arguments of Anitab's supporter, which is what tends to happen when one turns to a 15 year old ally for support. Fortunately for her and her ambitions, sort of, Anitab had a trump card to pull - one of her friends (a user calling himself "CH") was an administrator, as we can see in these screenshots of his profile and friends page. Not so well veiled threats from our boy, who felt no need to disclose his relationship with one of the parties engaged in the argument or the conflict of interest that this would present, soon followed, as he seriously tried to suggest that counterargument was a violation of the rules of the forum. Some of us tried to continue as well as we could, with the "administrator" being there to disrupt the discussion, as he was.
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CH 10:05am 11
This is a feature thread. Keep it on topic, and refrain from making it personal. Thanks.
s1956 10:52am 12
1: Interesting idea. We now have user id for the blog name and this doesn't allow for two blogs to have the same name.
9: And what about user avatars? I have my preferences set to not show R\X and yet I see their avatars on review pages, and when they visit me. Besides, there is an option not to show adult favorites.
Joseph Dunphy (me) 11:48am 13
"And what about user avatars?"
Good point. What's to keep a user from incorporating adult imagery into his or her avatar? Any photo can be turned into an icon, including a pornographic one. If we were to accept the argument from before, that Stumbleupon ought to deny all of its users the freedom to choose the titles for their own pages because a few of them might misuse that freedom, using it to put a title's worth of offensive material out where the general public can see it, then wouldn't we be led to the conclusion that icons should be pre-set as well? After all, which thought would be more troubling - that of one of the impressionable young encountering a few coarse words, or that of some of them seeing the sort of imagery published in a magazine such as Hustler?
Yet I don't hear anybody calling for the elimination of avatars based on photographs. Indeed, of those participating in this thread, including CH the staff member, everybody but s1956 (whose avatar is a silouhette) has done exactly that, indicating through their actions a support for the creative freedom of the user in this area, a support which seems widespread among the membership of Stumbleupon in general. Does this not suggest a degree of inconsistency in some of the positions seen, and if so, how might that inconsistency best be resolved?
CH 12:00pm 14
13: I participate simply to remind you of the forum and community rules, josephdunphy. Please do not presume otherwise.
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The link to my Stumbleupon blog was his (the opening of the link into a new window and the change of the link color being my contibutions), and the message isn't very subtle. The man is issuing a threat against my membership - "here's your profile, look, I could delete it, so don't even dare to so much as suggest that I'm being unreasonable". This is a gross an abuse of an adminstrator's power, and I responded with a letter of complaint sent to eBay and cc-ed to Stumbleupon. As common sense would suggest and a brief examination of the community guidelines in place on that day will confirm, there was no rule in place on that day that I had broken. There was no rule against beating somebody in an argument, no, not even if that person is a friend of an administrator or a mouthy 15 year old boy. The administrator makes reference to "making it personal", which comes closest to being a reference to this rule:
"No personal insults towards other stumblers - respond to the issues raised, not to the person."
except that even that rule doesn't work the way he wants it to, unless one quotes it out of context, reading it as
"Respond to the issues raised, not to the person."
but leaving out the first half of that sentence transforms its meaning, and unless the administrator is incapable of reading English at even a high school level, he knows it. To point to the inconsistencies in somebody else's positions is not to insult him, even if the recognition of those inconsistencies may, in some small way, diminish him in the eyes of others; if we interpret the word "insult" so broadly as to make that a sufficient condition to support the charge that an insult has been made, then any victory in an argument could be deemed an insult. Indeed, as simple a thing as writing a better review of the same subject site could be referred to as being an "insult" on those terms, and become cause for disciplinary action. Under that interpretation, any use of the site at all would be a violation of the terms of service, and if that's the case, then why would the site exist at all, and why would it offer memberships? Merely by being, the company stipulates that any such interpretation is absurd.
What CH has done is play the postmodern game of trying to make a capricious action in support of a meritless complaint made by a friend seem legitimate by changing the meanings of the words he uses to something other than that established by centuries of usage; this is a dodge, and it is corrupt. Corrupt enough to have earned my distrust, so on the off chance that the misbehaving administrator in question should attempt to cover his tracks by deleting the discussion that he disrupted, I've decided to create a page of screenshots of that same discussion. Note that the sections of the pages covered by the screenshots overlap, and together include the entirety of the two pages on which the discussion has occured at the time of this writing (which would be around 6:37 pm, Chicago time, June 14, 2008).
If eBay and Stumbleupon do the right thing and take action against the offending parties, I will be delighted to given them credit for doing so; given the chance to do so honestly and rationally, I prefer to think well of people. However, if, as I fear is likely to be the case, they will show that they hold right and wrong in no great regard and allow this person to continue abusing his authority, I'll mention that, as well, as I reconsider the nature of my relationship with those two companies and urge others to do so as well. Yes, I can respect other points of view, where there is room for reasonable disagreement.
On this one, there just isn't.
Added, 2:26 am June 15, 2008: I have since, as a matter of simple fairness, sent a message to the moderator / owner of the Stumbleupon group that these posts appeared in, whose contents you can see on this page; the moderator is named Geoff, his profile appearing here, and he would appear to be one of the founders of Stumbleupon. I have had the sense to download copies of my pages at Stumbleupon, just in case they are capriciously deleted. I am not feeling encouraged as I notice that CH is listed as one of Geoff's friends, but I will give the man a chance to do the right thing.
If I should end up seeing the ethics of a corrupt small town in action, I can always repost my reviews elsewhere.
Added, 4:36 pm June 18, 2008, with slight revision, July 7 at 5:39 pm. More posts, some more after that, then yet another page, more screenshots, still more post and more commentary to come.
Options: 1. Go to the Homepage for This Group.
2. Go to the Stumbleupon and eBay Group, itself.
3. Go to The Abyss (My Stumbleupon Blog)
4. Return to Your Ring
Return to your Ring
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