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A word from Julie, Your Cruise Director
Ahoy, both mateys and lubbers,
You know that I try to manage the forums at CreativeCOW.net with a very, very light hand, preferably none at all.
If all I need to do is edit one word in a post, that’s all I do.
If I can manage a thread by removing one post, that’s all I do.
In extreme cases, I might send an email or two.
In one recent case, though, for the first time since I arrived here in 2006, I have exercised the nuclear option. A specific account and its posts have been vaporized.
I hesitated, because some of his posts (primarily in other forums) were vaguely helpful, but after spending all day working through this problem one post a time, it became clear what I really needed to do.
I don’t typically announce having taken an administrative action, but with over 400 posts in the past 90 days alone, I think you’d have noticed his absence pretty quickly.
As harsh as I’m afraid my action may seem, it was done out of respect to the many of you who flagged those posts as inappropriate, voted them down, and contacted me directly about them over the past months. It was also done because, frankly, as much as I value this as a full-contact forum, I don’t want his account to be part of our online legacy.
The immediate fallout will be a bunch of messy threads, because Nuclear Boy elicited a number of responses that will be left hanging.
I started to clean up all those threads for the sake of continuity, but enough of the replies to those posts had good things that actually DID further the conversation that I stopped my efforts, and I’m leaving almost all of them intact.
My apologies, dear passenger, if your post was in a thread that was mangled along the way. Please do not take it personally. And, as an editor myself, I’m sorry to have broken the narrative so messily.
Some final notes.
— I think that much of the juicy goodness will be restored to the forum via subtraction, so to speak, now that that one fella is gone, but I will remind you of the ONE RULE of this forum: no posts about other posters.
As a starting place, please stop saying “AD HOMINEM.” An informal survey showed that, with some obvious exceptions, some variation of the phrase “ad hominem attack” was used in the PERFORMANCE of an ad hominem attack more often than not.
AND IF ONE OF YOU SAYS “HE STARTED IT FIRST,” I SWEAR I WILL PULL THIS CAR OVER.
Heh heh, sorry, accidentally channeling my dad there.
So if you can, please turn down the heat just a bit. A bit. Just enough to prevent boiling over. Consider when it’s time to post more slowly. If you need a day to cool off now and again, please take it. I certainly had to do that myself in this forum’s early days. More than once. A LOT.
Most important, though, again, please don’t hesitate to talk to me about this, or anything else. As ever, I’m easy to find. Just contact me via the link at the top of the page.
— What’s that you say? You don’t understand my reference to Julie, Your Cruise Director or why it’s the subject line of this otherwise very serious post? The Love Boat! Dang man, she got the “AND” billing at the end of the opening credits. Peep this clip from ca. 1979, featuring our gal Julie:
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Yes, there were drugs involved.
— Sort of speaking of which, the final of my final notes: the place you’ll find me posting most often is in fact the COW’s TV & Movie Appreciation forum. A good time is had by all. Please swing by. Mike Cohen just started a great thread on 70s Cinema that I think will be right in the wheelhouse for many of you.
If you’d rather talk about some other aspect of movies or TV shows in that forum, including current stuff, please do. In addition to being some of the world’s most sophisticated media producers, you’re some of its most sophisticated viewers. I’d love to hear what you think.
Kidding about The Love Boat aside, I want to thank you all for being part of the COW, in many cases, from the beginning…and even back to its predecessor community. I appreciate your energy and insights, and I’m always very, very glad to hear from you directly if you care to write.
Thanks again,
Julie, Your Cruise Director
Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW -
31 Replies
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Thank’s Tim,
Who said overseeing a democratic forum was easy? Things were sliding downhill fast in a way that was uncharacteristic and unpleasant and I applaud you for enforcing the line in the sand.
What seems like fun quickly turns out not to be fun. The fact that this forum thrives on strong disagreements, ironic humour and banter whilst still communicating highly technical information is what keeps me signing in.
So thanks for stepping in and in the words of Bruce Cockburn ‘Open up the window let the bad air out’
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Tim, thank you for the morning laugh.
Santiago Martí
http://www.robotrojo.com.ar
Red One M-X, Red Epic X waiting for Dragon update, Red Pro Primes, Adobe CC, Assimilate Scratch -
Tim, your actions were just as respectable as they were necessary. I can’t help but feel some level of relief, there was an absurd amount of frustrating-to-read and nonconstructive posts. The pastures are better for their annihilation.
I quite enjoy reading the vast majority of banter in a variety of the forums here, not to mention all the selfless, trouble shooting assistance, tips, tools and advice freely given by all the regulars here. Since discovering CreativeCOW a few years ago, I’ve always felt it to be of some higher caliber (for lack of a better description) in its level of professionalism and collaborative atmosphere. The only way I figure that “feeling” could come about in relation to a Disscussion Forum, is through the quality of the discussions themselves. Which is a direct result of every post by each member of the community. Hey, nothing is perfect, people will get into it, but it’s feelin pretty good around here right now.
Thank you for your efforts.
Once I realized what this thread was about, this scene immediately came to mind-
Tim “The White”
https://youtu.be/SFogXTIv3MY -
Cool!
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production, Post, Studio Sound Stage
Founder/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com -
Tim –
I was raised in a household where dinner-time debate was the family entertainment – we had it, along with ice cream, after every meal. It was dirty, it was devious and it was always to the death. This upbringing has had occasional unpleasant consequences for those around me for many years and I would like to apologize to the forum, knowing that I contributed more than my share to the recent unpleasantness.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
Thanks, Tim. They’re not paying your enough (they’re not paying you at all!). Happy Holidays.
Doug D
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Thank you, Tim – you’re in a tough position there, and the scarcity of events such as this reminds us of just how hard you struggle to remain hands-off. I can think of only two of these in the last few years (bearing in mind that I only frequent a dozen of the many forums). I generally learn more here from the people I initially disagree with than vice-versa, and it’s the openness to the occasional call down or cat fight that keeps the COW lively.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
There’s been a few morn’s I’ve awoke, clicked in and wondered if I was gonna be nuked myself, yet somehow I’m still here lol and looking forward to more heated debates with true peers 🙂
Thanks Tim.
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 -
I’ve been away filming most of the week so I must have missed the “final straw” that has provoked Tim’s actions, but I have to say I was incredibly impressed with the way that everyone on here had been reacting to the poster in question.
Well done Tim for your actions, especially as it must have been a difficult decision. Fortunately not one you have to make very often!
Steve Connor
There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum
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[Lance Bachelder] “There’s been a few morn’s I’ve awoke, clicked in and wondered if I was gonna be nuked myself, yet somehow I’m still here lol and looking forward to more heated debates with true peers :)”
Naw, you’ve been staying away from the Merlot recently, so you’re safe. 😉
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