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YouWriteOn.com / New Generation Publishing / Legend Press

Gunn

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Ah but you can post, just as long as Ted likes what you have to say!
 

qwerty

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I've just tried to post and got this;

Approval Required
Thank you for your post.

Because this forum is moderated, your post needs to be approved first by a Moderator or System Administrator before it appears publicly.

That never used to happen. One good way of stopping adverse opinions!

I suppose we can assume the blocking and monitoring of posts before they get to the public forum is just one new function public money has been used to install.

On the other hand, the new improved message board seems to be in place for the purpose of promoting the YWO/Legend Press publishing project.
 

Gunn

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Well said, Qwerty.

Looking through it also seems that the forums have been 'purged'. He's missed one though. Esta's post on The Hopes, Dreams and Broken Schemes Forum entitled Anyone else in the dark? talks of a 'deafening silence'. I think the stress of it all must be the cause of the poor woman's apparent head transplant. Bet it doesn't stay there long - the post that is not her head.

Joking aside I do think it's a disgrace.
 

TheRightEyedDeer

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As a general rule, I think that forums requiring 'approval' before a post appears are being run by people who are very afraid of democracy. Plus, it obviously indicates a high level of fear about what people are going to say about their operation.

If you're doing nothing wrong and you've got nothing to hide, there's nothing to be afraid of, right?
 

SassyB

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This new 'moderation' disturbs me deeply as in the past Ted always endorsed the right of freedom of speech and diverse opinion.
 

Old Hack

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This new 'moderation' disturbs me deeply as in the past Ted always endorsed the right of freedom of speech and diverse opinion.

And yet he deleted several of my posts in which I discussed publishing from my perspective (I worked as a non-fiction editor in mainstream publishing), and many posts from other writers who were critical of his publishing scheme.
 

SassyB

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And yet he deleted several of my posts in which I discussed publishing from my perspective (I worked as a non-fiction editor in mainstream publishing), and many posts from other writers who were critical of his publishing scheme.

Hi OH, I know you from talkback.
Yeah, I saw all that. I found all that appalling too. I left the YWO site in disgust months ago and have watched it decline into the farce it now seems to be.
 

victoriastrauss

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I hear what you all are saying about moderation. For exactly this reason, I don't employ comment moderation on my blog--I want anyone who disagrees with me to be free to comment. Ditto for this forum. For it to have any credibility at all, a balance of views needs to be represented, and dissent must not be feared.

That said, a private message board exists at the prerogative of its owner, and it's the owner's right to block or delete posts as he sees fit. Whatever one may think of Ted's decision, it is his message board, and he can set policy as he chooses.

- Victoria
 

jpfife

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That said, a private message board exists at the prerogative of its owner, and it's the owner's right to block or delete posts as he sees fit. Whatever one may think of Ted's decision, it is his message board, and he can set policy as he chooses.

- Victoria

But is it a private message board? I thought Ted received Arts Council money for the forums, and getting public money should preclude them from being private I would think.
 

Skate

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I hear what you all are saying about moderation. For exactly this reason, I don't employ comment moderation on my blog--I want anyone who disagrees with me to be free to comment. Ditto for this forum. For it to have any credibility at all, a balance of views needs to be represented, and dissent must not be feared.

That said, a private message board exists at the prerogative of its owner, and it's the owner's right to block or delete posts as he sees fit. Whatever one may think of Ted's decision, it is his message board, and he can set policy as he chooses.

- Victoria

And we can leave if we don't like it - which I and I suspect a lot of others did when the forums became a battlefield. There was definitely a need for moderation. Some of the threads became quite puerile. I'm not necessarily talking about the ones pertaining to YWO here. I'm talking about the ones that descended into writers slinging off at each other. But this is censoring out whatever isn't in the moderator's favour, not moderation.
 

qwerty

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Whatever one may think of Ted's decision, it is his message board, and he can set policy as he chooses.

Unfortunately, that is what Ted seems to believe. Equally unfortunately, it appears that the Arts Council condone that attitude.

The message board does not belong to Ted. Public money was used to set up the YWO web site. It is hosted and maintained at public cost. As the manager, Edward Smith recieves payment from public funds and has a duty to operate the whole scheme in a responsible manner.

Amongst other inappropriate actions, censoring posts made by the public because they question his chosen policies is not an acceptable practice.

I think most of us here feel that using public money to promote vanity publishing is not in the best interest of aspiring authors. But, if the Arts Council England persist in handing out public money without addressing their responsibility to ensure the money is used appropriately, so be it.
 

qwerty

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This new 'moderation' disturbs me deeply as in the past Ted always endorsed the right of freedom of speech and diverse opinion.

Er, not exactly. In the past he has been quick to lock threads and silence anyone who asked questions he preferred not to answer.
 

HJW

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Maybe it's a temporary thing. Ted's ramble did say that full message board functions wouldn't be back until next week.

I can't see how he'd be able to moderate every post and run a successful publishing company*.

I hope I'm right.





*That's me being sarcastic.
 

victoriastrauss

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Unfortunately, that is what Ted seems to believe. Equally unfortunately, it appears that the Arts Council condone that attitude.

The message board does not belong to Ted. Public money was used to set up the YWO web site. It is hosted and maintained at public cost.

It seems to me that the public money means that membership in YWO must be open to the public. But I don't see that this precludes the message board from being moderated.

- Victoria
 

SassyB

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Er, not exactly. In the past he has been quick to lock threads and silence anyone who asked questions he preferred not to answer.

I'm talking the dim and distant past, long before the self-publishing scheme. I left the site long before that happened and watched from a safe distance.
 

qwerty

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I'm talking the dim and distant past, long before the self-publishing scheme.

Me too. Way back in 2006 Ted was intolerant of people asking questions he didn't want raised.
 

Old Hack

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Going to prior moderation may be all that's keeping his board from overflowing with information about Acai Berries, Real Estate Investment Opportunities, Genuine Nike Shoes, and Viagra.

I'm sure that PublishAmerica limits posting rights on its message board to the writers it's published for exactly that reason, Uncle Jim...!

Joking apart, there is no sign that moderation is going to be used to filter out the people who have been critical of YWO in the past. I did try to post on the board yesterday, and my post has not yet appeared: but I'm sure that's just because Ted has too much on his hands to get around to approving everyone's comments.
 

Gunn

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Ted posted today;

"At the moment, we're just completing a few projects this week, the board will return to posting as it was before - posts appearing straight away - during next week.

Thank you for all your warm welcomes.

Assignment Robot will get the ladder out and press the button that enables this next week."
 
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Gunn

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The numbers in 'members active' on the forums is steadily rising - 96 earlier this evening. There used to be around 140 back in the day. All or most of the old regulars are there plus a few new names. Posts still seem to be taking two days or more to go up so I think that's why it is still quiet.
 
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M.R.J. Le Blanc

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Well in the context of this situation, this screening comments is bad for two reasons:

-though there's no proof, there's a lot to suspect that the reason for screening comments all of a sudden is to keep unflattering posts out of the public eye. It's control, so that any bad stuff doesn't scare off newbies.

-if it's only Ted, as things try to pick up he's going to be hard-pressed to keep up with all the posts. People will get frustrated and either leave or complain somewhere somehow.
 

Old Hack

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I attempted to post on the YWO board on 22 March--six days ago. I didn't write anything inflammatory, nor did I refer to the publishing scheme: I just explained the difference between line editing, copy editing and proof reading, because I saw a thread in which the three were confused.

My post has not yet appeared.

Perhaps Ted is still a bit too busy to get round to approving it.
 

Gunn

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Ted continues to stall. He's posted today - yet again - that the forums will be back to normal sometime this week. He witters on about Assignment Robot (aka himself ) having to find the right fuse. Not sure who he thinks he's kidding.

A handful of thank you posts are getting through and I notice he found the time to approve a post by a member saying how pleased he is with sales of his YWO published book. Not cherry-picking at all then!