Saturday, December 29, 2007

Your [insert website name here] experience is ultimately ALL about YOU.

A netquaintance of mine at LiveVideo, answering a newbie question about the misuse of the bulletin board, especially during a recent round of name-calling and virtual fisticuffs, responded thusly....
This bulletin came about as a response to a new user for whom the squabbles and the mudslinging splattered all over the bulletins confused her. The bottom line question was "Arent the bulletins supposed to be used for News and Promoting videos? I'm confused...."

Technically, yes, that's how the bulletins are supposed to be used. But a lot of the time the bulletins get ABused, especially by some of the "gangs" at LiveVideo.

The real solution to the abuse of the bulletin boards is to unfriend those users who clutter up the boards with their petty squabbles. You can only see bulletins by people on your friends list.

You also have to be very vigilant about whom you add to your friends, or let add you to theirs. Check out their channel thoroughly. Look at their "Voted Videos" and "Favorite Videos" to see what they support. Look at the videos they channel to their "Our Videos" section, and look carefully at their crew. These will all give you clues as to whether the user is a serious earnest LV user, or one of the troublemakers. If you don't feel right about friending someone, then you are under NO obligation to do so.

You can still subscribe to one another if you wish to view each other's videos, but subscriptions do not show up on the bulletins. However, any negative video content they produce--and the gangs produce a LOT of them!--will show up on your "Subscription Videos" roster, so use extreme prejudice and discretion in your subscription choices as well.

Blocking is regarded as somewhat extreme by some LiveVideo users. Some even regard it as some kind of "attack" and will bawl very loudly about it! But I recommend using it as a PREEMPTIVE measure and an extra buffer against the aggression pollution perpetrated by the Gangs that infest LiveVideo and SticKam (Especially since these attention-craving parasites will never do you the courtesy of blocking YOU from consuming their electronic excrement.) The people on your Blocked List can always log out of their LV account and then surf to your channel and view your content, but they cannot contact you here.

Think of these practices as a NIELSEN RATING! If you were a company that had to pay for ad space on these channels and their videos, would you support their content, or would you wisely fear economic boycott of your products/services for your support of hate programming?

Six Most Common defensive excuses employed by the haters

1) "I am not a hater!" This is what the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis and other terrorist organizations say when they attack Jews and Brown People or anyone else who disagrees with them. The exact same principle applies here. Deny, deny, deny.

2) "I like you / I love you / I support what you do, BUT....." See that big "BUT" there? That cancels out everything that came before it. They don't support NUTHIN'!

3) "I should have the right to express my OPINION!" The battle cry of the bad-mouther. The milquetoast mealy-mouthed mating call of the misrepresenting miscreant. This laughable littany needs to be rapidly retired along with "MOAR", "LULZ" , "Owned" and the obscene overuse of "FTW", all of which are used with appalling regularity by the abusers of this site. It's practically a calling card!

4) "I'm just speaking my MIND!" Y'know?....Some things in the human mind are just better left UNspoken. They do not benefit the audience to hear them. What these "mind-speakers" constantly fail to realize is that if all they serve up for consumption is their own excrement, then WHO really wants to eat there??

5) "This is how I create my ART!!" This is what taggers say when they splotch their graffiti where people don't want it. That's called "Vandalism". And that "What IS art, really?" argument with which the Abusers feebly attempt to back up their claim and obfuscate the real issue doesn't ultimately hold water. Lots of people make art that's truly crap. The question is, do YOU really want to hang that crap on YOUR walls?

6) "You're attempting to CENSOR me!" Well.....yeah! That's the idea! LiveVideo is not a branch of the United States Government. There's no Constitutional "Freedom of Expression" here. LiveVideo is a PRIVATE enterprise, and as such, each CHANNEL is a private enterprise, subject to the rules of its user. "My channel, my rules. Don't like it? Unsubscribe!"

Temptation, Tempers and Temperance

It's VERY easy to get tempted to jump into the fray at counterattack the haters. It seems like great fun at first. Then you realize they are sucking your energy out of you by making you expend YOUR time and energy to help garner themselves more attention. Look at all the sycophants and hangers-on that they have in orbit about them. Tempers flare and it's so tempting to get online and let 'em have it. But DON'T. Fight that urge at ALL costs. Remember, the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference! Against the assault of apathy, nothing can stand. Instead, seek out the private counsel of someone you trust. Or if a hater attacks a friend of yours, reach out to them privately with words of love and support.

If you must make a video defending a friend, make it a positive shout-out to that one person, extolling their good qualities and why you recommend people subscribe to them, with absolutely NO mention of attacks or attackers.

The main goal here is to optimize your LiveVideo experience for as positive an interaction as possible. This means you have to "clean house" occasionally. Believe me it will help a great deal! You will get public and private protestations from the offended offending parties, but to make the perfect omelette of your personal LiveVideo experience you WILL have to break quite a few eggs!

Accentuate the POSITIVE

Now that you have effectively exiled the evildoers from your LiveVideo life, double your efforts to focus on all the really GREAT people here. They're not as noisy as the Hater Gangs, but they are definitely the Majority here! Let them inspire you to really use this powerful medium to maximum benefit.

Yes, it's effort and lots of vigilance, but in the long run you will experience the true joy of LiveVideo, and you will make some incredible friends here!
I most definately have!

Take care, my friends.
"Everybody be cool. YOU....Be COOL!"




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