Offensive, Fraudulent, and Politically Tainted User Names
gandalf1936
REGISTERED
The world is too full of lies and otherwise offensive material. I believe the users of this site would appreciate any effort its controllers take not to permit user names running afoul of normal good taste, truthfulness, and the use of this much-appreciated pastime for political messaging. Mr. Trump is NOT President, and the user name advancing the documented fraud at the Democratic Vice Pesidential candidate's expense would be examples of such misuse of privilege.
Comments
Hi @gandalf1936 if you see an offensive user name then you can message the Green Felt Guys @david or @jim directly and, when they’ve got time away from their day jobs, I’m sure they will help out.
In the meantime here’s a thread where David explains GF’s position on this matter
https://forum.greenfelt.net/discussion/12629/remove-user
Here are two more examples of objectionable 'handles' seen this morning (tRumpSuxDik K♥m♥l♥ th♥ h♥) Establishing and implementing a policy for your approval of the use of made-up handles that have given or are likely to give some users offense is NOT censorship, It is defining the conditions for use of a public site that you have created and operate. You are not ''burning' (censoring) the play; you are establishing the rules for player identification purposes on your site.
I can go elsewhere to play but have found your site the best for my purposes. But I will cease play here if you cannot oblige users of the space you've created to make clear you will not support users incurring other users' offense by fabricating and using 'handles' failing to follow decorum in a public space for which you are responsible. I don't have to be part of contribution to the further deepening of the diminution leading to the demise of the Commons.
@gandalf1936 - Have a nice day, play on or leave is your choice. Look around, there are people who want to do exactly what you imply/suggest - RULES - NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!! Sorry but the first amendment protects free speech no shouting FIRE etc, but some people are going to say things you don't like, or print things that are truly
nasty TO YOU. This APP is run by 2 excellent, kind, thoughtful, generous humans. They are attempting the impossible, making everybody happy. Enjoy Greenfelt
Well @gandalf1936 given your ultimatum, it seems your departure is self imposed.
As mentioned earlier, if you see an offensive user name you can message jim or david directly. It will mean some effort on your part.
This is not a First Amendment issue. That amendment protects U.S. citizens from the government limiting speech. As a privately managed website, Green Felt is free to censor user names however they wish. Or not.
Jim and David have opted to exercise a light touch. I respect that. If I were in their position. I sure would not want to police such nonsense.
It would be nice if each of us could hide the names of other individual players, kind of like Facebook allows hiding all posts by other members of a group. But as a software professional I know that would not be trivial to implement. So each of us is left with the choice of enduring/ignoring the boors in our midst or not using this fine, free site.
I agree with I.am.Deus that it's not a First Amendment issue. I also understand why Jim and David want to keep a light touch on their creation and minimize interference in their day jobs.
Candidly, I use Green Felt as therapy; I've been a high energy public servant for over sixty years since the 1950's. Making contributions of one sort or other to the Commons has kept my mind sharp and in service to MLK, Jr.'s "moral arc of the universe bending toward justice . . ."
I neither expect nor want the pissants of contemporary "culture" to intrude on the benefit I derive from Green Felt or contribute to the growing offense I find over the boorishness daily visited on us by people who persist in verbally assaulting us all rather than just putting a sock in it.
I'll try to do two things. One, I'll continue to call out, by handle, those I find particularly offensive. Two, I'll set aside some time to imagine the elements of a simple system to accept or delete Green Felt 'handles' that might be devised. I use computers, obviously, but do not consider myself computer literate.
I've already spent several hours on this. Part of my problem is I have long COVID; it makes linear thinking, writing, editing, task sequencing, etc. exceedingly difficult for me over the past six months. Part is that those same cognitive potholes have prevented me from figuring out how to send messages directly to @jim and @david; any help on how I can do so would be much appreciated. Thanks.
I love DEUS (GOD) & GANDALF (GREAT WIZARD) pontificating on the 1st Amendment which is indeed, as written,
protection from the GUMINT but as treated in latter years it trickles down to the use of language by EVERYMAN.
Greenfelt can censor anything they wish but they choose not to. Your original postings called it "good manners?"
Have either of you, the afore mentioned GOD & WIZARD, been to an NFL (Football) game? Or any major sports event? A corner bar? Been in an automobile accident? In an inane argument with someone who knows they're right?
I paste @fingsaint's note: "Well @gandalf1936 given your ultimatum, it seems your departure is self imposed"
Nothing wrong with being correct and using "good manners" it is a pain in the ASS to be lectured by GOD and GANDALF ( The greatest wizard in Hogwarts history ) AND in this INANE argument - I may not be right but I know neither of you are either.
Hi @gandalf1936 to contact jim or david outside of the forum, you can correspond using the ‘message’ feature. At the top of the page you will see an ‘inbox’ icon. If you click on that and then select ‘new message’ this will give you the option to send a private message to any Green Felt recipient.
Here’s a screenshot
Thank you, fingsaint, ;-) I appreciate your instructions.
@Ptownpapa: Watcha smokin’, Shermie? If you had asserted that this was a “freedom of speech” issue, then your “language of EVERYMAN” argument would have flown well enough. But no. You specifically cited the First Amendment. You and others who assert the First Amendment as if it protects free speech in all contexts are simply wrong. Indefensibly so. If you think being called on that constitutes pontification, then you must be a treat at parties!
What in blazes are you on about here?: “Have either of you … been to an NFL (Football) game? Or any major sports event? A corner bar? Been in an automobile accident? In an inane argument with someone who knows they're right?” No clue what your point is, but since you asked: yes, yes, yes, and yes (the last as recently as yesterday day, except in that bizarre case the other party acknowledged they’re full of pooh…)
As to your repeated references to my user name, “I.am.Deus” is simply a reference to my regular moniker on this site, DeusExMachina, which for some reason has not worked reliably on the forum side for a couple of years. Referring to myself as God would never occur to me since I do not believe in any deity. (No offense to those who do!)
Oh, and by the way, at the risk of pontificating again, Gandalf is from JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth. He has nothing to do with J. K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter/Hogwarts world.
GEE GOD, you're RIGHT.
Vicisti, Galilæe.
Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;
Holy Dooly, I know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but that rant is totally confusing. Wow - If greenfelt is unable to suit your needs then that's an ISH-You. We love it and we know that those who run the site do their best, and we are thankful for them. Please be mindful that you can please some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time. There will always be those that try to disrupt and try to get others to react, no matter how hard we try to stop them there are always more to take their place if they move on. Try have a nice day everyone and think kind thoughts!
AMEN to you @jabba,
As @graeme says - PLAY ON
Enjoy the day all
Ptownpapa.Yes,we will always have this problem.I never let it interfere with my play.Just play on and enjoy the game.Take care.
FWIW, both of the names mentioned so far have been censored—censored names have cute little hearts instead of vowels (you'll notice one of the names @gandalf1936 pasted in was already censored). Our policy for censoring is a bit nebulous since it's very hard to have precise guidelines for this kind of thing unless we spend way too much time thinking about it and discussing and drawing up documents… Ugh. That's not on my list. Our general guideline is "words you can't say on US broadcast television in prime time" get censored. But it's also got a flavor of "I know profanity when I see it" mixed in there, too.
Ultimately, wherever the line is drawn, someone is going to think we went too far and someone else is going to think we didn't go far enough. Though to be honest I don't think I've ever seen someone complain about being censored or complain about us censoring too much.
One thing Jim and I have discussed is making it so users have to the ability to censor any names they don't like (for themselves only, it wouldn't affect what other people see). Actually I think the idea was to rename them. So you'd click on some name you don't like and type "FluffyLittleBunnies" or something else innocuous and from then on that user is shown to you with that new name. There's a lot of behind the scenes stuff that would have to happen to get that to work well, so no promises…