For seraph0x and the Milovana community

[Lady X]

Dear seraph0x,

I am posting this as a thread, instead of sending you a private message. I am doing so, because I believe that others might have things to add to this, both in agreement and disagreement. I know that you are a busy person and I will do my best to be as brief as possible.

I am not a trouble maker, although as of late, it might seem that way. I do apologize for the things, I have done, that have happened recently, that have added stress to your life.

I enjoy the site that you have created and hope that even though it’s a lot of work to maintain that it is around for a long time and that I have the privilege to continue to be a part of it.

***************************************

I have two topics to discuss.

Topic One - Rude, negative and troublemaking behavior.

I do not understand, as I am sure others do not either, why someone that continues to make rude comments, is negative in their behavior and is constantly making trouble for others, over and over again, is not dealt with.

There is at least one person, and out of respect to you and to them, I will not name them directly, who continues to say things in the forums that repeatedly is off topic or causes problems or the outbreak of vile things said back and forth.
This person is responsible, even though they try and place blame elsewhere, on ruining several threads in the past week or two.

Why is nothing done to remove the problem? Why is this person and anyone else that practices such behavior not removed from this community? Is keeping this person around, worth losing other people over?

A public warning could be given, in general, to all, saying that the attacks on people need to stop or the person will be removed from the site.
You could write a brief statement and then lock it so that no comments need be made. The statement could be simple, one of fact that ANYONE that repeatedly causes trouble, starts fights, or attacks the innocent will be removed at your discretion.

Of course I am not talking about the occasional rude comment, or personality conflicts, but the repeated behavior of someone that is only here to cause problems and keep people from enjoying the site that you created.

In the link, “About”, it says, “.”Milovana is a free online community, dedicated to the safe, sane and consensual exploration of sexual technique and technology in fun and interactive ways. A safe haven for all denominations of human sexuality
Lately it does not feel like a safe haven, because even in the most sexual of threads, can be attacked with simply no reason but malice.

Please consider a solution for this problem.

***************************************

Topic Two – The Chat Room History

I started a thread on March 9th. I deleted my opening comment and it now reads differently. I also deleted a comment made in response to Indigo’s comment. I was pissed when I deleted things.
This is how the original thread looked, with my first comment and Indy’s response.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Question about the chat room
by Lady X » Wed Mar 09, 2011 4:30 pm

Just curious....will the message history in the chat room be fixed any time soon?

Thanks,

Lady X

******
by Indigo » Wed Mar 09, 2011 6:47 pm
No. Seraph0x and I discussed this at length when chat was set up, and the policy is to not keep any history of chat sessions. I was unaware that there was any history at all being kept, and have since remedied the situation. Privacy to our members is paramount to us, and as such, we as a Team feel that keeping logs of members conversations for any reason simply is not acceptable.

Sorry, Shell.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Here are thoughts I have had, as I took time to contemplate things over night and research things this morning.

I have looked over the information given on the links at the bottom of the home page….” Impressum”, “Contact Us”, “About”, “Privacy”, “Terms of Service”, and “Why is it free?”
No where does it speak of “keeping logs of members conversations for any reason simply is not acceptable.”

As a matter of fact I have found the opposite to be true.

Under “Terms of Service”, in “1. Your Acceptance” it says, “If you do not agree to any of these terms, then please do not use the Milovana Website.”
Right there, that gives any user, including myself, the right to not be here, if the web site does not offer that which we seek.

Under “Terms of Service”, in “5. User Submissions” it says, “You understand that whether or not such User Submissions are published, Milovana does not guarantee any confidentiality with respect to any submissions.” And it says, in bold, “For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions.”
I would think that would include any submission made in chat as well. I should be able to save things I have written, should I desire to, not only teases, but words written in threads and conversations spoken in chat.

This is my viewpoint for me personally.
It is no secret that Shell and I share the same body…Me – Dominate, her - submissive. Nor is it hidden that because of the ownership of Shell by Dr. D. that special circumstances must be in place to insure the control that she freely gives to Him not be compromised.
The way that was found to do this was, if Lady X was to spend time in chat, Dominating a submissive, that the chat history could be copied and pasted into an email for Dr. D.

Indy said that the chat history feature was ended due to privacy issues. How so?
If someone wanted to take the time, each post made could be copied and pasted. It’s very time consuming and mood breaking, and originally, until I discovered the chat history button, that was how I planned on sharing the scenes with Dr. D.
A chat room is public, just like the forums are.

There are many reasons why someone would want to save the log for their time in chat, besides just my personal reason.
Perhaps they really enjoyed a scene, either being part of it, or from the sidelines, watching. They may want to save it, and open it later to masturbate to.
Someone may be being harassed or any number of negative things and without having the chat history, they have no proof to share with the admin to help get the situation under control.
Perhaps someone simply likes to have a record of what was said…information they thought was important….guidance on a task, or a toy they want to purchase.
And I’m sure there are other reasons as well.

The information in the chat room is public…not private. Yes, there are private conversations that take place, such as whispers or private messages in the room, BUT….a private message sent into an inbox, could be made public, if one chose to do so.

Therefore, instead of removing a valuable tool, perhaps a “warning” could be posted, reminding everyone that this is a public place and even private messages can be copied. This could be done either in the chat room log in page, or by adding it to the words that come up when first entering the room. It could also be added to the inbox area, for private messages as well.

Why have a chat box history button, if there was not plans to use it? Perhaps it’s part of the program used to create the chat. I looked at the “source” and I realize that it might be part of the program used for the chat forum and can not be removed. I find it hard to believe that you, Indy, or any other admin or mod did not know that the box was fully functional.

I agree that privacy is of the utmost importance in a place like Milo. Lives could be ruined, if personal information got out. Milo has made it clear that personal information should not be shared, in forums and if it is shared, the admin will remove it from them.

At some point people themselves have to take responsibly for their actions and NOT give out information that could come back to bite them in the ass.

***************************************

I do appreciate your time, seraph0x, in reading down through these two topics and considering the things I have brought up.

I encourage others to post their thoughts on both topic. This is our community…to some an online home of sorts.

Thank you,
Lady X

[Lady X]

You are right Indy.....end of story..........................

Please anyone that reads this........just forget it. I can't delete it because then I'm in the wrong...again.
I'm sorry to have wasted space.

So....

PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND.....DO NOT ADD TO THIS....LET THIS THREAD DIE.

Thank You....

[Human]

There is at least one person, and out of respect to you and to them, I will not name them directly, who continues to say things in the forums that repeatedly is off topic or causes problems or the outbreak of vile things said back and forth.
This person is responsible, even though they try and place blame elsewhere, on ruining several threads in the past week or two.

Why is nothing done to remove the problem? Why is this person and anyone else that practices such behavior not removed from this community? Is keeping this person around, worth losing other people over?

I have to respond to this
(Yes, I know you posted to let this thread die, but you cannot slander and then demand people not repond).

If this person is the person I think you are talking about, I have not examined all of his posts, but he brings an element of honesty. He is brutaly frank. I kind of like it Yeah, I wish he would tone down a bit; and be more tactful, but still he is fun. A lot of people seem to be offended by brutally frank opinions, but if they are reasonably justified opinions, I say dont kill the messenger.

TBH, I find the passive agressive generic slander in your post to be distasteful. Pretty much everyone knows who you are talking about. So you are neither here nor there.

I would rather you have said which specific posts (some examples would suffice) you have a problem with. not this generic attack.

A public warning could be given, in general, to all, saying that the attacks on people need to stop or the person will be removed from the site.
You could write a brief statement and then lock it so that no comments need be made.

This I 100% agree with. I find posts like the ones quoted below to be in really, really bad taste.

And on behalf of Kenneth ... a straight up "Fuck you, buddy!"

You're a real asshole, Nez.

but you're the asshole that keeps provoking people.
***image of middle finger***

§§See how I quoted specific posts, and made no attacks against the poster.

[Nezhul]

Strange it reads, after apologies from your side in PM, and that you agreed that it was you who provoked all this, I'm still being the person who ruined your thread "with simply no reason but malice".
Yeh, right. And your tone had absolutely nothing to do with that.

On the other matter, I don't see why Indigo is wrong here. The matter WAS discussed. He said that decision was already taken. And then you are suddenly offended and pissed off as much as to delete the messages and so on. Again, if you whish this matter to be discussed again - post it in the suggestions and re-open the discussion. Why being so nervous over a mere statement of the mod about why things happen how they happen?

Also you and les have edited the origianl posts in a thread so much, that now it seems as if Indigo is attacking you for no reason. That's not a nice thing to do (mostly for les, as LadyX's posts were edited even before).

Also, Lady X I hope I'm not attacking you for no reason but malice AGAIN, but you know, a lot of people KNOW that you and shell are two accounts of the same person. And on that note even if you really want to diverce them as different people, don't take offence if someone mixes them. You may correct it politely, just for your own nerves good don't take it offencive. Noone would mean to offend you by this, it's just a mistake.

And oh, it's a great strategy, you know, to post so much word that people may disagree with, and then asking not to reply.

[Nezhul]

I can't PM you, but I think that a person who can write a post like this should be forgiven some mistakes. And some were clearly mistakes.
It's just we always learn. Moderator should not offend anyone on purpose - that looks weird. But you can learn not to do that. It really looked for me yesterday that a person who can degrade to trolling other (me in the case) with swears and pure insults should not be moderator. But now I change my mind a bit. You don't have to like me, but a moderator doesn't go swearing like the quotes Human mentioned. He says "shup up" in a different way.
I don't have personal grudge against you, even if you offend me so much. You apologised, and that's fine by me, thanks. I may be on the bad side here but I don't see why I should apologise to anyone (except places where I already did). I talk my mind straight. I'm taking back all my offence to you during past days, but still think it was, in the situation of you insulting me, justified.

[les]

i think not enough explamations and to many just did it issues les

[seraph0x]

Since Lady X isn't the only person to mention this (I also received quite a few complaints via PM) I want to address one specific issue:

I do not understand, as I am sure others do not either, why someone that continues to make rude comments, is negative in their behavior and is constantly making trouble for others, over and over again, is not dealt with.

You are right that a lot of people do not understand this. So let me explain my views on moderating:

There are really two ways you can look at human beings. We either have free will or we don't. If we have free will, we can read a rude comment and laugh about the immaturity of it. If we don't, then we have to be protected from ever reading it, because gosh, we'd be swept away in a sea of hurtful emotions.

Depending on which view a site admin takes will determine how he treats "negative behavior". I believe that if I don't allow people to get angry, to disagree and even to fight then I deny them a very important part of their self-expression. If you could live in a society where everybody has to take happy pills every day, would you do it?

The bottom line is: This is so fundamental a decision that whoever can't live with my position, is probably not going to find happiness here. Free expression is the whole point of this site and if there are only two other people in the world who like it and everyone else leaves, I don't care. I'll keep running this site just for them. I'm not interested in being the biggest or most popular.

Finally a word on our mods themselves: Obviously there is a higher standard that I hold Team members to. But I also know that being a mod is stressful and getting attacked and criticized is part of the job. And even if a mod crosses the line, well we're all human. I've slipped up myself and barked at people many times. So it would take quite a bit for me to revoke somebody's mod privileges. You don't get paid money for being a mod here, but you do get my loyalty and respect especially through a rough patch. If a mod feels the job has become a chore (nobody has lasted for more than two years of active moderating so far), I trust them to know when to voluntarily step down or take a break.

[choice]

For the most part I don't think Indigo's attitude was uncalled for, and hopefully he will stay on board.

[Quazwierdcev283]

And your tone had absolutely nothing to do with that.

Read the above quote, I personally have a problem with this quote. When reading text, the tone of voice sometimes comes across differently than intended. It's hard to convey tones when writing to someone else. I missed some of the convos that have been referred to so I can't say who is in the wrong or the right. Furthermore, I don't want to cast blame. I just want to remind everyone that what you say may be totally misread. Taking the time to read over your post once or twice before posting might help. I have once written a sarcastic essay and someone else thought I was being serious. Also before attacking others read and say, could they have meant something else. (I personally thought Lady X was being sarcastic when she said to kill this post).

[curved]

Fuss about nothing... I've seen far more offensive forums than this but luckily I have a backbone...

[Nezhul]

I was referring to the tone of the remarks, not the tone of voice. The basic line that was chosen. Anyway, that brag is already over.

[Lucky]

In the link, “About”, it says, “.”Milovana is a free online community, dedicated to the safe, sane and consensual exploration of sexual technique and technology in fun and interactive ways. A safe haven for all denominations of human sexuality
Lately it does not feel like a safe haven, because even in the most sexual of threads, can be attacked with simply no reason but malice.

I think that is why Milovana is losing the best people in chat, forum, authors of web-teases... "People come and go" is not the answer on the question "why?". We are not safe! Do you really think that teases like "oh here you are, shut up, I rule, on your knees, cut your balls, ha-ha you are looser, get out!" can cultivate healthy friendly relationships between people inside forum topics? Can you imagine the author's psychologic portrait of such teases? Do you believe that these people are normal in real life? Do you think that people who enjoy that teasing are psychologically healthy? They are not... at least happy! That is a problem, but not milovana's people to deal with...

Milovana is a great society with a great collection of high-quality and unique materials. But, unfortunatelly, these materials are mixed with "not materials" at all. Teasing can be sweet, playful, positive, interesting, but not cruel, aggresive, emotionally hurting etc.

By the way, forum moderation is preconceived towards some of us. Why Lady X can be attacked and this is "ok" as seraph0x tried to correctly explain, but I was banned for a week for saying "go and write your stories in stories thread, not in teases section" to cactusman? That hurted him alot? He was attacked? Oh, I am sorry, I just forgot that "everything is ok here"...

PS: Sorry for my English

[Nezhul]

Teasing can be sweet, playful, positive, interesting, but not cruel, aggresive, emotionally hurting etc.

While I share your tastes, I believe that everyone should play how they want, and find kinks whatever they wish. It's a fantasy site. Saying that people are not normal and psychologically WRONG if they do like this or that is just play stupid. Should I remind you that we all, including you, are wrong in the eyes of some. And 100 years ago it was wrong to even talk about sexual life, let alone orgasm denial and kinky stuff. 500 years ago you'd be whipped on public at least if the church would find out your interests.

Come on, don't be short minded. Let people do with their lives and bodies what they want. Tomorrow it may happen that you are the minority.

And again, it's fantasy. It is made for not being realistic and not to be the best way to live.

[dr.d]

at the risk of stirring up trouble , I think it would be helpful for everyone if several of the people in this thread would just sit and talk to one another , no name calling and I mean talking in private, nothing more should be posted in public

[Nezhul]

I think it's not up to you to decide. That way you may send almost everyone to talk private, because every topic is interesting to the very limited ammount of people, and the rest will be deemed flooders.