gwinnyb

I agree, it is more than one child, it was adifferent child who nearly drove me off with very rude comments. Like matthew who was very kind and gentle. I tend to react with a response on their site about how attacks on artistic attempts are attacks on people...trying to use insults against me or others as an opportunity for education and enlightenment . It's the parent and grandparent in me I guess. but any childish behavior can be dealt with diplomatically and in an instructive way my eldest is 42 and sometimes he still acts childish. I do think that in a sense we can police ourselves. I will respond to inappropriate insult against anyones contributions in the same way as to mine if I see them. I immediately go to the insulter's site and explain how it makes us feel to have careless insult offered in response to careful personal effort, then sometimes I respond to their work in a more thoughtful way so they understand, how to critique. If we do this for each other perhaps we can help these people to be more careful and considerate, plus it will present a strong united group of mature thinkers.It does hurt to have even a child say something of our work is "the ugliest thing they have ever seen " (as was done to me), but it will aso hurt the critic if they do not learn to temper their criticism with empathy, compassion, and insight. criticism is to help us grow, so to return constructive criticism for destrucitve criticism is education.

Dragon

That's very wise gwinnyb. Those sort of comments should not go unaddressed but you've got a very grown up method of dealing with them. These kids need to know that what they are saying is not appropiate and will not be tolerated, but we cannot sink to the same level and leave insults back.
I did notice not too long ago brandon seemed to have it in for matthew and some others who had greeted him back to the site were hit with some foul language too.

LadyO

I have noticed that in the past few days, someone has been handing out low ratings -- not just to me, but to a great many people.

I have also noticed that a few more 10-year olds -- one also from Miamisburg, OH, have joined.

Being relatively new to Thinkdraw, I didn't know there was a history of this ... I guess we can just ignore it as best we can ...

however, if someone is abusive, maybe they should be banned from the site ... there's a way to do it where the IP address is banned so that even if someone tries to sign up under a different name, they can't.

I do know that the majority of people here are generous and kind, and that's why I keep coming back.

matthew

Has Brandon been deleted???

I searched for him & got a link "were you looking for pictures by brandon?" clicked on the link & get "sorry there are no pictures matching this selection".

DMarcella

I am getting low votes on drawing today too. If Brandon is gone that shows that people will be made to go if they keep bad behavior up over time. We were all very nice to him but in the end it didn't seem to help any.

lynnspotter

Over time I also have tried to talk to those showing inappropriate pics or comments. Brandon was one of them. Maybe we 'niced' him out!?!

Qsilv

Well, brandon's page still shows a few comments made by him, altho' he's got no pix now... they've been deleted, presumably by himself.

TD staff may or may not step in. So far they appear to have a hands off policy, and I can understand that, whether I admire it or not.

In the 'net, there are two huge truths--

1- people's inner natures get a LOT of encouragement to spill out unrestricted, because of the layer of anonymity (all people... all ages)

2- any site owner who begins to take on censorship becomes open to lawsuits demanding that they take on even more, to impossible god-like standards, so a good many prefer to leave us in a state of anarchy.

It's sometimes inconvenient, unpleasant, distasteful, scary even... and yet the price of freedom is personal responsibility. Every group winds up leveling out... and no, not all of them become sordid flame-war pits. Far from it. But it's really up to us.

Gwinny's advice is sensible and kind.
Lilalee's comment on a kid acting out to make herself feel better had an important element of truth in it.
Marg's assessment of the shock of learning to deal with the open world of the net is spot on.

My advice? You won't like it, because it runs so counter to everything we've been raised to value in the physical world -- "Learn to ignore the offensive stuff even when it's all around and right in your face".

How well can I follow my own advice?? (quiet, half-rueful laugh...) What do you think...?

LadyO

Failing that, we make the voting open ... if you vote, your name appears as well.

Qsilv

Open voting has been discussed here... it's not real popular.

The voting issue is sort of a subset -- and since the biggest problem with low votes seems to be simply that they cause good works to get hidden, the most DIRECT solution is to empower us by installing a SEARCH & SORT BY _______ feature.

Dragon

You make some very good points Qsilv. I don't think to much pressure should be put on Rachel to "Police" the site. It raises the question of what should be removed and what gets to stay.
It seems to me like the people on this site pretty much monitor ourselves. Those who are putting innappropriate comments and pics get a comment or two about it, most of us will keep the insults to ourselves and ignore the insults handed out to us.
I've not really been involved in any other sites with forums or a community like this, but I always find myself coming back because of the friendly atmosphere. Here's hoping that feeling continues.