I will kill you (haha. But this is a comment anyway)
this would be a good thing to flag cuz i’ve noticed a huge outbreak of “anorexia” sites and blogrings.
LOL…I’m gone then…for all the time I’ve threatened to kill my hubby or beat my kids or kick someone’s ass…none of which I have ever (or will ever) do.
This one is a good idea. If someone threatens to kill me or kick my ass, though, and I know who they are….I probably would be more likely to go after them myself than flag them. That’s just me.
yes!! you should do this right here!! there are to manny things happening!!
I like the idea. On the other hand it might be a catch 22 situation so to speak. Someone who is just “venting” might say words of harm and another member might take it the wrong way. Strong evaluation should be taken by the staff before a xanga is deleted. Unless of course the anger or venting is towards you and someone is harming you, in that case by all means the person’s xanga should be shut down.
A lot of people say “I’m gonna kill ____” without ever meaning it. If the whole atmosphere of the site is bent toward killing and murder, that’s different.
Terrible idea. I can see malicious people flagging people for the hell of it…Opps, I said “hell” Guess I’m getting flagged.
I think you better come up with something else. Looks good on paper but for practice… A big can of worms.
Hmm… but this would prevent people from venting and ranting about annoying idiots! Although I can understand if someones posting day by day, step by step thier plan to murder someone… O_o
Day 1 – Buy rat poison Day 2 – spike the pitcher of orange juice Day 3 – chill
You get the idea. xD
A post of this nature should involve law enforcement and not some little idea of simply flagging it.
I’d sure be interested in how these flags are going to be used.
Hey, if this happens can we start by flagging you?
this could be dangerous grounds.. who gets to judge what is threatening and what is a joke or between friends?! I agree with flagging under-age sites, brekaing the law or sites displaying people’s info against the person’s will, but the threatening language is a bit hard to manage..
cool
Whenever?
I believe that this is the most useful flag.
what about ‘JOKING’ what happened to xanga…
I want to physically harm John’s momma!
There’s two sides of the fence to this one…. I guess the only thing to do would be to look at a person’s xanga in whole and not just one entry to see if this they were threatening harm to more than one member. And that would be very time consuming.
I like the idea of this flag but I’m not sure how much good it would do.
I agree with the idea…it goes with hate sites and the like… Basically…I just don’t want xanga members to go crazy flagging each other and getting each other suspended or forbidden from xanga.
it shouldn’t result in immediate site shut down. perhaps 3 warnings via email?
This is a slippery slope.
If people can’t even joke on their own blogs they are going to go elsewhere and you’ll lose money.
That’s just my two cents…
And if I jokingly threaten to “kill my husband” for leaving the cap off of the toothpaste, will my site be flagged and shut down?
Come on….
tuk tu tar spoogle spoink? tiggle, lik tuk tar nargle nok kard linkel toklekley narkel!
This is interesting. I guess since members flag other members, If i threaten person ‘x’, person ‘x’ should flag me if he/she feels treatened.
I think we can all tell the difference between an off-the-cuff remark about killing someone and a serious threat to someone’s life. The people at Xanga can tell, too.
When someone’s site has multiple comments threatening a person or a group of people, when threats are a fairly constant theme of the site, that is the kind of site that should be flagged.
I think this flag is a good idea.
…and you can rant about some a$$hole idiot without threatening them with physical harm… (@ morsmordre x)
HAHAH!! OH I KILL ME!!!
*Xanga Page Flagged
this is a blog site. people are going to feel like hurting somebody else. I think that it should have to be repeated instances of seriously threatening the same person. if for three days straight, a person posts about hurting another person, then the police should be informed
Again, don’t agree with this. It isn’t xanga’s place to monitor this. This sounds like Bushism at its worst. Please allow freedom.. I would hate to think I made a comment about killing something or someone and have it deleted, monitored or reported to the Bush’s.
Hi, I am a concerned xanga citizen and I would like to report a site.
Personally No. Because then I would get flagged for simply playing around with my friends and thats stupid.
I want report bush and I don’t mean the president …The other kind ( ;
*signed “Fat Black Man in a Nun Suit”
people vent in these things…….. but at times people can be serious….. the context of the statement should be taken into consideration
Xanga and all blogs for that matter is a healthy alternative, because you can say things without actually having to do them. Saying angry things is like a release, when you’re very angry, much better than going out and beating someone up.
It would be an unlikely coincidence if someone stumbled upon my site, when I had a very bad day and I was angry at someone, and wrote some things I don’t mean. And then, to add insult to injury, I’d get flagged for it.
support the first amendment
defend our freedoms
Amazon sells the Anarchist’s Cookbook.
OMG I’m offended! I want to report myself! I put a picture of a cat smoking pot on my page.!! FLAG ME and my pale white ass.
~Heil Casey Kasum
In extreme cases, good idea.
In general, horrible idea.
The shutting down of sites flagged with this should be evaluated carefully. Many people vent and say threatening things, without any intention behind it at all. Unless the threat is repeated and pointedly directed at a specific person, especially another xanga user, this shouldn’t be used.
& neutral_elated about how it could be dealt with if even joking is to be considered in this. (But if even joking were to be considered, note how many of the people commenting on this entry would be flagged…)
What are you going to do? Log the ip and report it to the isp? the police? Mummy and Daddy? Close it down so they can open up again a minute later? How can this work?
I think some people may kid with friends too much for this to be used correctly as a flag. Still, I think the guy above has a valid point. Hmmm…
Well, not the comment directly above mine, but greyautumnrain’s comment. Yeah.
Crappy idea… are you trying to find creative ways to bury xanga??
I’m sure Myspace is laughing their asses off.
VIVA REVOLUTION!!
BXU!
This should be used extremely sparingly, and only if there is certainty that the threats are legitimate.
whoever has come up with this whole flagging this should probably re think it. People here are immature and will end up flagging people just to get them i trouble simply because they dont like them. If this all starts happening Xanga is going to lose out big time. We’ll all just go to MySpace, instead of using both. I’ve complained multiple times about a fake site someone has made about me and NOTHING was ever done, and NOTHING will ever happen. Xanga is too lazy to actuall enforce the rules of the site. All i have to say is good luck and if flags start flying around count me and A LOT of other people out.
THIS IS A GOOD ONE!
i don’t think this is a great idea, because a lot of people just say “i want to beat ___ into a pulp” or other violent things JUST because that’s their way of venting their anger. they may absolutely be the most physically-nonviolent people ever, but they just shoot off their mouths when they get mad.
nay. your definitions are to vague.
Oh good, so you’re going to waste the government’s time of going after a person posting nudies instead of terrorists, child molesters and Whitey Bulger. Big thumbs up to you, idiot.
Party On Dude
I think we had enough of our freedoms taken away, that’s enough out of you! Take your Nazi Flags and shove them up your ass.
<———-THE FLAGGING SYSTEM FOR WHAT IT REALLY IS
“If you value your Freedom of Expression, If you value all the hard work you have done on your Xanga Pages, If you hate Online Censorship and the rapidly increasing loss of your blogging freedoms then it’s time for YOU to do something about it. Read Non_Featured_Content. Support the efforts of BXU! Send a comment to John and Flags showing your disgust of the loss of your blogging freedoms and the criminalizing of your Freedom of Expression and that you will tolerate it no longer. Send a comment to xanga and as often as possible. Tell them “That’s enough!”
We are not going to be able to do this by ourselves that’s for sure and there are power in numbers. It either stops now or it never will.
!BXU!
SEND A COMMENT TO John and Flags and tell them your disgust of the FLAGGING and CENSORSHIP and as often as possible!
~VIVA REVOLUTION!!
BXU
NO TO FLAGS!!
Every threat should be taken seriously, sometimes these idle threats are serious or a call for help, mosly just ranting. It’s very difficult to differentiate what they really are. I believe they should be monitored.
what happened to journaling about your feelings so that you DON’T do those things that you are thinking about?
haven’t you ever had your kid spill a glass of coke on your keyboard which in turn killed your computer, which cause you to say, “I’M GONNA KILL THAT KID!”
Bad idea. Bad bad idea to use this.
i am against flags.
start flagging – lose a lot of xanga users. Cause and effect. You don’t want to lose a loyal fan base do you guys?
I agree, slippery slope. Go to far, you lose users. Don’t go far enough, you don’t satisfy those who thinks its a good idea, also possibly losing users.
Why’s xanga doing all these changed anyways?? It was better without the nudges and crap too. Xanga is becomming like myspace in a lot of ways.
Don’t flag to much. I think, instead of flagging, perhaps an age identifier would be good. Such as if the site contains mature content, If the xanga user isn’t over a certain age, the site comes up as blocked or something.
Maybe??
Will we be arrested and be put in “Myspaceswitz” if we get flagged? HAHAHAH!!
This is a great idea. Maybe those internet trolls will finally go away.
…honestly, please, define something CLEARLY before you try to make it a huge idea.
this whole flag idea is just fucking retarded. seriously… quit looking for stupid shortcuts that are going to make things even worse on Xanga. if someone is posting something that offends someone else, then people don’t HAVE to look at it. there is no “right to not be offended,” contrary to popular belief. and as far as people using Xanga to commit fraud or break the law, then the Xanga Admins should just bite the bullet and enforce their damn website’s TOS. this flag idea is by far the dumbest thing that Xanga has ever done
You’re better off making an adult section of Xanga, yahoo does it, yafro does it and many websites do that. Have you listened to this advice before? No, you completely ignored it and look where it’s gotten you. You got a bunch of pissed off premium subscribers on your hands now and if I were you…I wouldn’t ignore them. The Flagging will be a disaster.
NO CENSORSHIP!
Yea lets just disallow free speech alltogether.
Xanga is here to be somewhere we can speak our minds. i think u guys should mind your own business.
I sort of understand this, but there are some people out there that use xanga for support to stop the cycle of self-injury. This is improper and unfair to those that use xanga for support to stopping. I hope that this flag will be used to prevent people from telling others how to self-injure.
If you’re attempting to maim yourself, the best choice would be to admit yourself to a hospital, not hold hands with your manic-depressive suicidal friends. Trust, a doctor knows a helluva a lot more than a sick (as in mentally) teenager (or adult for that matter)! By the way, wasn’t this on threats? Stick to the topics, people.
OH! LOOK! XANGA’S BECOMING LIKE OUR GOVERNMENT!
I WILL KILL OF U SONS OF BITCHES!
I don’t know about this one … depends entirely on the context of the conversation. Also, I believe people should be able to vent. Just because someone is writing about something, does not mean they are actually going to do it in real life. It could be a form of catharsis for some people to take out their frustration.
Flagging in general really has the potential to be abused. I feel it works very, very poorly on Craig’s List.
“Flags are only a warning sign, not censorship.”
I saw that comment on a random site just a little while ago. It reminded me a lot of what people were saying when Hitler wanted to “flag” the jews. Don’t believe the jews didn’t see Hitler coming. Because they did. They just didn’t do shit about it. They let some crackerfool slowly invade them and take away their rights. First thing Hitler did was what? Anybody know? Any of you vuvlaheads know?
The first thing Hitler did was to LABEL the jews. Once they were clearly labeled and distinctively marked, he could then easily round them up and toss them in ovens. WTF?? Now ask yourself, why did the jews let themselves be labeled?
Flags = Labeling.
Why did the jews allow Hitler to pass a law which prevented jewish people from owning firearms? Why did the jews allow Hitler to burn their books?
People really have no clue huh doc? They have no recollection of history. Just a bunch of strungout computer monkeys typing away about their day at the local mall, not realizing that they are either part of the solution, or part of the problem.
A DEFINITE no to flagging/labeling of any kind!
no… your here to post our thoughts publically. publically we have free speach. xanga is here as a dairy, to post our personal thoughts, on goings, and beliefs. these flags are just making this site useless. if the public doesn’t like it, they don’t have to read it.
Too vague. Therefore pointless. Kiddie porn, OK I see the need for desperate measures, although you should still look for other ways to police Xanga than to ask Xangans to spy on Xangans. It smacks of Hitler’s Germany; it smacks of Stalin’s Russia. The “crimes” are different, I know. The so-called criminals in those other countries were attempting to exercise religious freedom or daring to express opinions that didn’t agree with the State. It’s a different situation here. Child exploiters, or those who incite hatred — they’re violating laws that are on the books for valid reasons and they should not be able to use Xanga to harm others.
But this method is wrong. Hire more people if you must. But do not institute this flagging system, where Xangans report each other. It invites abuse.
I recognize that you need to cover your ass. But do it in the right way, not the wrong way.
And make no mistake. That’s ALL you’re doing, is covering your ass. You’re not protecting anyone, especially not the kids. They’ll find ways to get into the trouble you fear. Just not here on Xanga. Fine. Cover your ass. But don’t try to pretend you’re protecting the victims of predators, or anorexics or bulimiacs, or the victims of hate mongers. This does nothing to protect them. It only protects Xanga. That’s your right and your duty, to protect Xanga.
Just do it the right way. Hire more staff and pay them to police the sites. Don’t use Xanga users to do that. That would be wrong.
**************************************************** !!!! Your site is in VIOLATION and will be flagged !!!! ****************************************************
“If you value your Freedom of Expression, If you value all the hard work you have done on your Xanga Pages, If you hate Online Censorship and the rapidly increasing loss of your blogging freedoms then it’s time for YOU to do something about it. Read Non_Featured_Content. Support the efforts of BXU! Send a comment to John and Flags showing your disgust of the loss of your blogging freedoms and the criminalizing of your Freedom of Expression and that you will tolerate it no longer. Send a comment to xanga and as often as possible. Tell them “That’s enough!”
We are not going to be able to do this by ourselves that’s for sure and there are power in numbers. It either stops now or it never will.
!BXU!
SEND A COMMENT TO John and Flags and tell them your disgust of the FLAGGING and CENSORSHIP and as often as possible!
(((((((((( Spread the Word )))))))))))
~VIVA REVOLUTION!!
BXU
Hi, we’d like to report user -independent_atheist- for threatening to physically harm illegal immigrants. He also threatened to harm the founders of BXU! Also, he flagrantly used the word “dipshit” on our blog when clearly that is an obscene word to our sensitive eyes.
We would appreciate your quick and firm response to shutting down this user who has clearly violated the sanctity of our community.
!BXU!
this is a nice idea and everything . .. but I doubt you’ll be able to stop anything. it’s xanga. people are entitled to post what they want, as long as it doesn’t conflict with the terms of xanga.
….
NO TO FLAGS AND SHUT DOWN YOUR PAGE!!
<—–This is flaging
everyone says stuff like that when they are mad…and most of the time it is only becuase they are upset…it doesn’t mean they will do it…
How in the heck does this tie in to anorexia sites?
Just make sure you can tell the difference between a true threat (like on a school or something) & a venting I-wouldn’t-ever-actually-do-it comment…How does that kind of determining process go, anyway? & if you flag somebody else, do they know it was you?
Wait…if there was a link about a school shooting or something, wouldn’t you want to keep it for record in case the FBI or something was investigating & that person was a suspect? After all, if you post something in public it’s public access to everybody, & even comes up on Google…so shouldn’t you either send out an alert (since you’re obliged to upon reading it) or file it or something? Just a thought…
i do not believe that you can take an idea as serious simply because it is on the internet or in writing. (point in case:: Jonathon Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”. while this is a satire, it is still a valid point here.) also, i do not believe that you can judge someone based on what they say on the internet. here they truly are anonomous. if that anonymity is lost, i believe you would lose people. i know you would lose me, and i have no risk in this catagory of flagging. (i didn’t look at every single one, only those which caught my attention.)
Again, journals are for venting. People say things they don’t mean. End of story.
I dont like this idea… some people let out stress and emotions by saying stuff like “I’m gonna kill you” or “I want to kill myself” trust me I’m one of them.. and for people who dont know those people will flag them and their site will get shut down just cause they’re letting stress or emotions out in their own little way… so I think it’s a horrible idea…
Stevie
Again…there is nothing you can do about it besides report them and kick them off…but just keep in mind if you do all these flaggings you won’t have a site anymore….
A no brainer yes
I don’t think they mean “joking” in your posts. I can name a couple of sites where the users are constantly threatening to kick someones ass…not just on their site, but there is definitely no question as to what they mean when you read the comments they leave the people whose ass they want to kick.
I agree with Twoberry on this. You are just covering your own butts. We bloggers should most definitely not be responsible for “flagging” one another and spying on one another. If Xanga is going to be the next government, then they need to govern – not hand this responsibility to 13 year olds. That would be like having our police departments issue guns and handcuffs to middle schoolers. Except I’d prefer that – because then we’d get some action. No, YOU are the poopy-butt! *BLAM BLAM BLAM
I don’t think I want some 13 y/o policing my page saying “RESPECT MY AUTHORITAH!!”.
Letting people flag pages is like giving a 4 y/o hyperactive kid a hand grenade.
I agree.
Besides, anyone who threatens someone else over the Internet is a moron and should have the privilege of using the Internet.
FREE XANGA!
There are plenty of “safe” conservative anti-adult blogging communities already. Why turn our Xanga into another dilluted sorry excuse for a blogging community?
Help us keep Xanga FREE! from restrictions. Help us keep Xanga FREE! from regulations. Help us keep Xanga FREE! from flagging!
Support the efforts of NFC. Join the BXU! and help us FREE XANGA!
what about JOKING?
Stop censoring. We have a right to free speech. If someone doesn’t like a site, they have the choice not to go to it. Why should people who like diversity be punished for the ignorance of others?
unless they have my address, there is NO POSSIBLE way for them to come over here and kik my Big FAT ASS!
go
yea, i think this one would be kind of hard to regulate…it’s so easy for people to say this just joking around. although if it were reported by the person being threatened, i guess it should be taken seriously…
I love it when the government, or xanga in this case, does things to protect me… lol. Posting on here may be giving me carpal tunnel can you send me wrist bands and a “soda hat” so I don’t fall down in the middle of the night walking to the fridge?
I love it when the government, or xanga in this case, does things to protect me… lol. Posting on here may be giving me carpal tunnel can you send me wrist bands and a “soda hat” so I don’t fall down in the middle of the night walking to the fridge?
I myself in a recent post threatened to do the same to another user. I actually know her in real life though. It’s all just venting though. Now if I had come back and posted in detail how I carried out my threat then I’d probably deserve to get my account deleted or something.
I think this is stupid, whats the point in flags? Its just going to get other killers together with more killers, or self harmers with self harmers to cause mass suicides and stuff, I dont think this will have the effect you want it to have.
WHAT HAPPENED TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!?!?
yes =]
when youre reading something you cant tell if someone is being serious or not. what if i typed “im gonna kill my brother!!!” i dont really mean it, im just angry or upset with him. i think this one is a bad idea.
Do you need someone to check out all of the flagged sites? I need a job and I’d love to do that for you! I’m serious too, I need to work from home and I’d love to check out sites every day! Seriously!
Most people are all talk half the time they have and will never meet or see this person they threaten..and there just words and the person wldnt have a reason to threaten if the other person hadnt sayed sumtin first
this whole flag thing is bullshit. xanga… this is a big mistake. not only will you lose your users, but you will also get rid of people buying premium.
good luck finding new jobs.
good idea
What if its a joke? Still get closed down?
What if its a rant because you’re angry?
To much to question I don’t like it.
Our content is our business.
A FORMAL PETITION
The parable of the village
(Dedicated to NFC.)
There was once a community I knew and loved. I lived there for three years. It was a very friendly, nice, open town– one of the ones you see in old movies, where everyone knows each other, and even if they didn’t they’d take time out of their day to say hi. Even though it was big, it was still familiar. You could stay there a night or ten thousand nights, and still feel the same: as if you belonged. You could always find your place where you’d be appreciated.
It sat in a county with other communities similar to it. You know, kind of like the suburbs: drive for twenty minutes and you’ll find an eeirily similar replica. But the wonderful thing about this one was its openness. Really, it was unparalleled. I think that’s why it went wrong.
Of course we had our problems. People living there weren’t perfect; no one is. I remember some horrible things happening; the kind of things local news programs just eat up. Mostly theft. A kidnapping and a few rapes, I think. And of course there was death. Where there is life, there is, ultimately, death. But whenever there was a death, the community would rise up in a wave of support. Though most had never met the dead, they would still give their comments of support for the family, or wishes for a content afterlife. Even though someone had left us, it was still almost an uplifting experience to see everyone living and going on in spite of what happened.
It was diverse without meaning to be, too. That’s also why I liked it so much. The place I live now is basically all one skin tone, mostly conservative Christian, and even the liberals are more moderate than anything else. Radical thinkers need not apply. But where I used to thrive was teeming with new people, new ideas– as close as you can come– and even the silly kids (emos, goths, annas, the like) were endearing if only because they added to the mix. I could be in a bible discussion full of middle-aged moms one week, and an argument about whether Elliott Smith or Conor Oberst would win in a fight with some indie kids the next.
But most everyone ignored the glaring differences and focused on the similarities. They all wanted the same thing, that’s why. They all wanted a community where they would be accepted and appreciated and loved. Together, we were all able to deliver that. Only together did it work. If you didn’t want to be friendly, you wouldn’t make problems; you would simply stay in your little corner. There was a certain amount of conformity involved in the community: be nice or we won’t really tolerate it. It was a conformity in exchange for a relatively safe, hapy community. I didn’t mind. I liked it. I felt safe and loved and intellectually stimulated.
Then. Oh, then. The reason I moved away.
The neighborhood town village whatever thing next to us had this huge investigation. Apparently there’d been more than the usual amount of underage illegal activities. The place I live now is going through this as well. Lots of underage drinking, drug use, and of course everyone’s confused about the cutting and anorexia obsessions. Plus, all this stuff was leading to more rapes and kidnappings. A lot of out-of-towners were coming in and, instead of joining the open community, were staying on the fringes and causing trouble.
Parents were getting worried, paranoid, and distrustful of newness. Kids, if they weren’t getting paranoid too, were getting taken advantage of.
I remember the day I realized I had to leave. I went to a neighbor’s house. It was a neighbor I wasn’t all that close with but we still recognized each other and talked occasionally. When I knocked and no one answered, I went to open the door. This isn’t unusual; usually if you did this, nine times out of ten you’d get an open door. People were used to their friends and neighbors dropping by unannounced and making themselves at home. That’s why we were all so close.
But the door was locked.
This sounds absurd, in retrospect. But it was like a physical blow at the time. It was the first realization I had that now, we were not a community. We were individuals who happened to live close together. We were protecting ourselves from each other. It was ridiculous, I thought; why would I need to be protected from the people around me? We all want the same thing. Why would someone want to ruin that? And why, if there were people like that, would we allow them to continue to exist?
But then I wondered how, if not through protection, we would be able to get rid of those strangers who didn’t share our vision for the community. I didn’t know. I couldn’t think of anything. I wanted to protect everyone, but I didn’t want to lose our openness. I wanted to have it so that everyone was safe, but so no one had to think about it. Basically, I wanted the impossible.
But my community? My lovely, open community? No. It couldn’t be happening.
Things went downhill from there.
Like me, most people didn’t know where to start. They didn’t really want to protect themselves, and so eventually they were taken advantage of, or made to protect themselves. In an attempt to curb this violence and paranoia, the police, or the mayor I don’t know I wasn’t really paying attention to politics then, tried to put some curfews and new regulations in place. This didn’t work at all. They were too rushed, too vague, too restrictive for a community that was used to seeing their police officers in the bar with them on Friday nights, laughing about the weekly gossip and antics of the teenagers in the Commons. Now, they had to enforce rules they didn’t want to; they witnessed things they never thought they’d see. They had left to get away from this. In the deep of their minds, it felt like the badness had followed them.
Everyone had that feeling.
I live now in a place where no one would ever think to leave their doors open, or even their windows. They know what to do with people who mean harm: lock them up, drive them out– or, even better, never give them the chance to enter in the first place. Everyone has security devices and all this fancy stuff that I mostly don’t understand. I don’t understand because I never had to deal with it before. I was never threatened before.
The fun, the innocence, the basic goodness that made the community so special was being destroyed by the unstoppable waves of change, the bleak change that local news channels love to just eat up.
My life was in that community for three years. I left before I could see it die completely. I felt it for a place that was already dead.
-Ren
*****************************
To: The Xanga Team
On April 21st, Xanga announced that it would seek to establish a system of flagging in response to recent litegation involving other online communities. Effective immediately all user interaction in exercising free thought and expression will be stopped and/or regulated.
This is a formal petition to please ask Xanga to reconsider their decision and continue in preserving this last bastion of FreeSpeechOnline -as the Only remaining free_thought internet community that we so dearly cherish. For a more detailed description of the situation please see this effort and support: http://www.xanga.com/Non_Featured_Content -the no_censorship community
you can’t just delete proana sites etc. xanga doesnt work like that. thats discrimination. what if anorexic people or people who cut etc..need to talk to other people in their situations about that stuff. you guys will have no luck at this. whatever go fuck yourselves. really you should. b//c thats not right. at all. whatever go try to make world peace. we’re all different, from different backgrounds and we can’t all be perfect like you appearently think you are… losers.
*Nicole*
What? Are you serious? Let’s all join hands and do the goosestep then. Flags. My arse. If you don’t like what you read, don’t continue to read; if you don’t like what you see, don’t continue to look; and if you don’t know how to NOT subscribe to a journal then you really shouldn’t be using the internet, let along cruising blogs. It’s not our job to worry about other people’s kids .. let their parents do it; that’s what I did. Afraid others will learn how to purge or build a weapon of mass destruction from information found on the internet? Well, get over it. The information is out there in places besides this and do you really shake in fear if somone comes along and types something threatening?? How in the world are they going to carry that out??? *knocks on screen” Nothing’s real in here you know …
How should we respond to the nuclear conflict with Iran?
How about nuking Iran into a flaming radioactive mudpit!? ( ;
what if there is no flag feature on the person’s xanga? i know of one but there is no flag feature to flag them. -sam
ok the flagging system may be a violation of freedom of speach but the owners of xanga have the right to refuse service but they must check the flagged sites themselves not just kick a user because then some jerk could flag the persons site and it gets deleted for no reason the anorexia thing is wrong and people talking about self mutilation those shouldnt be on the list we all have our own life styles now suicidal instructions or an advertisement for a porno company would be terribly wrong
)|/(!†<|-
So how do you flag something?
Also how do i read xxwhytryxx’s comment?
This is my main problem:
Sometimes, I sarcastically say that. Do you think people can tell the difference between sarcasm and actually meaning it?
Actually, come to think of it, I have a huge problem with all of this.
I want you to read the most recent post on my site.
i like this one because if some 1 threatened me than i would like to be safe thx
this sounds pretty stupid but i didn’t kno what the flag thingy was and accidently flagged myself…is there any way to undo that??
Alright so I’ve flagged this guy’s site and he’s a crazy guy that beats up his girlfriend, calls her bruises his “artwork”, and now he is saying he wants to kill her and himself. I’ve flagged him numerous times but xanga has taken no action. What’s the point of these flags if the people at xanga don’t care about them.
If xanga is taking no action, should I report this to the police myself?
i know that you can block/delete posts from a xanga user,but how about people actually threatening someone physically through e-props/comments?
Hey, if someone is suicidal, and someone flags them, what will you do to help that person at all?
So far flagging seems useless, If xanga doesn’t respond to my above comment within the next 24 hours, I’m going to contact the police.
it IS a good idea! and do you know what?? i am starting to HATE xanga! and you know WHY?!?!?!?!?!?! it’s because my friends for 9 WHOLE YEARS! and they use XANGA to swear at me! diss me! AND diss my mommy! AND my daddy! god dammit!! i am deciding to bitch at them first thing tomorrow!! AND telling on them!!!! fuckin xanga! all your fault!!!
this guy “littlemage16″needs to be shut down because he is threatening me about different things… nothing to serious though
I wish they had a system where u can flag someone if a lot people think that is very mean
yes this is a good idea bc it could scare some of the other ones that snuck in by pretending they are thirteen
<3 Stephanie
I just wanna know one thing… if you flag someone… is it anonymous?… or does the recipient of the flag know who flagged them?…
GOT YOUR IP ADDRESS AND I WILL BE SENDING OUT COPYS OF YOUR HOME ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER TO STRANGERS!!!!
I LOVE THIS IDEA!!! CUZ SOME BITCH THAT I NO AT MY SCHOOL THREATENED ME!!!! SHE EVEN SAID IT WAS A THREAT!!!! HAHA CUZ HER BITCH FRIEND IN MY GRADE DOESNT LIKE ME BLAH BLAH BLAH here
i copied her bitch friend (luvs_summer how gay is that) comment 2 this guy and posted it as an entry and then converse whoever copied and pasted my entry into her comment and then wrote this please shut her down shes older and she wasnt lying
toxxic
to them that wish it’s good for everyhuman to perform miracle let him go a head.
I kicked the icon Threat of Physical Harm carelessly …….What can I do?
Hey
This is Boy I Used To Go Out With Him ? Then He Has Been Herassmeting Me Accuseding Me About Things? I Want My Xanga Protected? Well Thanks
Jessie Jago
Once some one gets reported of this does there site get shut down emitly????
Dear Xanga,
The users MeganBrennan and BellaArgentino are sending me crude messages cussing at me and threatening to hurt me. I’ve tried blocking them, but all they do is make more sites. What should I do!?
Comments (141)
I will kill you (haha. But this is a comment anyway)
this would be a good thing to flag cuz i’ve noticed a huge outbreak of “anorexia” sites and blogrings.
LOL…I’m gone then…for all the time I’ve threatened to kill my hubby or beat my kids or kick someone’s ass…none of which I have ever (or will ever) do.
This one is a good idea. If someone threatens to kill me or kick my ass, though, and I know who they are….I probably would be more likely to go after them myself than flag them. That’s just me.
yes!! you should do this right here!! there are to manny things happening!!
I like the idea. On the other hand it might be a catch 22 situation so to speak. Someone who is just “venting” might say words of harm and another member might take it the wrong way. Strong evaluation should be taken by the staff before a xanga is deleted. Unless of course the anger or venting is towards you and someone is harming you, in that case by all means the person’s xanga should be shut down.
A lot of people say “I’m gonna kill ____” without ever meaning it. If the whole atmosphere of the site is bent toward killing and murder, that’s different.
Terrible idea. I can see malicious people flagging people for the hell of it…Opps, I said “hell” Guess I’m getting flagged.
I think you better come up with something else. Looks good on paper but for practice… A big can of worms.
Hmm… but this would prevent people from venting and ranting about annoying idiots! Although I can understand if someones posting day by day, step by step thier plan to murder someone… O_o
Day 1 – Buy rat poison
Day 2 – spike the pitcher of orange juice
Day 3 – chill
You get the idea. xD
A post of this nature should involve law enforcement and not some little idea of simply flagging it.
I’d sure be interested in how these flags are going to be used.
Hey, if this happens can we start by flagging you?
this could be dangerous grounds.. who gets to judge what is threatening and what is a joke or between friends?! I agree with flagging under-age sites, brekaing the law or sites displaying people’s info against the person’s will, but the threatening language is a bit hard to manage..
cool
Whenever?
I believe that this is the most useful flag.
what about ‘JOKING’
what happened to xanga…
I want to physically harm John’s momma!
There’s two sides of the fence to this one…. I guess the only thing to do would be to look at a person’s xanga in whole and not just one entry to see if this they were threatening harm to more than one member. And that would be very time consuming.
I like the idea of this flag but I’m not sure how much good it would do.
I agree with the idea…it goes with hate sites and the like…
Basically…I just don’t want xanga members to go crazy flagging each other and getting each other suspended or forbidden from xanga.
it shouldn’t result in immediate site shut down. perhaps 3 warnings via email?
This is a slippery slope.
If people can’t even joke on their own blogs they are going to go elsewhere and you’ll lose money.
That’s just my two cents…
And if I jokingly threaten to “kill my husband” for leaving the cap off of the toothpaste, will my site be flagged and shut down?
Come on….
tuk tu tar spoogle spoink? tiggle, lik tuk tar nargle nok kard linkel toklekley narkel!
This is interesting. I guess since members flag other members, If i threaten person ‘x’, person ‘x’ should flag me if he/she feels treatened.
I think we can all tell the difference between an off-the-cuff remark about killing someone and a serious threat to someone’s life. The people at Xanga can tell, too.
When someone’s site has multiple comments threatening a person or a group of people, when threats are a fairly constant theme of the site, that is the kind of site that should be flagged.
I think this flag is a good idea.
…and you can rant about some a$$hole idiot without threatening them with physical harm… (@ morsmordre x)
HAHAH!! OH I KILL ME!!!
*Xanga Page Flagged
this is a blog site. people are going to feel like hurting somebody else. I think that it should have to be repeated instances of seriously threatening the same person. if for three days straight, a person posts about hurting another person, then the police should be informed
Again, don’t agree with this. It isn’t xanga’s place to monitor this. This sounds like Bushism at its worst. Please allow freedom.. I would hate to think I made a comment about killing something or someone and have it deleted, monitored or reported to the Bush’s.
Hi, I am a concerned xanga citizen and I would like to report a site.
The following site has DRUGS and PORN!!!
Non_Featured_Content
Please censor this site immediately.
Personally No. Because then I would get flagged for simply playing around with my friends and thats stupid.
I want report bush and I don’t mean the president …The other kind ( ;
*signed “Fat Black Man in a Nun Suit”
people vent in these things……..
but at times people can be serious…..
the context of the statement should be taken into consideration
Xanga and all blogs for that matter is a healthy alternative, because you can say things without actually having to do them. Saying angry things is like a release, when you’re very angry, much better than going out and beating someone up.
It would be an unlikely coincidence if someone stumbled upon my site, when I had a very bad day and I was angry at someone, and wrote some things I don’t mean. And then, to add insult to injury, I’d get flagged for it.
support the first amendment
defend our freedoms
Amazon sells the Anarchist’s Cookbook.
OMG I’m offended! I want to report myself! I put a picture of a cat smoking pot on my page.!! FLAG ME and my pale white ass.
~Heil Casey Kasum
In extreme cases, good idea.
In general, horrible idea.
The shutting down of sites flagged with this should be evaluated carefully. Many people vent and say threatening things, without any intention behind it at all. Unless the threat is repeated and pointedly directed at a specific person, especially another xanga user, this shouldn’t be used.
Agreeing with arwenwarrior.
& neutral_elated about how it could be dealt with if even joking is to be considered in this. (But if even joking were to be considered, note how many of the people commenting on this entry would be flagged…)
What are you going to do? Log the ip and report it to the isp? the police? Mummy and Daddy? Close it down so they can open up again a minute later? How can this work?
I think some people may kid with friends too much for this to be used correctly as a flag. Still, I think the guy above has a valid point. Hmmm…
Well, not the comment directly above mine, but greyautumnrain’s comment. Yeah.
Crappy idea… are you trying to find creative ways to bury xanga??
I’m sure Myspace is laughing their asses off.
VIVA REVOLUTION!!
BXU!
This should be used extremely sparingly, and only if there is certainty that the threats are legitimate.
whoever has come up with this whole flagging this should probably re think it. People here are immature and will end up flagging people just to get them i trouble simply because they dont like them. If this all starts happening Xanga is going to lose out big time. We’ll all just go to MySpace, instead of using both. I’ve complained multiple times about a fake site someone has made about me and NOTHING was ever done, and NOTHING will ever happen. Xanga is too lazy to actuall enforce the rules of the site. All i have to say is good luck and if flags start flying around count me and A LOT of other people out.
THIS IS A GOOD ONE!
i don’t think this is a great idea, because a lot of people just say “i want to beat ___ into a pulp” or other violent things JUST because that’s their way of venting their anger. they may absolutely be the most physically-nonviolent people ever, but they just shoot off their mouths when they get mad.
nay. your definitions are to vague.
Oh good, so you’re going to waste the government’s time of going after a person posting nudies instead of terrorists, child molesters and Whitey Bulger. Big thumbs up to you, idiot.
Party On Dude
I think we had enough of our freedoms taken away, that’s enough out of you! Take your Nazi Flags and shove them up your ass.
<———- THE FLAGGING SYSTEM FOR WHAT IT REALLY IS
“If you value your Freedom of Expression, If you value all the hard work you have done on your Xanga Pages, If you hate Online Censorship and the rapidly increasing loss of your blogging freedoms then it’s time for YOU to do something about it. Read Non_Featured_Content. Support the efforts of BXU! Send a comment to John and Flags showing your disgust of the loss of your blogging freedoms and the criminalizing of your Freedom of Expression and that you will tolerate it no longer. Send a comment to xanga and as often as possible. Tell them “That’s enough!”
We are not going to be able to do this by ourselves that’s for sure and there are power in numbers. It either stops now or it never will.
!BXU!
SEND A COMMENT TO John and Flags and tell them your disgust of the FLAGGING and CENSORSHIP and as often as possible!
~VIVA REVOLUTION!!
BXU
NO TO FLAGS!!
Every threat should be taken seriously, sometimes these idle threats are serious or a call for help, mosly just ranting. It’s very difficult to differentiate what they really are. I believe they should be monitored.
what happened to journaling about your feelings so that you DON’T do those things that you are thinking about?
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I want report bush and I don’t mean the president …The other kind ( ;
*signed “Fat Black Man in a Nun Suit”
THIS MAN NEEDS SCOTCH… NOT A FLAG
Posted 4/20/2006 at 2:16 PM by ErOticUsVeNomouS
I love Scotch! Scotchy Scotch Scotch!!
haven’t you ever had your kid spill a glass of coke on your keyboard which in turn killed your computer, which cause you to say, “I’M GONNA KILL THAT KID!”
Bad idea. Bad bad idea to use this.
i am against flags.
start flagging – lose a lot of xanga users.
Cause and effect.
You don’t want to lose a loyal fan base do you guys?
I agree, slippery slope. Go to far, you lose users. Don’t go far enough, you don’t satisfy those who thinks its a good idea, also possibly losing users.
Why’s xanga doing all these changed anyways?? It was better without the nudges and crap too. Xanga is becomming like myspace in a lot of ways.
Don’t flag to much. I think, instead of flagging, perhaps an age identifier would be good. Such as if the site contains mature content, If the xanga user isn’t over a certain age, the site comes up as blocked or something.
Maybe??
Will we be arrested and be put in “Myspaceswitz” if we get flagged? HAHAHAH!!
This is a great idea. Maybe those internet trolls will finally go away.
…honestly, please, define something CLEARLY before you try to make it a huge idea.
this whole flag idea is just fucking retarded. seriously… quit looking for stupid shortcuts that are going to make things even worse on Xanga. if someone is posting something that offends someone else, then people don’t HAVE to look at it. there is no “right to not be offended,” contrary to popular belief. and as far as people using Xanga to commit fraud or break the law, then the Xanga Admins should just bite the bullet and enforce their damn website’s TOS. this flag idea is by far the dumbest thing that Xanga has ever done
You’re better off making an adult section of Xanga, yahoo does it, yafro does it and many websites do that. Have you listened to this advice before? No, you completely ignored it and look where it’s gotten you. You got a bunch of pissed off premium subscribers on your hands now and if I were you…I wouldn’t ignore them. The Flagging will be a disaster.
NO CENSORSHIP!
Yea lets just disallow free speech alltogether.
Xanga is here to be somewhere we can speak our minds. i think u guys should mind your own business.
I sort of understand this, but there are some people out there that use xanga for support to stop the cycle of self-injury. This is improper and unfair to those that use xanga for support to stopping. I hope that this flag will be used to prevent people from telling others how to self-injure.
If you’re attempting to maim yourself, the best choice would be to admit yourself to a hospital, not hold hands with your manic-depressive suicidal friends. Trust, a doctor knows a helluva a lot more than a sick (as in mentally) teenager (or adult for that matter)! By the way, wasn’t this on threats? Stick to the topics, people.
OH! LOOK! XANGA’S BECOMING LIKE OUR GOVERNMENT!
I WILL KILL OF U SONS OF BITCHES!
I don’t know about this one … depends entirely on the context of the conversation. Also, I believe people should be able to vent. Just because someone is writing about something, does not mean they are actually going to do it in real life. It could be a form of catharsis for some people to take out their frustration.
Flagging in general really has the potential to be abused. I feel it works very, very poorly on Craig’s List.
“Flags are only a warning sign, not censorship.”
I saw that comment on a random site just a little while ago. It reminded me a lot of what people were saying when Hitler wanted to “flag” the jews. Don’t believe the jews didn’t see Hitler coming. Because they did. They just didn’t do shit about it. They let some crackerfool slowly invade them and take away their rights. First thing Hitler did was what? Anybody know? Any of you vuvlaheads know?
The first thing Hitler did was to LABEL the jews. Once they were clearly labeled and distinctively marked, he could then easily round them up and toss them in ovens. WTF?? Now ask yourself, why did the jews let themselves be labeled?
Flags = Labeling.
Why did the jews allow Hitler to pass a law which prevented jewish people from owning firearms? Why did the jews allow Hitler to burn their books?
People really have no clue huh doc? They have no recollection of history. Just a bunch of strungout computer monkeys typing away about their day at the local mall, not realizing that they are either part of the solution, or part of the problem.
A DEFINITE no to flagging/labeling of any kind!
no… your here to post our thoughts publically. publically we have free speach. xanga is here as a dairy, to post our personal thoughts, on goings, and beliefs. these flags are just making this site useless. if the public doesn’t like it, they don’t have to read it.
Too vague. Therefore pointless. Kiddie porn, OK I see the need for desperate measures, although you should still look for other ways to police Xanga than to ask Xangans to spy on Xangans. It smacks of Hitler’s Germany; it smacks of Stalin’s Russia. The “crimes” are different, I know. The so-called criminals in those other countries were attempting to exercise religious freedom or daring to express opinions that didn’t agree with the State. It’s a different situation here. Child exploiters, or those who incite hatred — they’re violating laws that are on the books for valid reasons and they should not be able to use Xanga to harm others.
But this method is wrong. Hire more people if you must. But do not institute this flagging system, where Xangans report each other. It invites abuse.
I recognize that you need to cover your ass. But do it in the right way, not the wrong way.
And make no mistake. That’s ALL you’re doing, is covering your ass. You’re not protecting anyone, especially not the kids. They’ll find ways to get into the trouble you fear. Just not here on Xanga. Fine. Cover your ass. But don’t try to pretend you’re protecting the victims of predators, or anorexics or bulimiacs, or the victims of hate mongers. This does nothing to protect them. It only protects Xanga. That’s your right and your duty, to protect Xanga.
Just do it the right way. Hire more staff and pay them to police the sites. Don’t use Xanga users to do that. That would be wrong.
****************************************************
!!!! Your site is in VIOLATION and will be flagged !!!!
****************************************************
“If you value your Freedom of Expression, If you value all the hard work you have done on your Xanga Pages, If you hate Online Censorship and the rapidly increasing loss of your blogging freedoms then it’s time for YOU to do something about it. Read Non_Featured_Content. Support the efforts of BXU! Send a comment to John and Flags showing your disgust of the loss of your blogging freedoms and the criminalizing of your Freedom of Expression and that you will tolerate it no longer. Send a comment to xanga and as often as possible. Tell them “That’s enough!”
We are not going to be able to do this by ourselves that’s for sure and there are power in numbers. It either stops now or it never will.
!BXU!
SEND A COMMENT TO John and Flags and tell them your disgust of the FLAGGING and CENSORSHIP and as often as possible!
(((((((((( Spread the Word )))))))))))
~VIVA REVOLUTION!!
BXU
Hi, we’d like to report user -independent_atheist- for threatening to physically harm illegal immigrants. He also threatened to harm the founders of BXU! Also, he flagrantly used the word “dipshit” on our blog when clearly that is an obscene word to our sensitive eyes.
We would appreciate your quick and firm response to shutting down this user who has clearly violated the sanctity of our community.
!BXU!
this is a nice idea and everything . .. but I doubt you’ll be able to stop anything.
it’s xanga. people are entitled to post what they want, as long as it doesn’t conflict with the terms of xanga.
….
NO TO FLAGS AND SHUT DOWN YOUR PAGE!!
<—–This is flaging
everyone says stuff like that when they are mad…and most of the time it is only becuase they are upset…it doesn’t mean they will do it…
How in the heck does this tie in to anorexia sites?
Just make sure you can tell the difference between a true threat (like on a school or something) & a venting I-wouldn’t-ever-actually-do-it comment…How does that kind of determining process go, anyway? & if you flag somebody else, do they know it was you?
Wait…if there was a link about a school shooting or something, wouldn’t you want to keep it for record in case the FBI or something was investigating & that person was a suspect? After all, if you post something in public it’s public access to everybody, & even comes up on Google…so shouldn’t you either send out an alert (since you’re obliged to upon reading it) or file it or something? Just a thought…
i do not believe that you can take an idea as serious simply because it is on the internet or in writing. (point in case:: Jonathon Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”. while this is a satire, it is still a valid point here.) also, i do not believe that you can judge someone based on what they say on the internet. here they truly are anonomous. if that anonymity is lost, i believe you would lose people. i know you would lose me, and i have no risk in this catagory of flagging. (i didn’t look at every single one, only those which caught my attention.)
Again, journals are for venting. People say things they don’t mean. End of story.
I dont like this idea… some people let out stress and emotions by saying stuff like “I’m gonna kill you” or “I want to kill myself” trust me I’m one of them.. and for people who dont know those people will flag them and their site will get shut down just cause they’re letting stress or emotions out in their own little way… so I think it’s a horrible idea…
Stevie
Again…there is nothing you can do about it besides report them and kick them off…but just keep in mind if you do all these flaggings you won’t have a site anymore….
A no brainer yes
I don’t think they mean “joking” in your posts. I can name a couple of sites where the users are constantly threatening to kick someones ass…not just on their site, but there is definitely no question as to what they mean when you read the comments they leave the people whose ass they want to kick.
I agree with Twoberry on this. You are just covering your own butts.
We bloggers should most definitely not be responsible for “flagging” one another and spying on one another. If Xanga is going to be the next government, then they need to govern – not hand this responsibility to 13 year olds.
That would be like having our police departments issue guns and handcuffs to middle schoolers.
Except I’d prefer that – because then we’d get some action.
No, YOU are the poopy-butt! *BLAM BLAM BLAM
I don’t think I want some 13 y/o policing my page saying “RESPECT MY AUTHORITAH!!”.
Letting people flag pages is like giving a 4 y/o hyperactive kid a hand grenade.
I agree.
Besides, anyone who threatens someone else over the Internet is a moron and should have the privilege of using the Internet.
FREE XANGA!
There are plenty of “safe” conservative anti-adult blogging communities already. Why turn our Xanga into another dilluted sorry excuse for a blogging community?
Help us keep Xanga FREE! from restrictions.
Help us keep Xanga FREE! from regulations.
Help us keep Xanga FREE! from flagging!
Support the efforts of NFC.
Join the BXU! and help us FREE XANGA!
what about JOKING?
Stop censoring. We have a right to free speech. If someone doesn’t like a site, they have the choice not to go to it. Why should people who like diversity be punished for the ignorance of others?
unless they have my address, there is NO POSSIBLE way for them to come over here and kik my Big FAT ASS!
go
yea, i think this one would be kind of hard to regulate…it’s so easy for people to say this just joking around. although if it were reported by the person being threatened, i guess it should be taken seriously…
I love it when the government, or xanga in this case, does things to protect me… lol. Posting on here may be giving me carpal tunnel can you send me wrist bands and a “soda hat” so I don’t fall down in the middle of the night walking to the fridge?
I love it when the government, or xanga in this case, does things to protect me… lol. Posting on here may be giving me carpal tunnel can you send me wrist bands and a “soda hat” so I don’t fall down in the middle of the night walking to the fridge?
I myself in a recent post threatened to do the same to another user. I actually know her in real life though. It’s all just venting though. Now if I had come back and posted in detail how I carried out my threat then I’d probably deserve to get my account deleted or something.
I think this is stupid, whats the point in flags? Its just going to get other killers together with more killers, or self harmers with self harmers to cause mass suicides and stuff, I dont think this will have the effect you want it to have.
WHAT HAPPENED TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!?!?
yes =]
when youre reading something you cant tell if someone is being serious or not. what if i typed “im gonna kill my brother!!!” i dont really mean it, im just angry or upset with him. i think this one is a bad idea.
Do you need someone to check out all of the flagged sites? I need a job and I’d love to do that for you! I’m serious too, I need to work from home and I’d love to check out sites every day! Seriously!
Most people are all talk half the time they have and will never meet or see this person they threaten..and there just words and the person wldnt have a reason to threaten if the other person hadnt sayed sumtin first
this whole flag thing is bullshit. xanga… this is a big mistake. not only will you lose your users, but you will also get rid of people buying premium.
good luck finding new jobs.
good idea
What if its a joke? Still get closed down?
What if its a rant because you’re angry?
To much to question I don’t like it.
Our content is our business.
A FORMAL PETITION
The parable of the village
(Dedicated to NFC.)
There was once a community I knew and loved. I lived there for three years. It was a very friendly, nice, open town– one of the ones you see in old movies, where everyone knows each other, and even if they didn’t they’d take time out of their day to say hi. Even though it was big, it was still familiar. You could stay there a night or ten thousand nights, and still feel the same: as if you belonged. You could always find your place where you’d be appreciated.
It sat in a county with other communities similar to it. You know, kind of like the suburbs: drive for twenty minutes and you’ll find an eeirily similar replica. But the wonderful thing about this one was its openness. Really, it was unparalleled. I think that’s why it went wrong.
Of course we had our problems. People living there weren’t perfect; no one is. I remember some horrible things happening; the kind of things local news programs just eat up. Mostly theft. A kidnapping and a few rapes, I think. And of course there was death. Where there is life, there is, ultimately, death. But whenever there was a death, the community would rise up in a wave of support. Though most had never met the dead, they would still give their comments of support for the family, or wishes for a content afterlife. Even though someone had left us, it was still almost an uplifting experience to see everyone living and going on in spite of what happened.
It was diverse without meaning to be, too. That’s also why I liked it so much. The place I live now is basically all one skin tone, mostly conservative Christian, and even the liberals are more moderate than anything else. Radical thinkers need not apply. But where I used to thrive was teeming with new people, new ideas– as close as you can come– and even the silly kids (emos, goths, annas, the like) were endearing if only because they added to the mix. I could be in a bible discussion full of middle-aged moms one week, and an argument about whether Elliott Smith or Conor Oberst would win in a fight with some indie kids the next.
But most everyone ignored the glaring differences and focused on the similarities. They all wanted the same thing, that’s why. They all wanted a community where they would be accepted and appreciated and loved. Together, we were all able to deliver that. Only together did it work. If you didn’t want to be friendly, you wouldn’t make problems; you would simply stay in your little corner. There was a certain amount of conformity involved in the community: be nice or we won’t really tolerate it. It was a conformity in exchange for a relatively safe, hapy community. I didn’t mind. I liked it. I felt safe and loved and intellectually stimulated.
Then. Oh, then. The reason I moved away.
The neighborhood town village whatever thing next to us had this huge investigation. Apparently there’d been more than the usual amount of underage illegal activities. The place I live now is going through this as well. Lots of underage drinking, drug use, and of course everyone’s confused about the cutting and anorexia obsessions. Plus, all this stuff was leading to more rapes and kidnappings. A lot of out-of-towners were coming in and, instead of joining the open community, were staying on the fringes and causing trouble.
Parents were getting worried, paranoid, and distrustful of newness. Kids, if they weren’t getting paranoid too, were getting taken advantage of.
I remember the day I realized I had to leave. I went to a neighbor’s house. It was a neighbor I wasn’t all that close with but we still recognized each other and talked occasionally. When I knocked and no one answered, I went to open the door. This isn’t unusual; usually if you did this, nine times out of ten you’d get an open door. People were used to their friends and neighbors dropping by unannounced and making themselves at home. That’s why we were all so close.
But the door was locked.
This sounds absurd, in retrospect. But it was like a physical blow at the time. It was the first realization I had that now, we were not a community. We were individuals who happened to live close together. We were protecting ourselves from each other. It was ridiculous, I thought; why would I need to be protected from the people around me? We all want the same thing. Why would someone want to ruin that? And why, if there were people like that, would we allow them to continue to exist?
But then I wondered how, if not through protection, we would be able to get rid of those strangers who didn’t share our vision for the community. I didn’t know. I couldn’t think of anything. I wanted to protect everyone, but I didn’t want to lose our openness. I wanted to have it so that everyone was safe, but so no one had to think about it. Basically, I wanted the impossible.
But my community? My lovely, open community? No. It couldn’t be happening.
Things went downhill from there.
Like me, most people didn’t know where to start. They didn’t really want to protect themselves, and so eventually they were taken advantage of, or made to protect themselves. In an attempt to curb this violence and paranoia, the police, or the mayor I don’t know I wasn’t really paying attention to politics then, tried to put some curfews and new regulations in place. This didn’t work at all. They were too rushed, too vague, too restrictive for a community that was used to seeing their police officers in the bar with them on Friday nights, laughing about the weekly gossip and antics of the teenagers in the Commons. Now, they had to enforce rules they didn’t want to; they witnessed things they never thought they’d see. They had left to get away from this. In the deep of their minds, it felt like the badness had followed them.
Everyone had that feeling.
I live now in a place where no one would ever think to leave their doors open, or even their windows. They know what to do with people who mean harm: lock them up, drive them out– or, even better, never give them the chance to enter in the first place. Everyone has security devices and all this fancy stuff that I mostly don’t understand. I don’t understand because I never had to deal with it before. I was never threatened before.
The fun, the innocence, the basic goodness that made the community so special was being destroyed by the unstoppable waves of change, the bleak change that local news channels love to just eat up.
My life was in that community for three years. I left before I could see it die completely. I felt it for a place that was already dead.
-Ren
*****************************
To: The Xanga Team
On April 21st, Xanga announced that it would seek to establish a system of flagging in response to recent litegation involving other online communities. Effective immediately all user interaction in exercising free thought and expression will be stopped and/or regulated.
This is a formal petition to please ask Xanga to reconsider their decision and continue in preserving this last bastion of FreeSpeechOnline -as the Only remaining free_thought internet community that we so dearly cherish. For a more detailed description of the situation please see this effort and support: http://www.xanga.com/Non_Featured_Content -the no_censorship community
Sincerely,
TheUndersigned
you can’t just delete proana sites etc. xanga doesnt work like that. thats discrimination. what if anorexic people or people who cut etc..need to talk to other people in their situations about that stuff. you guys will have no luck at this. whatever go fuck yourselves. really you should. b//c thats not right. at all. whatever go try to make world peace. we’re all different, from different backgrounds and we can’t all be perfect like you appearently think you are… losers.
*Nicole*
What? Are you serious? Let’s all join hands and do the goosestep then. Flags. My arse. If you don’t like what you read, don’t continue to read; if you don’t like what you see, don’t continue to look; and if you don’t know how to NOT subscribe to a journal then you really shouldn’t be using the internet, let along cruising blogs. It’s not our job to worry about other people’s kids .. let their parents do it; that’s what I did. Afraid others will learn how to purge or build a weapon of mass destruction from information found on the internet? Well, get over it. The information is out there in places besides this and do you really shake in fear if somone comes along and types something threatening?? How in the world are they going to carry that out??? *knocks on screen” Nothing’s real in here you know …
How should we respond to the nuclear conflict with Iran?
How about nuking Iran into a flaming radioactive mudpit!? ( ;
what if there is no flag feature on the person’s xanga?
i know of one but there is no flag feature to flag them.
-sam
ok the flagging system may be a violation of freedom of speach but the owners of xanga have the right to refuse service but they must check the flagged sites themselves not just kick a user because then some jerk could flag the persons site and it gets deleted for no reason the anorexia thing is wrong and people talking about self mutilation those shouldnt be on the list we all have our own life styles now suicidal instructions or an advertisement for a porno company would be terribly wrong
)|/(!†<|-
So how do you flag something?
Also how do i read xxwhytryxx’s comment?
This is my main problem:
Sometimes, I sarcastically say that. Do you think people can tell the difference between sarcasm and actually meaning it?
Actually, come to think of it, I have a huge problem with all of this.
I want you to read the most recent post on my site.
i like this one because if some 1 threatened me than i would like to be safe thx
this sounds pretty stupid but i didn’t kno what the flag thingy was and accidently flagged myself…is there any way to undo that??
Alright so I’ve flagged this guy’s site and he’s a crazy guy that beats up his girlfriend, calls her bruises his “artwork”, and now he is saying he wants to kill her and himself. I’ve flagged him numerous times but xanga has taken no action. What’s the point of these flags if the people at xanga don’t care about them.
If you want to see the site I’m referring to, here is the link:
http://www.xanga.com/DJ_RevRender_ontop
If xanga is taking no action, should I report this to the police myself?
i know that you can block/delete posts from a xanga user,but how about people actually threatening someone physically through e-props/comments?
Hey, if someone is suicidal, and someone flags them, what will you do to help that person at all?
So far flagging seems useless, If xanga doesn’t respond to my above comment within the next 24 hours, I’m going to contact the police.
it IS a good idea! and do you know what?? i am starting to HATE xanga! and you know WHY?!?!?!?!?!?! it’s because my friends for 9 WHOLE YEARS! and they use XANGA to swear at me! diss me! AND diss my mommy! AND my daddy! god dammit!! i am deciding to bitch at them first thing tomorrow!! AND telling on them!!!! fuckin xanga! all your fault!!!
this guy “littlemage16″needs to be shut down because he is threatening me about different things… nothing to serious though
I wish they had a system where u can flag someone if a lot people think that is very mean
yes this is a good idea bc it could scare some of the other ones that snuck in by pretending they are thirteen
<3 Stephanie
I just wanna know one thing… if you flag someone… is it anonymous?… or does the recipient of the flag know who flagged them?…
GOT YOUR IP ADDRESS AND I WILL BE SENDING OUT COPYS OF YOUR HOME ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER TO STRANGERS!!!!
sunshiinequotes told me that.
you can check on my xanga.
http://www.xanga.com/THELOVEOFTHEGAME094/512327636/item.html
please do this she
threatened me with that.
hi i found someone is under 13 but i can flag her for some reason. her site it http://www.xanga.com/ll_MyxMusicxSource_ll
I LOVE THIS IDEA!!! CUZ SOME BITCH THAT I NO AT MY SCHOOL THREATENED ME!!!! SHE EVEN SAID IT WAS A THREAT!!!! HAHA CUZ HER BITCH FRIEND IN MY GRADE DOESNT LIKE ME BLAH BLAH BLAH here
hey ppls whats ^? im bored well
anyway im done w/
Caroline.4 ever.the end.done.
and if u care 2 no y just
keep reading
hey what’s up ?? nmhjcc sorry
that i haven’t commented
you back but that’s just
because my computer has
viruses on it so yeah
ok # 1. why in the world did
you ask out charlotte she’s
ugly as shit and she’s fat and
no she hasn’t lost any
weight so yeah she’s still like
139 pounds and you said
that you hated her were you
like totally desperate
beyond belive or something
because wow that’s a lil
shocking well ttyl cb bye
~carlie
oh yeah who is hayden??
bye
Posted 7/14/2006 at
2:08 PM by luvs_summer
yeah so thats y and i no that
shes talking about me im
not totally stupid
so yeah well im gonna go luvs,
~*toxxic*~
that was so bitchy u stupid mother
fucker!!!!!u dont talk to her or about her
ever again or i will kick ur ass!!! yes
that is a thret!!! dont evn look at her!!!
ya here me???? good!! so if i here
u are talkng n e shit i will beat ur face
in to the ground!!!!!!!so i would watch my
fuckin back if i were u!!!! u stupid cunt
ass whore!! tuttles, miss sexy
Posted 8/30/2006 at 9:22 PM by Converse_rock_my_soxx – delete – block user
i copied her bitch friend (luvs_summer how gay is that) comment 2 this guy and posted it as an entry and then converse whoever copied and pasted my entry into her comment and then wrote this please shut her down shes older and she wasnt lying
toxxic
to them that wish it’s good for everyhuman to perform miracle let him go a head.
I kicked the icon Threat of Physical Harm carelessly …….What can I do?
Hey
This is Boy I Used To Go Out With Him ? Then He Has Been Herassmeting Me Accuseding Me About Things? I Want My Xanga Protected? Well Thanks
Jessie Jago
Once some one gets reported of this does there site get shut down emitly????
Dear Xanga,
The users MeganBrennan and BellaArgentino are sending me crude messages cussing at me and threatening to hurt me. I’ve tried blocking them, but all they do is make more sites. What should I do!?
http://www.xanga.com/lindsy88
http://www.xanga.com/lindsy94
http://www.xanga.com/lindsy_mariex3
http://www.xanga.com/Xo_blonde_in_the_inside_oX
http://www.xanga.com/i_miss_u_scooby
http://www.xanga.com/mmsgurl000
http://www.xanga.com/joanne_and_lindsy
http://www.xanga.com/chelsea_n_lindsy
http://www.xanga.com/xo_cutie_pie_lindsy_xo
http://www.xanga.com/fatass_lindsy
PLEASE SHUT THESE DOWN, THERE ARE SO MEAN THINGS ON THEM!!!!!!!