After I was banned from a larger smart-forum (and I use the term smart specifically about the cars here), I decided to strike out on my own. Forums are like mini-governments...sometimes you run into a hapless dictator with no sense of reason or fairness, or those who let their underlings (moderators) stomp on everyone else with their personal biases.
While I have my biases and strong opinions as evidenced from my blog-history, free-speech and free-inquiry are vitally important to me both as an American and an atheist. I may disagree with some people and their posts, lifestyles, etc., but I recognize that everyone is different and that merely censoring certain 'controversial' issues does nothing to change that fact.
As one of my ancestors, Patrick Henry, once said: 'Give me liberty or give me death'. While I don't want to invite death, I can't abide anyone messing with my liberty, yes, even some silly moderator on a smart-car forum.
I would rather have a site with 10 people than be on a large-site plagued with Lockerators™ who lock any thread which tweaks their personal biases. As an atheist moderator on a motorcycle site, I've had long debates with Creationists in the off-topic section, and I never had to lock or delete threads or censor their posts.
Censorship in most cases is just not necessary and eventually, everyone who wanted to say something said it. People come and go and they move on. Real life is the same way. If your friends can't bear your opinions then they're not really your friends. If someone's opinion can't be swayed by solid argumentation, then that person is unreasonable. Bottom line is, if you've got an opinion that's worth anything, it will stand to scrutiny. But as forums go, people are free to ignore conversations they don't enjoy just as they might in real-life.
As long as the discourse is civil and reasonable, I prefer to let people 'talk it out' and thus, my new site was inevitable in-light of the heavy-handed thread-locking and outright censorship which existed on the forum I was booted from. It's no wonder one of their moderators stepped down, and I can't say I blame him.
My new site is smartforums.info and although it's under construction (adding content and adjusting graphics), it's very much open for business and there's no charge or fee for vendors who want to advertise smart-related products and services.
On a lighter note, I'm selling smart-car decals through a great local aftermarket company called Smart Madness here in sunny SoCal. The decals are printed by a wide-format Roland printer with Max-brand eco-solvent inks. All decals have an over-laminate for maximum outdoor life, which is about 3-5 years.
This decal was inspired by wow, but was all hand-drawn by yours-truly. It's a funny acknowledgement of the tiny-size of the smart with a nod to Gnomish Engineering. World-of-Warcraft (wow) fans will be quite familiar with the concept, and the rest will still understand it too. 'The Power of Small' is something I've heard to describe the gnomes in wow and I've always loved this phrase. It's funny on many different levels, but it acknowledges what many non-smart drivers think we don't know, 'OMG THAT CAR IS SO TEENY!'. ;)
The decal below is a pumpkinized smart-car, part of a new set of decals I've made called Punkinheads™. The Punkinheads™ are a Mix-and-Match family (like the stick-figure familes you've seen on car windows) that are intended for cars but can stick almost anywhere.
Atheist Angle RSS Feed
No comments:
Post a Comment