Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Everyone,
First let me thank you all on behalf of everyone for the individual efforts in making our very small community work and worthwhile. In the past year, OPF has moved more towards a greater emphasis in quality of photography. The recent work shows this well.
Openness to alternative Ideas: I do have concerns about how we deal with political and social differences. As part of openness, which is so needed for creativity itself and then its appreciation by the rest of us, we must tolerate alternative ideas. So we do not censor well-intended speech but draw the line at anything which demeans or is utterly dismissive.
Anger: In Provocative Thoughts and Images, we have allowed considerable latitude. That's intended as a pressure release valve during times of bombing or mayhem as well as to deal with topics of the day. Sometimes, I've had both side of an argument point out how "off the wall" the opposing views are! Despite warnings about not joining this discussion if one is overly sensitive, I've been asked to remove guys who are "socialist" or "right wing extremists"! We've even had a rare physical threat! Stunning, but true! So, we're not, after all, as tolerant and open as we might believe.
Propaganda: From time to time we get posters putting up what must be deemed propaganda with some cryptic comment and a language we don't understand and then no translation. Or here where the text is obviously a one-sided message with no discussion or context and no photography. At that point, we have obvious propaganda.
Now the issues in that particular graphic art creation are, for sure heartfelt, but there is no context for this and no photography essay by the poster. This being the case, we are not set up to be a base for just slogans. There's no photography and we are, after all about the photograph.
I did not remove the offending thread but really find it disappointing that we don't get photographic essays which explore a social issue and present different sides.
Some Censorship is needed after all! So, failing that, we're generally not going to tolerate further non-photographic threads in Controversial Thoughts and Images. This is not 100% since we might need some discussion on a pressing issue that has impact we cannot ignore. So this is, after all, censorship. Yes, I admit it, but you can circumvent this by presenting balanced photographic essays that don't set one person against another.
We want to explore important issues, but in an open fashion.
Asher
First let me thank you all on behalf of everyone for the individual efforts in making our very small community work and worthwhile. In the past year, OPF has moved more towards a greater emphasis in quality of photography. The recent work shows this well.
Openness to alternative Ideas: I do have concerns about how we deal with political and social differences. As part of openness, which is so needed for creativity itself and then its appreciation by the rest of us, we must tolerate alternative ideas. So we do not censor well-intended speech but draw the line at anything which demeans or is utterly dismissive.
Anger: In Provocative Thoughts and Images, we have allowed considerable latitude. That's intended as a pressure release valve during times of bombing or mayhem as well as to deal with topics of the day. Sometimes, I've had both side of an argument point out how "off the wall" the opposing views are! Despite warnings about not joining this discussion if one is overly sensitive, I've been asked to remove guys who are "socialist" or "right wing extremists"! We've even had a rare physical threat! Stunning, but true! So, we're not, after all, as tolerant and open as we might believe.
Propaganda: From time to time we get posters putting up what must be deemed propaganda with some cryptic comment and a language we don't understand and then no translation. Or here where the text is obviously a one-sided message with no discussion or context and no photography. At that point, we have obvious propaganda.
Now the issues in that particular graphic art creation are, for sure heartfelt, but there is no context for this and no photography essay by the poster. This being the case, we are not set up to be a base for just slogans. There's no photography and we are, after all about the photograph.
I did not remove the offending thread but really find it disappointing that we don't get photographic essays which explore a social issue and present different sides.
Some Censorship is needed after all! So, failing that, we're generally not going to tolerate further non-photographic threads in Controversial Thoughts and Images. This is not 100% since we might need some discussion on a pressing issue that has impact we cannot ignore. So this is, after all, censorship. Yes, I admit it, but you can circumvent this by presenting balanced photographic essays that don't set one person against another.
We want to explore important issues, but in an open fashion.
Asher