Here's the thing:
I don't want to see ATT's administration be eventually faced with the same problem that confronted the administrations of Reddit and TVT last year: a large section of rather unsavory types, hidden within the overall community, that hadn't been properly handled for so long that it required outside intervention (whether from SA, Google, some other source(s), or a combination) in order to force the admins to finally do something about them.
Keep in mind the differing reactions between Reddit and TVT: the former only banned its creepier sections after a series of SA-led media blitzes, and even then only because the sections were harming the site's reputation (rather than the fact that hosting such material on a large, relatively mainstream site such as Reddit is wrong on legal, moral, and many other levels). The latter, on the other hand, overreacted, which led to the current trend of censoring things that might piss off those who help fund the site (regardless of whether or not it actually is worthy of getting all up in arms about).
My solution is basic: try to head these problems off at the pass by making sure that the more unsavory types that would otherwise infest ATT's community are properly handled, in such a way that we don't end up actually overreacting while still preventing them from doing damage to the community and its reputation. Of course, this will most likely be far easier said than done, but I'm convinced that it is still possible to pull it off with a sufficiently dedicated administration.
Now, there are some other potential issues that I also want to discuss. Let me start with one:
We here know about the recent infusion of those who want TVT to be a more formal source of literary information, despite the fact that TVT was explicitly originally set up to be essentially a more informal counterpart to Wikipedia. At least part of this could be viewed as a response to perhaps hopeful literary-analysis types coming onto the site expecting some measure of literary analysis and suchlike, only to be confronted with the whole "informality" concept having been put into action (which must've undoubtedly offended more than a few senses).
ATT would do well to put into its TOS that informality is an integral part of the site's focus, and that those who have major objections to that concept should realize that ATT isn't really for them, and to find some other place that better suits them. In fact, we could try to find such sites and (if such sites are available) offer links to those sites in the TOS.
Of course, that's one idea, and I'd be willing to hear out any other ideas (even should I personally disagree with any of them).
I don't want to see ATT's administration be eventually faced with the same problem that confronted the administrations of Reddit and TVT last year: a large section of rather unsavory types, hidden within the overall community, that hadn't been properly handled for so long that it required outside intervention (whether from SA, Google, some other source(s), or a combination) in order to force the admins to finally do something about them.
Keep in mind the differing reactions between Reddit and TVT: the former only banned its creepier sections after a series of SA-led media blitzes, and even then only because the sections were harming the site's reputation (rather than the fact that hosting such material on a large, relatively mainstream site such as Reddit is wrong on legal, moral, and many other levels). The latter, on the other hand, overreacted, which led to the current trend of censoring things that might piss off those who help fund the site (regardless of whether or not it actually is worthy of getting all up in arms about).
My solution is basic: try to head these problems off at the pass by making sure that the more unsavory types that would otherwise infest ATT's community are properly handled, in such a way that we don't end up actually overreacting while still preventing them from doing damage to the community and its reputation. Of course, this will most likely be far easier said than done, but I'm convinced that it is still possible to pull it off with a sufficiently dedicated administration.
Now, there are some other potential issues that I also want to discuss. Let me start with one:
We here know about the recent infusion of those who want TVT to be a more formal source of literary information, despite the fact that TVT was explicitly originally set up to be essentially a more informal counterpart to Wikipedia. At least part of this could be viewed as a response to perhaps hopeful literary-analysis types coming onto the site expecting some measure of literary analysis and suchlike, only to be confronted with the whole "informality" concept having been put into action (which must've undoubtedly offended more than a few senses).
ATT would do well to put into its TOS that informality is an integral part of the site's focus, and that those who have major objections to that concept should realize that ATT isn't really for them, and to find some other place that better suits them. In fact, we could try to find such sites and (if such sites are available) offer links to those sites in the TOS.
Of course, that's one idea, and I'd be willing to hear out any other ideas (even should I personally disagree with any of them).