JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Please don't take JPF for granted!!!

Lisa,

Though it is true that free speech doesn't apply to a privately owned website, the point of that is if something is particularly horrible, I do not feel the need to leave it in place. That said, I haven't removed anyone's text (i.e. "censorship") in a decade or more. That was usually only done when the same trolls from the same site came here under many different user names and launched vile attacks on people. Ironically, I never removed a single criticism of myself, attack on me, no matter how vile, or anything political unless people mutually agreed it was best to remove it (meaning the people involved in the posts). Often it was for THEIR good, not mine, that it was removed. And the real point of people having a place to post questions, discussions and their work is about feedback, not offensive posts in need of censorship. People focus way too much on censorship when talking about speech. We've tried hard for many years to keep this troll free and supportive for the widest talent levels and experience levels we can. That's what it is about, not the occasional words from a troll that need to be handled in some way. I haven't stopped anyone on the political board, I just moved it off the general board where it was drowning everything. It has it's home, enter at your own risk.

As for your donation, we did in fact acknowledge you just like everyone else who made a donation. Your name is listed right there on the bottom of the 2013 donations. I looked on Paypal, there were no other donations in your name, so I don't know what you are referring to.

As to why we had so many more donations earlier on, it is because I was actively touring around the USA, Canada and Europe, non stop most of those years and people who came out to events we held often used Paypal to make donations because they didn't have cash with them at the time and this was all Pre-Square and other ways people could use credit. So that was the only way. Things dropped off after I started having strokes and couldn't tour so I was in contact with far less people at that point. And we only started posting this Honor Roll when we actually HAD a donation button Before that date, we had no method to donate outside of cash at live events which usually added up to quite a lot between donations and T-Shirt/Hat sales.

It seemed to me a global post where your name is recognized for years (or a decade at this point) by a huge number of visitors was a nice way to recognize folks.

As for Bob's posts, I didn't ask him to do it and even told him not to bother as it wouldn't work. The folks who have donated are mostly the same few that ALWAYS donate (with a few happy exceptions) but without their contributions, I couldn't have justified keeping this board going. And thanks to the 7 extra recent donations, I am able to add to them and finally do an upgrade on the boards which will re-open us up to new sign ups for the first time in over a year. It will also offer some nice new features which might be more fun for all. So thanks to Bob for trying something. If you disagree with what he said, no one stopped you from doing it differently. And if you weren't going to donate anything anyway, why do you care about his efforts in the first place? He tried to help and succeeded versus doing nothing at all. It is much appreciated.

And for the record, I was a bit stunned by the RIP Brian message. As someone with a myriad of dangerous health problems, there's no doubt that real message will come around eventually. So I was in no hurry to see it while I am still ticking. I just hope it was significantly premature.