Imagine you are in your jammies with your coffee and you think I wonder what my online friends are up to and I need something new to knit. Where do you go to, Ravelry of course, doesn't everyone? Now you pull the page up, login and get a message that says 403 Forbidden. What, must be server problems, so you try again several times only to get the same message. Well this can't be right, so you buzz over to email some of your friends and find they have the same message. Ok so maybe the server is down or acting up but then wait there is something that says to contact legal at ravelry. Uh oh, that can't be good -- contact legal, immediateley thinking oh crap what did I do now.
Well after much time is spent you find out you have been banned from Ravelry. What, banned from Ravelry, it is a knitting site, how can I be banned from Ravelry. But my friends, my patterns, my library of books, stash, etc is there, what if I am a designer trying to sell my patterns or yarn, I have pictures up, i am a moderator of a group, I am in a swap, and the list goes on and on. Essentially you can have a lot of your life tied up in Ravelry.
I will not go into the details of who got banned and why because I am not sure anyone is getting a straight story no matter what side you are on, but I do believe those who were banned deserve the following:
In all reality those banned should have been notified the locks on the Ravelry door had been changed and why; a straight honest answer as to why exactly they were banned, none of the crap they have been fed, we all know the real reason but it needs to be said. They should also be given time to login and capture whatever they may need to, find new moderators for their groups, and to address any swaps, etc they may be in. I do believe that if anything is posted it does not belong to Ravelry and those who have purchased patterns, etc need to be able to retrieve their purchase. There are some who were truly caught up in the grand locking event and I believe each case needs to be addressed individually. Some use Ravelry as a livelihood and now they not only have their careers destroyed but their reputation as well.
As I have perused more of Ravelry this week than I care to because it was obvious I stayed in my own little world, I had no idea the vile, ugliness, and filth that is allowed on the website. There are children here who don't need to be exposed to this stuff, heck I don't even want to be exposed to this stuff. Tell me what crotch shots have to do with knitting? Is there good stuff on Ravelry, absolutely, I have got lots of free help, free patterns, and the best thing is I have met the most wonderful bunch of people that you could ever call a friend. Had I known what was on the other side of Ravelry I would never have joined but then I would never have met my friends, a double edged sword.
There are some groups I am still interested in keeping my membership in, I do enjoy surfing the patterns and learn things, but my time in Ravelry will be very small from now on and my own little world has just become tighter.
Ravelry can be a good site but I suggest that if you keep the vile and filth there be an adult only section with a seperate login and password, that groups not be allowed, that it truly be a sharing of knitting and crochet information. Ravelry could be good, but not the way it is now.
No comments:
Post a Comment