"...but I believe in order to make our tribes a complete groups-type product, we'll need to examine more closely the various types of tribes one can create.."


ELLIOT:

Does this possibly mean that there are talks at Tribe.net to the effect that private tribes might no longer be offered?

Excuse the length of this…

“flag free” like sugar free, god free, without “x”

I think tribe (sites in general) should be able to be without the flagging feature in the case it is private. The condition of entering the place is you waive your right to complain. This would also mean that Tribe employees would not be allowed to partake in these tribes. In other industries I’m part of, this is common practice. You and often your family may not partake in prizes offered by companies you are connected with.

Having studied international policy and laws for most of my adult life, I find it most fascinating where ethics collide. The pattern would appear to be one of religiously motivated intolerance giving way to changing diversified cultural tolerance (or is it perhaps apathy? Hard to tell).

I’m very clear the Tribe company simply does not want to break a law. Sadly, many laws leverage their inherent ambiguity to succeed by creating fear. Consider everything I say as simply conversation, we are just talking here.

My staff of attorneys and I have reviewed and have been tracking the 2257 section for a while (in addition, I have friends in the adult industry, so this is common topic). I hope to be part of the over turning of this section, or at least be present.

The question that stands of course is –who is responsible when something is placed on the Tribe site (even if tribe—its employees--itself has no access to, or knowledge of it)? Have the Tribe attorneys been offered a model like this?

I’m sorry to have engaged you (a designer) in a legal discussion, I only engaged you here because you wrote "Try it, and see if you like it."

This seemed so patently ironic. See if you “like” a constraint? Tribe patrons interested in BDSM aside LOL, I think simply sticking with your other sentiment “I trust them to figure out the best way to deal with the various pressures that are driving these changes.” would have been best.

To answer your second question, yes it is an interesting one. I recall a Home owners association in Florida that won a case against an owner in the association that flew an American flag. The CC&Rs trumped the federal and state law (vexillology can be so interesting).

The owner of a building has no responsibility to the terms in 2257, even if it is a Le Sex shop. It is interesting that Tribe’s attorneys don’t draw this same analogy. Fear will win…for a while, that seems to the be pattern historically.

p.s. since I probably won’t have the chance in the near future, keep up the great work, and remember to offer both options when trying to pick one. : )

I think to do this reasonably, you'd have to limit it to certain pre-set options, such as checkboxes-i.e.: allow flagging/no flagging/Tribe default flagging. You already offer the ability to require approval for members when you create a tribe. This would just be adding to those options, with an option to reset them at any point if it you change your mind later. Something like that might be more practical. Realistically, for me, I suppose I never minded all the porn tribes, etc. partly because as a user, I would assume that just being on Tribe would be a tacit agreement that I could possibly encounter such things in my browsing. I thought that logically, I could be agreeing to that by signing on, especially given the 18+ age limit. Sure, I don't think genetalia and such need to be allowed in user Icons, but I guess I'm also a believer in 'don't like it, don't look'. I can deal with the occasional surprise. Perhaps a warning screen that pops up when you join a tribe, informibng you of variances from Tribe.net's default TOU policies, and that by joining you hold Tribe exempt from all content provided therin, etc. Or some such disclaimer screen that things like adult websites use. Then the user can whine if they want, but they were warned, and thus unless the tribe is violating some kind of essential TOU, they can have things their own way within the tribe itself to a greater degree than if they were just subject to standard TOU/flagging.

Whatcha think anyone?

If the uploader of the photo contests the removal, it goes to an internal review by Tribe.net employees. They either confirm or overturn the removal.