| Wednesday, April 18, 2001 | |
| KARNAC.com Slams Door on Message Board Abuse | By Jack Smith
Friday April 13, 2001 was perhaps, at least in some race fans' minds, an appropriate day to make changes in the policies regarding anonymous posting of messages on our message boards. The emotions expressed from race fans have run the gamut from rages about Hitler and 'free speech', to enormous praise and happiness on the other. All the Internet experts have come out of the closet and warned us about our coming demise due to our simple demand for civil behavior in the house of KARNAC.com.
Just in case anyone mistakenly thinks we at KARNAC.com have been forced to limit access to message boards let's take a look at a simple fact: Registering your name and e-mail address to the site administrator does not limit access to anyone. All it is doing is protecting good people from the scavengers of the world who feed off the misery of others. We have resisted efforts to enforce registration until such time that our audience was computer savvy enough to be able to deal with it. We feel that time has come.
We have actually increased access by making it possible for parents to feel comfortable that their children may now read our message boards without worry that they will be subjected to mean and cruel people. It also makes it possible for well meaning folks to express themselves without being subjected to a parade of mindless ridicule. Our asking for users to register does not reduce anyone's ability to express their complaints about a particular track, nor are we demanding a 'warm and fuzzy' atmosphere.
Persecution by anonymous sources should not have to be tolerated by anyone in a sane society. Systematic campaigns of harassment are despicable, in my opinion. The handful of people who enjoy making others miserable are no longer welcome, unless they can conduct themselves in a manner more consistent with those of the majority of the 'racing family'.
Recently, while a racing family in Riverview Florida suffered the tremendous loss of a loved one, a few disgusting creatures who probably pass in our society as 'normal' took it upon themselves to post horrendously vicious personal attacks on one of our boards about those family members. KARNAC.com message boards are not places to carry on vendettas and personal feuds. Persistent attacks on people has no place on message boards that exist for members of the' racing family' to communicate with each other.
Does any of this mean we feel you should not communicate anything 'negative'?
Of course it doesn’t.
But it is one thing to post about a flagman who needs a trip to the eye doctor and quite another to post useless drivel about who he is sleeping with. Posting opinions about how a track is hurting the drivers with low purses would seem to be acceptable in a civil society, but posts inferring the owner is stealing money from the points fund is ludicrous. Even if the owner is stealing the money form the points fund, the message board is not the place for the information to be made available. A courthouse would probably be more appropriate.
This concept of 'people need a place to vent' may or may not have merit, but I doubt many of you would allow me to come to your house, insult your other guests, kick your dog and break the furniture, just so I could vent.
The concept of censorship is another bothersome issue. In your home you can say anything you want. Start a newspaper, magazine, radio show or Internet site and on it you may say what you want. The First Amendment to a large degree protects you. Try to get a newspaper like the Tampa Tribune to accept vicious libel and slandering without their independent investigation. KARNAC.com is our house, and we allow our visitors great latitude in their ability to communicate their opinions. We accept articles and news pieces from anyone who takes the time to write a comprehendible feature on any racing related subject.
Where is the line drawn? You can't reasonably expect to go to Main Street of your local town and scream obscenities or spread vicious rumors about the water supply with expecting some repercussions. In other words your speech will be censored if you go overboard.
Funny how a small group of Thundercross folks are quite sure we are the second coming of the anti-Christ because we have restrictions on foul language and personal attacks on the Thundercross message boards. One writer accused us of censorship. That's really very funny. For about a six-month period a Thundercross representative was moderating the Thundercross board. Then a few months ago we received a call from the TC rep telling us the owner wanted the board removed. We simply changed the password and our own moderators took over. There was no way we were going to remove the board simply because the track owner did not like what was being said about the track. It didn't make us any more friends in the TC ownership, I'm sure. But we did not feel the appropriate solution was to shut off the communication. We felt that would be censorship. As one owner said to me recently "we make mistakes and people have a right to complain about them, but personal attacks hurt people and that's not good for racing".
If you read our Behind the Scenes section, as well as our various regular columns you will find several nights worth of reading material which more or less expresses our philosophy regarding many aspects of racing including safety issues and sportsmanship. We have never shrunk from confronting the hard issues and unlike some in the field of racing media, have never allowed advertising dollars to affect our editorial stance. The Message Boards are only a small part of KARNAC.com, though a very important one for the expression of ideas. We have no intentions of skirting the serious issues and are never afraid to tackle those issues directly with track owners or their promoters.
But, that being said, we also do not hold out the welcome mat for people who want to constantly berate and persecute others for their own purposes. That's where we draw the line on the "Freedom of Speech" issue. We may not please everyone in the process of making that distinction, but it is after all our house, and our estimate of the proper manners and civility will be the one that is used to remove posts.
Keep in mind also that we have been at this longer and with more success than the average bear and all of the recent actions regarding our message boards have been being evaluated for quite a long time. The actions are being taken, at least in our collective opinion, for the betterment of the sport for Florida race fans, drivers, track owners and promoters, as well as you, the end user of the website.
Five years ago KARNAC.com was started as a direct result of a former track promoter telling his General Manager to "do whatever it takes to get me off the Internet". He was speaking about a small insignificant personal site I was doing at the time. This was followed by a dedicated campaign of rumormongering and harassment by certain staff members of that organization. At that time I certainly was quite vocal about my right to 'free speech'. I understand the retribution that can come from speaking your mind. However the reason I stuck to my guns and persisted and actually expanded the scope of my activities (which resulted in KARNAC.com) was because I knew my words which had so offended this particular track promoter were well within the scope of free speech afforded under the First Amendment and would have welcomed a lawsuit with open arms.
FREE ADVERTISING:
Which brings me to the second key element of why we have made certain changes in message board policies. KARNAC.com is now five years old and what started as a one-man campaign to provide news and information to Florida stock car fans has grown considerably. Despite the advice of people who 'know better' that we would fail in the first year and our 'controversial attitude' would be the end of us, KARNAC.com is a major source for Florida racing news. Our average audience in any given week is 25,000 to 30,000 people who read 1,600,000 pages each month. Our main message board alone was visited over 40,000 times last month. The site consists of tens of thousands of files and 6,000 pages. Our audience is worldwide and we regularly receive mail form Europe, and Australia and elsewhere. We have had in place a policy for quite some time that excludes businesses from free adverting on our message boards, and now that policy is extended to speedways and for-profit series operators. After all, we feel for the service we provide the Florida racing community and the tremendous readership, that we should not be expected to provide a free service to profit making businesses. Tracks should pay for the exposure they get. However, any track or racing series can always send any information about any of their activities to RickAnges@karnac.com and he will run it on our Pit Stop section or elsewhere. Or email it to Luann at Nieborg@karnac.com and she will put it in our Events calendar. In news, the most active press agents get the most media for their clients.
The news portions of KARNAC.com are extensive. The message boards are not the place for news stories or promotions, unless of course businesses such as speedways would like to pay for that privilege.
CHANGES: The only changes are that we are now requiring users of our free service is to tell us who they are by simply registering a name and valid e-mail address, which is a rather common Internet practice. Specifically we are committed to eliminating the trashing of individuals reputations and the persecution of officials etc. Not that people can't complain, but the steady stream of venom from certain individuals has ceased.
We are not undoing a good thing, simply protecting people from harassment, and our increasing ability to keep bringing the news to you. The current Florida Message Boards will have updated software shortly, which will make the board easier to use and include many features such as private messaging and more. You will not notice any change in the boards look or feel, only it's enhanced features.
As always we value your opinions and feel free to email them to us at info@karnac.com.
-Jack Smith
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