Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for January 25, 2016

gofer gopher has been banned.gocomics: 1. doesn’t notify the bannee of their decision and 2. doesn’t prevent him from commenting but removes his posts as soon as he enters them.It was apparently not for any naughty words or personal attacks. He suspects that it was his, um, satire of certain commenters who post bunches of comments or pics in a row.

Here’s to gofer. His wit will be missed.

So sad that some cities keep people from sharing in a mini-library. Take a book, leave a book. Maybe all the books should be Fahrenheit 451.

Those are some weighty tomes indeed.

I think the owner of that little lending library was given to reading books of a heavy nature…Perhaps some light literature would have taken away from the sheer gravity of the collection, and allowed that poor thin post to retain its equilibrium.

Next time, some poetry, perhaps? Some fairy tales, some classic humor…. maybe even a romance or two, the kind with happy endings, not weighed down by gloom or despair.

Sigh…. I was trying to stay out of this, as I have friends on both “sides,” where there shouldn’t be sides at all….we’re all friends and comics lovers.

OK, I miss Gopher too…. I miss his jokes and his banter with me on some strips.

Jreckard, my friend, as well…. you just said it.Gopher says it was NOT for personal attacks…. but “suspects that it was his, um, satire of certain commenters who post bunches of comments or pics in a row.”

I know gopher is a good guy and probably didn’t think this way… but to GoComics, satirising certain commenters is a personal attack!

Lately I’ve seen an explosion of complaints, about other posts that don’t meet that poster’s personal criteria for appropriateness….not because they’re vulgar, or threatening…but because he or she just doesn’t care to see them.

Then it starts.. one person urging others to flag another for posting such content, or, on the other side, for speaking against it, or against those who posted it.

PLEASE, everybody…try to understand:This isn’t MY site, it isn’t YOUR site…..It’s UCLICK’s site, and we use it under their terms, and their idea of appropriate content.

And I, too, have been frustrated with the way banning is handled. But whatever I’d like to see, I know that to stay here, I have to post within the bounds of what GoComics allows.

Maybe you “like” this person or that…you like to see pictures or you don’t…. read recipes, hear personal stories, ask about the weather.Maybe you think every comment should relate to the strip.

I have opinions of my own in some of these cases…but I’d rather be friends with my adopted GoComics family than worry about whether they all follow MY rules.Cos here’s the thing I know for sure:MY RULES DON"T MATTER.Nowhere in the terms of service under which we have permission to use this site does it say what you MAY post, or that it MUST pertain to the comics strip at the top…. or that it must obey YOUR rules.

They DO define INappropriate content… which includes harassment.

And I’ve seen posts from mods, urging people to STOP flagging people willy-nilly.

I’ve also seen a mod warn someone about arguing.If you want to write to GoComics to tell them what YOU think should be allowed on the comics… that’s your call.But complaining about, or to, other commenters…. poking, “satirising”, and making rules for them to follow…. flagging people for posting things the terms of service allow, but YOU don’t…. all of that, like it or not, and whether I happen to agree with it or not, is NOT helpful and can even get you banned.

BTW…. they don’t remove your comments immediately when you are banned….it’s very sneaky.They make all your comments and your personal profile invisible to everybody but you…. so you remain able to see every comment you make, but no one else can see anything you’ve EVER said…. and you may not realise it for a while.And if you’re reinstated, it all becomes visible again.I knew someone who made some …um…. not-family-friendly remarks when he figured out he was invisible…it was NOT a good idea.

Oh, hi Gaijinrabbit…. good to see you….When I click on my own avatar, I’m taken to my own profile page….. as I would be to anyone else’s.

But on my own page, underneath the larger version of my avatar, there’s a link to “edit profile” …..I would guess that’s what you’ve been trying, so I don’t quite know what you see when you open it…

Cos on mine, there are two fields, for the first and the last name….it LOOKS like they’re for your mailing name and address, but they’re actually for your user name, and mine are readily edited. Not quite sure where your experience differs.

@gopher :No telling what you did. I suspect that it may be when you go to the dreaded “editorial” cartoons. Come back soon.

“Satire offends mostly those with the narrowest minds.”My quote, but I’m sure somebody else has said something similar in a more elegant way.As far as the cartoon goes, education does require a firm foundation.

I rescinded a previous comment and will simply say I wholeheartedly concur with Susan Sunshine, who as usual, is most astute. I posted my feeling about this on Andy Capp because that strip, particularly, attracts an inordinate amount of trolls and whiners.

Blessedly, Ballard Street , with it’s slightly deranged and often unhinged residents,( moi included ), has been pretty free from the constricts, and censorship applied in other places.

I would like to think that this is because of the wit and inventiveness of the contributors to the comment section here. I pray that it continues, although age, attrition, and the GoComics Overlords have taken their toll.

P.S. Let me know if you read this, just so I know I haven’t been secretly banned.

Regarding that catastrophe above – it gives new meaning to a library book drop box !

Do you suppose the books in the cartoon were “dumped” because they offended someone? How very appropriate for this very day.

The little library was installed by the same guy who built Chet’s porch.

I too enjoyed Gofer Gopher, I like satire, I think he was funny, and on point most of the time,Having said that, I’m one of :those" people who post multiple pics (of cats) on TC. That’s what we do over there. And I’ve been guilty of posting a couple of pics in a row here as well.Which brings me to my point. Some sites don’t mind you doing that, even encourage it. Some want you to stick to pithy comments about the day’s comic.

Trouble seems to happen when posters don’t follow what’s the norm for that particular site.We’ve had people complain on TC and here about multiple postings and on TC about sharing personal stories and in each instance they were new and didn’t know what was the “feel” of that site.Perhaps that is what happened to Gofer Gopher. He wasn’t aware of the sites unofficial “rules” and instead of gently chiding him and ‘splainin’ they flagged him instead, The cowards way out in my estimation.

I agree with Dogsniff. i.m.o. this is true and Not Fair.“they don’t remove your comments immediately when you are banned….it’s very sneaky.They make all your comments and your personal profile invisible to everybody but you…. so you remain able to see every comment you make, but no one else can see anything you’ve EVER said…. and you may not realise it for a while.”makes u think you are being ignored. “overlords” yep.I agree with most of these posts. Mostly I dislike the rude comments. so unnecessary. when they are not removed even after reporting them, why is that? some form of favoritism? I no longer spend time here as I did because of the immoderate moderators. By staying I am complicit in the continuation of the unfair practices.

When you are banned, you get totally vanished? Even things they posted like, years ago?

I’ve known folks banned for life for things they were accused of but really hadn’t done. Hang in there gopher.

Can anyone read this"? Have I been banned?

One last try…Thank you, gaiijinrabbit, Linquist, Perkycat, mr_sherman, and anybody else who said anything nice, to me or even to each other, cos that’s what we’re here for….I DON’T want to keep talking about this… Ballard Street is for fun.But re-reading my post, and some others, I think I didn’t emphasise one thing enough.I wasn’t backing up GoComics or banning or any of that… I was explaining a bit of how it works…. whether you or I like it or not… I was trying to point out that WE…we commenters, we users….WE CAN’T make rules for other posters, and then alert GoComics or the mods to the fact that OUR rules are not being obeyed.They don’t care! So, sorry, Jreckard… but no, that was NOT what I’m saying….. GoComics doesn’t care whether we have a party, who we invite, whether we have one forum that prefers pictures and one that doesn’t.NO forum on this site is at your house or my house or any other commenter’s own property.GOCOMICS has NO RULE saying you can’t post pictures or recipes or talk about your daughter’s graduation or your new puppy on THEIR site.So, whoever you are…. even if you’re one of my dearest friends, even if I know you wouldn’t hurt a fly, and “everybody” loves you…. If YOU think someone shouldn’t do one of those things, and you keep complaining about it, mocking it, and harassing those who do it….. and especially flagging it….not only the mods, but many other posters, as well, consider YOU the one making trouble.Flags are for alerting them to rule-breaking…. but breaking GoComics rules, not yours!If you don’t like, say, recipes, so you flag recipes, and the mod comes and sees the recipes….what the heck do you think he can do?(Or substitute personal anecdotes, 14 pictures of someone’s cat, a string of irrelevant links….)Are you expecting a moderator to make up a rule on the spot and delete them? HE CAN’T.it’s not in his job description.What he CAN do is notice that you keep flagging things that are NOT against the rules…and that there are three people cheering you on and three people asking you to stop….and he can warn you to quit stirring up trouble in the forum…. and if you don’t, he can ban you.You could be the funniest person on GoComics, and satirise other people in a light-hearted way….it doesn’t matter…if you keep hassling people who are not breaking any rules that the mods have power to enforce, whatever their personal belief about the activity in question, YOU become, in their eyes, a trouble-maker.,I’m sad when that happens…I hate to see friends get banned…and I also hate to see them cause dissension, cos I know it might get them banned.

Meanwhile, that’s why I suggested that if there’s something you want changed about what’s allowed…. write to CoComics, instead of hassling people.

Otherwise, it’s like repeatedly calling the police to arrest someone who isn’t breaking any current law.

So where is a copy of the gc rules? Is there anything in them about dealing with the bullies? Not trolls, bullies.

I don’t really know what the best way to do something like this would be, but personally it would be good if GoComics had some way of telling you when one of your comments got flagged. Not who flagged it, or course, but just tell you that it has been flagged. And I’m sure a lot of people would just ignore it, but for people who want to be nice and considerate, being able to see, “oh, when I post that, people don’t like it. I’ll stop posting things like that.” Now, I know that trolls won’t pay any attention to it, but for people who just get carried away voicing their opinion or what-not, and aren’t trying to cause trouble, I feel like it could prevent the need to temporarily ban certain people. And perhaps it would only tell you that it’s been flagged if it gets flagged so many times, or you get so many flags in a certain period of time, I don’t have detailed proposal to submit to GoComics, but it seems like their have been multiple well-intentioned people who have been banned in the last few months, and perhaps something like this could have prevented said bannings. Just my two cents. P.S. It would be rather considerate of them if GoComics would tell you when you’ve been banned.