As of right now, this page has grown to 5,135 members. This number, however, does not reflect the actual number of membership requests that Ive received, and it does not include the people who are banned almost immediately after they join because they either wanted access to the site to post spam or to stir people up. It also does not include the few people who have gotten mad at me and left. Roughly 10% of people who request to join this page are not accepted because their profiles do not indicate any connection to Texas and/or are bogus profiles and/or were created for commercial purposes. Although I manage to screen out a large number of these requests, that doesnt mean that some dont get by me--sometimes, despite my best efforts, we get a spammer, and I take care of it as soon as I can. Generally, when a brand-new member posts an ad as his/her first posting, I remove it and ban the poster. Those of you who have been on this page for very long know the story of how this page came into being precisely because another Texas-based page was overrun with spammers and trolls; both of these are hot buttons for me. I dont hesitate to take it down and I make no apologies for it. Thats how it has to be to keep this page spam- and troll-free. This morning, I took down two ads. One was from a brand-new member whom I removed when I took down the ad. The other one was from a member who had been here for a while and who has posted good, interesting content in the past. When I took down that ad, I decided not to remove this poster because I was willing to believe that he didnt realize that it was commercial content, and that turned out to be the case. At the time, I just took it down and considered that to be the end of it. It wasnt the end of it, but within a couple of postings, we resolved the issue and were good with how it worked out. I am, however, concerned with a couple of responses from other people--and one particularly vituperous email--and need to address a couple of things. First, although this page is a labor or love for me, it is not the only thing going on in my life. I dont have time to sit in front of a monitor 24/7/365 to babysit postings, and its not reasonable or realistic to expect that. Im like the other 5,100+ people on this page in that I also have other things going on in my life. Second, every member on this page is here precisely because he/she wanted to be here, and Im assuming that members will stay as long as they want to. If members decide that they dont want to be here, then they are perfectly free to remove themselves; if they dont know how, then I will be happy to help--but Im not interested in reading about how they dont want to be here. Third, this page was created specifically as a spam- and troll-free zone, and I intend to keep it that way. Most people, I think, like that; those who dont--well--they can remove themselves or ask for help to remove themselves. Thats about the best that I can do.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 17:09:48 +0000
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