You could end up with a lot of blogs saying how great e collars are---the people using them would only have to be sweetness and light on the forum and then have the go ahead to do as they please on their blog.

There are plenty of places on the net that will take blogs---there are social networking sites where you could say how great these devices are----the aim of using a forum like this as a platform is that it can reach many more people.

Flattering as that is to dogsey I don't think it is worth the loss of integrity.

rune

Azz, there were a couple of problems with the blog in question.

One was that the Google ads that appear at the top of the page tend to reflect the content being discussed. In this case, most times I looked at it, there were two ads for e-collar sales at the top. That doesn't happen for me on the main forum so not only was the topic being discussed, but where to buy them was advertised.

The second problem (for me to get my head around) was that, apart from the discussions around the use of the collar getting out of hand and personal, the inevitable recommendation to another forum member to use an e-collar was made

'Fraid I can't see too many options:

Ban discussions on e-collars

Ban discussions on e-collars in blogs (to stop the advertising links and put them in the moderated section of the forum)

Or leave things as they are and accept the stupidity of what went on there and the annoyance of the majority of forum members

Some good points guys.

Just want to clarify a few things.

Gnasher's original thread on the forums was not against our rules - even the new ones. They were brought in to stop people with a financial interest promote shock collars willy nilly.

Gnasher's blog post (I mean the first post not the comments) was not against the rules either. Was it the right thing to do? Posting it on a site where pretty much everyone is against such methods - possibly. But she was within her rights to do so.

The thread was locked because it wasn't going anywhere - except for in a downward spiral - and in fairness, some of the replies were a bit too personal. The same thing pretty much happened in the blog.

Of course we can see why - most people here find electric shock collars abhorrent! (including me!) BUT that doesn't mean people can get personal (on either side). That's really the problem - the topic is highly emotive and certain threads or blogs deteriorate, beyond what is allowed in our rules of conduct.

A possible solution is that no posts or blogs that promote (or view shock collars in a positive light) be allowed - but - I am not really comfortable with that because it feels a bit too dictatorial; if you don't like our methods you have to shut up.

Few more things I want to clear up:

AP was banned because he was seen as a 'commercial' user promoting these items.

Re people signing up just to abuse our blogs - we wouldn't allow it as we would see it as advertising. Remember that Gnasher has been a member for a very long time.

Someone commented about us censoring posts that are 'adverts'/spam etc, that's completely different to censoring people's opinions on dog related matters (which is not something we really want to do - as we'd rather remain an open platform where you can discuss anything dog related).

So we're kind of stuck. I don't see a perfect solution. Either we compromise our integrity of being an open platform, or we allow ourselves to be used for something we don't agree with.

I suppose we could say the blogs are to be used for positive training methods only - as we're a dog lovers site - yet still allow discussion of any dog related topic on the forum.

It's still not ideal. Ideally, there would be a proper ignore function - where when you block someone you never see their posts/content again. But perhaps we can make do with this for now.

But are you really an open platform at the moment? You have your limitations. The main one being that it's a dog forum! Off-topic threads posted on the on-topic parts of the board would be censored or moved. Commercial posts are censored/removed. Aggressive posts censored/removed. As someone said, swap e-collar for "kick" and is the thread still within rules?
Forums need censorship as a form of control and order, IMO.

Azz, it's a very difficult problem (and one you don't need right now!) and I fully understand the dilemma.

If you go down the positive methods only route - that might be difficult to ensure, e.g. what about people who use rattles, Mikki keys, half checks (or whatever they are called), etc. etc.?

I understand why you have considered stopping the blogs.

Do google search's for e collars bring up dogsey anywhere near the top??
I do not want to look ..

"e-collar recall" brings up Dogsey on page two, ditto with "e-collar dogtra". Can't see why Azz would want Dogsey to be associated with the things but it's his choice at the end of the day.

That is a very good thought and one I was heading towards as well

Agreed ... Using ecollars is not part of being a responsible, decent owner. So I fail to see how it serves a purpose on this forum.

but if you type into google what most folk would, "e collars", then you will find you can get to page 6 and no dogsey mentioned.

i quit looking after then, so nothing for azz to worry about.