ArtWanted.com Message Boards

In the last few months, we have seen an increase in big debates, fights and overall anger on our message boards. These threads have caused hurt feelings and many members have left the site over what they have read on our public forums. This is not the direction we want to take ArtWanted.com and we want everyone that uses the boards to think about the following comments before your next post...

PURPOSE OF THE MESSAGE BOARDS

We felt that it was time to remind everyone why ArtWanted.com has a public message board forum. The goal of ArtWanted.com is to create a large community of artists from around the world that share a common love of art. The message boards are a way to communicate with other fellow artists, share ideas, learn new techniques and build each other up. The boards should be a positive haven where artists from around the world can find a friend and enjoy each other's artistic talent.

If artists can't find a friend here with common interests, then where can they? Let's all remember this and think before you post a new thread or reply. If you are not building up the community in a positive way, you are tearing it down. Those that bring the moral of the site down by their posts will find themselves in ArtWanted.com exile.

MESSAGE BOARD RULES

Every message board community has rules and ArtWanted.com is no exception. Without rules, there is chaos. We feel we have a very small list of guidelines and are quite open to almost every topic. However, there are some topics that only bring a dark cloud over the boards and we prefer that these discussion topics are avoided on our site. These include discussions on politics, racism, gender or sexual preference, abortion and religion.

We also desire to protect the members of ArtWanted.com as best as possible from public flames, insults and personal attacks. Personal issues with other members are to be kept private, not discussed on our public boards. These type of posts will be removed and bans placed on the members that disregard our rules.

MODERATION

Our staff and moderators remove less than 1 post in a thousand, so the moderation on AW is pretty minimal. However, there are those that don't know about the rules or simply choose to ignore them and that's when we have to step in. If we feel a topic goes against our rules, then it will be removed along with any replies posted to it. Some topics fall within a 'gray area' and we just have to make a judgment call on them.

From the e-mails we get each week, there are some members that feel we moderate too much and others that feel we don't do it enough. We know that we can't make everyone happy, so we just have to run the site as best as we see fit. We will offend some members from some of our actions and we will offend others, because we didn't do enough in their opinion. If you see a thread that should be looked at by our staff, please e-mail us the link to it. If everyone will make a sincere effort to keep your topics within the guidelines, we will try our best to keep the moderation to a minimum.

GOING FORWARD

As we start this new year, we want the attitude and the moral of the message boards to improve and be more positive. Please do your part to lift others up and build the community to a place where all artists can enjoy hangin' out. We have some exciting new upgrades planned for the message boards in the new few months that will make them even better. Please continue to give us your suggestions and we hope everyone looks forward to having the dark clouds disperse from the message boards.

Locked