I've been frequenting hippy.com and hipforums.com for some time now (close to 10 years) and at the beginning, loved how this was the Free Speech Site that it claimed to be. There were open forums for all religious and spiritual beliefs, gay forums, music and many other very open forums that openly accepted all, and gave great resources for those in need of help and info in various topics.
But, the last 5 years or so - and especially the last couple - Skip (webmaster) has turned it into a business, and Free Speech went out the window. Anyone who posted a difference of opinion to him was banned. A tight restriction on outside links (relatable resources, info, etc) were not only deleted, but forbiden. Anyone who posted these outside links were considered 'spammers' and then banned. Anyone who even had their crafty hippy stores via ebay or etsy outside of their proviles were banned. Long time posters were tossed aside and disregarded.
Now, the forums are filled with posts by Skip asking for 'donations' for memberships to apparently run the site. I mean, look right on the top of hippy.com - the first thing you see is 'Support Free Speech' and a paypal thingy to donate! Paypal buttons everywhere! There's a slew of posts with inadvertant begging - how he apparently so goes out of his way, spending countless hours and tons of money out of his pocket as a supposed favour to hipforums posters. The chat room has become a snubbing group onto its own, that blackballs anyone new who joins with insults to which they're protected from bans because Skip picks and chooses who he wants to keep.
THIS IS NOT A FREE SPEECH SITE.
THIS IS NOT THE "HIPPIE FREE LOVE" SITE THAT IT CLAIMS TO BE.
THESE FORUMS ARE NOT DESIGNED FOR ANYONE WHO MAY HAVE AN OPINION.
THE PURPOSE OF THIS SITE IS TO MAKE MONEY FOR SKIP, AND NOTHING ELSE.
Despite my being this paying member, a moderator and eveutanlly Super Moderator to apparently help him and the other mod's and as a sign of his apparent gratitute, he has responded to my concerns with either members or content with sexist and rude responses.
At least one other member that I know of has posted similar rants on her blog, and many more have left due to these reasons. Most recently at least one forum member (if not a group) had branched off from a dreadlocks themed subforum to start up a forums site giving more detail and information to help all those in need to maintain their dreads, and Skip had not only banned the people who started this site, but at least 20 other members who posted both on that site as well as hipforums. THIS IS NOT UNCOMMON - hipforums posters in groups at a time are being banned.
These online forums that claim the whole hippie ideology of 'free love' and 'free speech' thrives on nothing more than hipcracy and lies. Faithful posters are being banned left, right and center.
1 comment:
Thanks so much for posting about the censorship at hipforums.com.
I hope that quite a few people read this and really think about things before they sign up there.
The people who frequent hipforums (or any other message board for that matter) are the "bread and butter" of the site. Hipforums would not be in existence were it not for all of the people signed up and participating in the discussions. It is too bad that Skip wouldn't remember this and treat people accordingly!
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