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I Want to Improve the Experience Project

A Manifesto for Experience Project Successor Websites

The new EP we want is not the EP of the last few years when management has been dismantling the website piece by piece and kicking the members in the teeth, but the EP of the period up till 2012 when management still gave a hoot about the members and was expanding features and making the website better. EP has really been an orphan for several years as the founder's heart has been in selling use of Kanj*ya algorithms to Microsoft, Cisco, and other corporations only with 500 or more employees.

We do not want filters that block the posting of our content, even perfectly innocent content, before it ever appears on the site.

We do not want the hideous practice instituted in October 2013 of allowing vicious members to remove at will by flagging the content of other members with no review by website staff.

We do not want mysterious deletions of the accounts of numerous members who were attested to by others as well-behaved members of the community.

We do not want unreviewed flags to have the power to hide user content (making it visible only by knowing and pasting in the address bar its URL) or suspend user accounts.

We do not want an onsite search feature that is so pathetic that it forces us to go to a search engine offsite to find what we are looking for.

We do not want website representatives who insult our intelligence by giving us patently false explanations of changes made to the website such as was done until communication to the membership was halted altogether last year.

We do not want website personnel who act punitively or vindictively toward individuals who dare to offer complaints.

We do not want the combination of a written Terms of Service and a different unwritten Terms of Service that is what is actually administered by the staff. The Terms of Service should not contain stupid things like prohibitions on religion or politics or banning the totally subjective and unavoidable human emotion of "hate". One man's "hate" is another man's "righteous indignation".

We do want the website management to communicate with the membership in candor and good will as was done in the I Want to Improve the Experience Project Group till 2012.

We do want the freedom of speech that flourished on EP until 2013.

We do want administration of the new website without bias against persons because of their political, religious, or other viewpoints. We want a firm stance of neutrality on the part of the website administrators and staff.

We do want effective action to punish and deter the behavior of those who come to the site to enjoy themselves by abusing others.

We do want polls, blogs, forums, greeting cards, and a multitude of other things the founder took away from us on EP as soon as you have the opportunity to code them.




Whatever EP successor website you go to, I urge you to press them on these points.
Enigmatrix
Bravo.
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I concur with all you said.
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I do, however, feel you made one most important omission from the list of essential requirements.
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"We DO NOT want to see the name Armen Berjikly listed in the site admin or find he has ANY connection with any such site."
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He set himself up as a good guy. In actual fact he was a parasite feeding on the emotions of those attracted to a site that promised 'We get you'.
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What it SHOULD have said is 'When we've got you, we will wring every possible emotion out of you and then toss you aside as an empty husk once you no longer have anything to offer us.'
I agree. However, Armen has demonstrated his indifference to us so thoroughly that we need have no fear he will ever involve himself in such a venture again. He's running with the big dogs, Microsoft, Cisco, etc. He couldn't care less about a bunch of anonymous souls like us. The only way EP itself will ever come back is if somebody offers him a really lucrative price to buy it. And the more successful EP replacement sites are, the less likely someone will want to make such an investment.

 
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