Metalunderground.com Linked To National News Story!
posted Feb 24, 2008 at 03:28:28 PM by Doug Gibson.
For those who do not follow heavy metal news daily, my site, Metalunderground.com, got a little publicity recently when it was linked to the arrest of a man for making death threats to the nu-metal band Korn. Ultimately he was arrested for making death threats on the FBI's web site (who threatens bands on the FBI's web site?), but apparently this guy was one of my site readers (abusers and trolls) that I banned in 2006, linking Metal Underground to a national news story.
You can read my supporting evidence and commentary in full, here on Metal Underground.com.
This is not really the kind of publicity I want for the site or for heavy metal. But the incident has sparked a good deal of support for the job done in moderating the site, from comments to emails. Being a heavy metal site, I try very hard not to be a heavy-handed moderator and I let a LOT of stuff slide (except for personal attacks). After all, metalheads are often rebellious and don't want to be censored. I have a bad language filter on the comments just to keep the language from getting out of hand (and getting the site banned from every search engine and parental watch software under the sun), and new readers often complain about that when they first encounter it!
I just thought I'd share that to say "hey look at me, my site's on the news" as well as point out some stuff that people might not think of when talking about online communities and moderation, etc. - the rules are not the same for all types of communities by far. This isn't something you'll always think about when reading blogs on site building and blogging unless you are one of the exceptions.
