Forrest Gumpp,

I think that's the best idea yet. Indeed Graham ought to consider writing up a defence of the allegations, substantially against him, and a manifesto of his vision of freedom of thought and expression.
Armed with this he should canvas support not just from the NAB but across the board via the media. Ecumenical sites like OLO have to be preserved inviolable against private, group, corporate and government interests, indeed even against largely compliant, sensationalising and PR-fed mainstream media. There's no social value in either a politically correct editorial bias or censorship, but in a debating forum that is not afraid to tackle the difficult topics evaded elsewhere.

Merci, Michel, for your compliment in your post of Friday, 18 February 2011 at 1:11:00 PM. Such comparison by way of textuphonic presence to Sir John Gielgud I find embarrassing almost to the point of wanting to do a runner, but that would be a sin. You have called me back to the thread by your raising of the spectre of the burning of assorted collective works of OLO posters onto CD.

There is, however, no little silver cloud that does not have a black lining. Reviewing my post of Friday, 18 February 2011 at 11:03:57 AM, I could kick myself for passing up the opportunity latent in the last line. I should have written it:

"I can see it all.
What about it GrahamY?
The NAB. Worth a call?"

Haiku* in the defence of free speech are all the rage these days, it appears.




Seriously (and since when have we not been serious?), there is another aspect to this current threat to OLO's continued survival: the prospect of the loss of public access to the entire OLO archive. OLO userID 'Bronwyn' raised one aspect of the prospective value of parts of that archive to family members upon the decease of a user, in a post that I can no longer find.

The promotion of a DVD set covering the entire archive might be a lead-in to the securing of more substantial sponsorships of the site, something perhaps more concrete in presentations than the benefits of advertising may appear to be.







*Just my little tribute to Shintaro-san, so reminiscent, in the OLO arena, with respect to the placement of his Haiku, of the character Buntaro, the archer, in James Clavell's novel, 'Shogun'. Buntaro could shoot three arrows in quick succession, blind, through a shoji screen with his head turned away, and get a double FitzSooth grouping** on a gatepost outside the house!

**FitzSooth grouping: an archery term; one arrow splitting the shaft of another on a target. Named after a famous mediaeval English archer, Robin FitzSooth, Earl of Locksley and Huntingdon.

Approaching the NAB to sponsor OLO will probably prove fruitless given their strong commitment to GLBT equality, acceptance and inclusion.

http://www.prideindiversity.com.au/list-of-members/

I'm sure they will also want to distance themselves from sites like OLO that tolerates homophobic attitudes, like ANZ and IBM sensibly did.

Michael.

MikeyBear,

if you had an ounce of integrity or credibility, after engaging in this thread, you would admit that OLO by and large "does" support GLBT rights, and you would be appealing to the sponsers you've helped to put off-side yourself and fighting to restore their support!
There might be a tiny minority of homophobic views among the diverse OLO cohort, sorry about that, but that's because OLO represents the broad community, warts and all.
I do not support discrimination of any kind and neither do the vast majority here.
This is not a sterile environment and, so far as I'm concerned, your complaints are vacuous and do a disservice to your cause. I'm terribly sorry you don't enjoy universal support, but then neither do any other minorities. Deal with it!

OLO might support positive GLBT attitudes but it also tolerates homophobic attitudes. It has shown this by allowing offensive and distressing homophobic comments to be posted and not subsequently removed after being requested to do so.

Clearly you've never been the victim of hateful intolerance, otherwise you might know how to show some empathy.

Michael.

MikeyBear:
<Clearly you've never been the victim of hateful intolerance, otherwise you might know how to show some empathy>

Err, yes I have.
And I can assure you I'm far from universally loved at OLO.

That's life.