Thank you for writing. I agree that fanning the fire serves no purpose. What happened recently was, I feel, avoidable and has several sources, and those of us who are involved must all share the blame. When the blame is laid firmly at my door, and with hysterics to boot, I will defend myself and my site. Perhaps we all did that too enthusiastically.
One of the posts which led to this debacle, was the posting by me, of a link to a comment of mine, about my dog. When this was posted on FB. as a public share, the profile of Thurston was somehow attached as the link, and I have no idea how that happened. It is possible it was a software bug/error, or it is possible I clicked the wrong link, or perhaps I made a different mistake and did not notice it. When I was notified of the link, I removed it from FB immediately.
Shortly afterwards something similar happened with Yvonne's profile photo, and the reason for that is that hers was the first image on the web page to which a link was attached, and the parser is not intelligent and picked her photo, and I did not notice that. Both Yvonne and I had posted many links from the Naktiv site over time, and there was never an issue previously, however on this occasion we were already highly strung, and even though I removed the link swiftly, it was not swift enough, and the shit hit the fan.
At this point, damage limitation was the order of the day, and the postings on the site needed to be controlled. This also became a source of still more hysteria, and Robert began to urge people to band together and create a kind of mini-revolt, and trying to single-handedly dictate his own site policy. I temporarily blocked his account, until it became clear that all 3 main protaganists were engaged in a vicious campaign of misinformation. That's when their accounts were blocked.
Your main points:
1. The default privacy settings allow for people to post their material, and be seen outside of the Naktiv site. The permissions settings are described further on the permissions page: http://www.naktiv.net/permissions
2. There is no such thing as "members are expected to honour…permissions". This is the internet, and even if you wish to request permission from someone (very laudable), somebody else, at some time, almost certainly will not. It does not matter who that is. When you go onto FB. your material is sharable UNLESS you secure it.
Precisely the same situation is in place on the Naktiv site. The default privacy setting is sharable and you can make that as private as you wish, with no complaints. There is one exception, and that is the sharing of photos is restricted to Naktiv sitemembers, and nobody should see them unless they are a member. However, this is the internet, people will always log on, become a member, download a photo, and share it themselves elsewhere. If you want to stop that kind of behaviour, there is only one way: don't upload anything, it's very simple.
