A few commenters have shared that bartrage.com is pro-ATU and has been deleting anti-ATU comments? I haven't followed it closely enough recently to confirm whether that's true, but multiple people have chimed in about it. Some suggest that somehow ownership has changed and it is now run by BART union members?
Regardless what is the truth behind this, it is a shame that riders' comments have been censored and deleted. That's really too bad-- from what I remembered, BARTrage was a brutally honest open forum for riders to vent about anything! In fact, readers have asked me why I don't make BARTMusings.com the same format. I think of this blog as an e-editorial. I share my views and enjoy receiving feedback from everyone, whether they are positive or negative. In fact, some of the things I've written about are ideas and observations from riders.
I'm not pro-union or anti-union. Nor am I pro- or anti-management. My personal goal is to simply write about issues, serious, light or plain silly ones, that riders deal with on a daily basis.
20 comments:
What I find strange is that anyone who is "too angry" is banned from the site.
It's called Bart RAGE for Christ's sake! They should be encouraging that kind of thing!
No one in their right mind should be reading the union vs. management pissing contest threads there.
And I think the (two) people that were banned were banned for being disruptive assholes who turned every thread they touched into a namecalling contest.
I don't know about that. Lots of pro-union assholes are still there, but a lot of anti-union posters post once or twice and then disappear.
Maybe they are just getting bored with the site, but I suspect banning is happening.
they have deleted my account twice for speaking out against the unions
first i was "anti union"
then they deleted me
then i was "still anti union"
then they deleted me
now i am "still still anti union"
what it is is if you come out against the union they say you are a "troll" and are "flame baiting" and then delete your account
to "Still Still" tjey think that if they delete your comments, their greed and selfishness won't be known to the pubilc. thank goodness for the internet where the truth will always come out.
I gotta check it out tonight and catch up on what I've been missing at BARTrage.com!
I haven't noticed any pro/anti-union bias from the mods but I've gone out of my way to avoid union-related threads.
Who cares? BARTrage is a shitty site anyway. Poor layout, poor management, poor content.
Boopiejones deleted my post last week but took the info I posted and put it in her own post (has to be a her, no male would call himself a boopie). I don't care about the deletion but taking the link and plugging into a different post is really the tackiest thing I've ever experienced online.
The moderators on that site (particularly "Boopiejones") frequently allow BART employees to get away with breaking the few rules the site has.
There is certainly a level of favoritism shown to longtime posters and most of the longtime posters are union workers, so it creates a certain bias...
all of these online forums are like microcosms of high school... the *popular* people love to exert their power over others. it's how they feel good about themselves. bartrage, car forums, they are all the same. their power comes from being a MODERATOR and banning and deleting posts. bartrage is clearly no different.
It's probably just the people who started the site. It's not like it's a public resource required to have democratically-elected leaders.
BART Rage is/was moderated by someone claiming to be a BART policer named Shrapnel. Another poster claims to be a BART police officer also, which is why you probably won't see anything about the latest findings on the BART shooting at the Fruitvale Station. Here is the link to a summary of the findings.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/18/BAHD19A9SA.DTL
Thanks for all the insight on this. I wonder if the complaints made on BR were ever turned into anything productive-- incorporated into any type of BART improvement discussion and planning. Based on the comments there, it doesn't seem like it. Every so often I submit emails (tweaked from some of my posts here) to BART via bart.gov. Don't know if anything comes out of these emails from passengers.
i was just deleted for a 3rd time for my anti-union views
i am now posting as "stillstillstillantiunion"
bartrage seems to be a pretty shitty and one-sided web site.
i wish someone would create a truly open forum where riders could talk without being censored so much
http://www.bartsucks.com/
bartrage is not owned/ran by Bart employees. Shrapnel was a mod but not anymore. In fact, all of the mods have been informed to allow content as long as it's not a personal attack.
"In fact, all of the mods have been informed to allow content as long as it's not a personal attack."
BULLSHIT.
Just got banned again for being anti union.
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