front porch flimflam
Flimflam /ˈflɪm.flæm/: n. Talk that intends to deceive ... v. To swindle or dupe
The full story
First, the bulleted "short" version:
On Oct. 26, I joined in on a conversation started by another community member on my local FPF. Five people replied in reference to my addition. At that point, I was prohibited, by FPF, from even submitting a response to continue in the conversation. On Nov. 1, I was again allowed to submit to FPF (though under changed rules that were not directly told to me), but nothing I submitted on Nov. 1 or Nov. 2 was published, with no explanation provided by FPF. By the evening of Nov. 2, FPF had deactivated my account and provided no explanation as to why. My wife's account was also terminated.
This conversation was about a recent City project in the local park, in which a new accessible trail had been created, and my objections were based solely on the environmental harm and costs of that project. Later that same day, FPF actively published the five responses. These people were critical of me and my opinion, disparaged me and my opinion, publicly accused me of being something that I am not, and twisted my words into something I never said. In fact, I made it clear in what I wrote that I was not saying what I was later publicly accused of saying.
That same evening, I went to address those five posts, and found that I'd been locked out of that function of FPF because of something called a "monthly posting limit."
There is no mention of FPF's "monthly posting limit" in any of its published policies, rules, or terms of use.
When contacted, FPF did not point to a published source for the policy, instead saying the limit exists in its software, it "has to do with activity level, posting length, topic variability, civility, etc.," and later telling my wife that the limit is years old, and is based not on a specific number, but on a "variety of factors." FPF said I "should" be able to post again on Nov. 1. I was not allowed to publish, and my account is now deactivated.
I generally engage with my community via FPF about the following three topics: climate change, ecology, and the environment (and human choices and behaviors); Indigenous rights, American settler colonialism, and the history of what has happened in this part of the world; official Covid data from the CDC that is a much better, clearer picture than what the predominant narrative would have you believe about the amount of virus circulating in our communities. These posts are often centered around something "official." A government policy, a holiday, a news story, an event of some kind, etc.
The week that this took place was also a week in which I spoke up about three local entities (two land/nature nonprofits and one retail business) hosting a fundraiser based on a celebration of White supremacists and American settler colonialism. You can read it on VTDigger, where it also was published.
All of my posts have abided by FPF's rules, policies and terms of use, as well as the limit it sets for its character count. FPF has published them, after all.
On Oct. 29, my wife – who is a light user of FPF – submitted a brief post to the thread, saying that I was not permitted to respond to the thread. FPF sat on this post and did not publish it at all. The evening of Oct. 30 she asked why. Late on Oct. 31, FPF responded to my wife's email and told her that what she had said in her post "contains incorrect information about FPF." This is not true.
On Nov. 1, I was able to gain access to submit a post. However, the character limit of the post had been reduced from 5,000 to 2,500, even though subsequent issues sent out in Montpelier had posts from others between 2,700 and 4,200 characters.
In the morning of Nov. 1, I submitted my response to the five posts in the thread. Because of the reduced character limit, I now did this by replying to four of the five posts, instead of my intention to have to reply to only two. The first post contained 63 words at the top to explain briefly why it had taken me nearly a week to respond.
Also in the morning of Nov. 1, my wife submitted a post which asked community members if they'd ever experienced something like this with FPF, directly quoting verbatim the information FPF had provided about a "monthly posting limit." She also responded privately to the prior email she'd received, asking FPF to tell her where the post was inaccurate; to point to the specific policy of a "monthly posting limit" in its rules, policies, and terms of use; to tell her what her personal monthly posting limit is; and to tell her why it took 36 hours for FPF to tell her that her first post was not going to be published.
Two issues of FPF went out in Montpelier on Nov. 1, neither containing my posts or my wife's post. By the end of the day, all of our pending posts had been deleted from our account pages with no communication or explanation from FPF.
In the evening of Oct. 31, the last issue that went out before I was allowed to again post the next day contained two posts that were longer than 2,500 characters. In the evening of Nov. 1, after I'd experienced the 2,500-character limit in my eventually-not-published posts that morning, there was a post published about a different topic that was 4,113 characters. That's not the limit I had to abide by.
The person who submitted that 4,113-character post had posted six times in the past 21 days, and five in the past eight, about one topic. And with strong criticisms contained therein, and at length each time. She followed that post with a brief one, on the same topic, the following day.
In the same evening issue of Nov. 1, the person who had started the thread that I had responded to originally but could no longer respond to had posted something else. This was his 10th post in a 30-day period. That is the same number of posts I'd made in October before getting blocked. That person is a donor to FPF. I am not.
On Nov. 2, I re-submitted Part I of my response, but nothing else. At the top was a modified version of the note explaining why it'd taken me so long, but also included a request that people wait to reply until all four posts had been published.
On that same day, another person, who has frequently posted about Covid, had another entry published. This linked off to 11 news sources in a 3,075-character post. Did FPF vet those news sources for disinformation before posting?
By the end of Nov. 2, FPF had terminated both mine and my wife's accounts, citing "repeated violations" of its Terms of Use. If this were true (which it's not), how could every one of my posts have been published by FPF? How could I repeatedly violate the Terms of Use, and not once be contacted by FPF about any single individual violation, let alone an entire group of them, before FPF decides to simply end my participation for "repeated violations" that I had no idea I was committing? Which I was not.
In the above-referenced news interview from 2022, Mr. Wood-Lewis said: "When a posting doesn’t comply with our Terms of Use, we typically will bounce it back to the user and explain why." This is not true, in my experience.
Again, in that same interview, Mr. Wood-Lewis said: "As long as people keep it relatively civil and neighborly and don’t stray into personal attacks, racists rants, or spread disinformation that endangers public health or local democracies, it’s historically been anything goes." My postings have done none of those things.
The day after terminating my account and terminating my wife's account, FPF posted this on its public blog, saying "We love her perspective on this." A short excerpt: "If I don’t jibe with a particular person in the community or with certain views and it bothers me to see some posts? The answer isn’t to tell people to be quiet. The answer is for me to decide I don’t want to listen. But I do listen and I know from personal experience that my world is richer as a result. … I hope everyone will feel free to keep posting and keep all of these conversations going. I agree there’s no room here for hateful political or personal attacks, but just because a view is expressed that one doesn’t agree with doesn’t make it hateful."
The full version of the timeline
On Tuesday, Oct. 25, a Montpelier resident (a local sustainability leader) posted on FPF about a recent City project, one that created a new trail in Montpelier's Hubbard Park. I had published an LTE in the local paper, The Montpelier Bridge, a week earlier in the Oct. 19 issue, that briefly made clear that I objected to this project on the grounds of the short- and long-term local and global environmental harm that resulted from the creation of this trail. So following this community member's FPF post (and one by another community member that praised and echoed the first), I submitted a response to that FPF thread, which was then published by FPF in the morning issue of Oct. 26. What I wrote included the link to the published LTE, and a deeper explanation of why I opposed what was done to make the new trail (again, environmental destruction near and far).
In the evening of Oct. 26, five posts that critically addressed me and what I had written were published by FPF in a single issue. One of them by the member who had started the thread (the sustainability leader), and four other people whose postings ranged from gross misrepresentations and twisting of my words to label me as someone who derides people who are disabled or mobility impaired, to more benign but no less problematic (to me) defenses of this particular City project.
Following those posts, I drafted an addition to the discussion so that I could address those five people, and more generally address the subject matter of the thread. At approximately 10 p.m. that night, I selected the option "reply to forum" to post that response, at which point a red box appeared on the page containing the following text:
The selected FPF profile has reached its monthly posting limit.
You've reached the posting limit on this FPF Profile. Please try again next month. If you think something is amiss, please contact us. (You can still add events to the community calendar - click here to submit an event .)
At that point, I contacted FPF via their member help center. I did not receive a reply for 16 hours. I am copying the entire communication thread below:
----------------------------
Name: Kristian Connolly
Email: [redacted]
Subject: Monthly posting limit?
Received: 10/26/22
Comments: I logged in to respond to multiple instances this evening of public criticism of a post I submitted this morning, as well as direct criticism of me. My account appears to be prohibited from posting anything further due to a "monthly limit"? I have explored the help center and searched for anything related to this "monthly limit," and there is nothing. This page is not relevant: https://help.frontporchforum.com/how-often-can-i-post I would like to know what's going on, and I would like to be able to address these posts now. Thanks, Kristian
From: Front Porch Forum <membersupport@frontporchforum.com>
Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 2:00 PM
Subject: your message to Front Porch Forum
To: Kristian Connolly
Thanks for your note, Kristian. In response, the member posting limit is tied into our software and has to do with activity level, posting length, topic variability, civility, etc. Your posting limit will reset on Nov. 1 and you should be able to respond at that time.
Member Support
FrontPorchForum.com
Essential civic infrastructure in Vermont
Need help? Check the Help Center.
From: Kristian Connolly
Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 2:49 PM
Subject: Re: your message to Front Porch Forum
To: Front Porch Forum <membersupport@frontporchforum.com>
So just to be clear, I can join a discussion that another member started, have my contribution, and myself, publicly criticized by multiple other members (five in this case), and I cannot respond and continue the conversation on a platform that exists largely to foster open community discussion -- because of some software and FPF's inability to manage its own software?
Do I understand you correctly? Putting aside for a moment that you limit, at all, peoples' ability to communicate on a platform that bills itself as the place for communities to communicate, you're saying that the technology overrides the humans at FPF?
Kristian
From: Kristian Connolly
Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 2:53 PM
Subject: Re: your message to Front Porch Forum
To: Front Porch Forum <membersupport@frontporchforum.com>
Also, you're saying that software determines the nature of the "activity level, posting length, topic variability, civility, etc. and decides when to cut a member off for the month?
From: Front Porch Forum <membersupport@frontporchforum.com>
Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 4:32 PM
Subject: Re: your message to Front Porch Forum
To: Kristian Connolly
Hi Kristian. Over the course of our 22 years of experience moderating online conversations among Vermont neighbors, we've found that certain boundaries support healthy online, and offline, communities. We'll need to leave the exchange here as we attend to our ongoing work.
From: Kristian Connolly
Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 5:07 PM
Subject: Re: your message to Front Porch Forum
To: Front Porch Forum <membersupport@frontporchforum.com>
You're allowing blatant and injurious misrepresentations of me and my opinions to live for free without allowing me the chance to address them in a discussion that began with someone else and in which multiple members of this community have participated.
How is this possible if FPF is what it says it is?
Kristian
From: Kristian Connolly
Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 5:11 PM
Subject: Fwd: your message to Front Porch Forum
To: Michael Wood-Lewis <michael@frontporchforum.com>
Cc: Chloe Tomlinson <chloe@frontporchforum.com>
Michael, is this really what you created?
Chloe, is this really how you think it should be managed? I have not violated any written rules, policies, or terms of use. You're censoring me simply because you want to, and you can.
Kristian
From: Kristian Connolly
Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 7:23 PM
Subject: Re: your message to Front Porch Forum
To: <michael@frontporchforum.com>
Cc: Chloe Tomlinson <chloe@frontporchforum.com>
Hi,
I would like you to see the kinds of things I have received privately from someone who also posted on the forum to publicly disagree with me. This is the kind of gross mischaracterization and harmful assertion that FPF is allowing others to make about me that I cannot refute in a timely manner.
This person had also responded privately initially (aggressively, but much less so), and I sent him a note in return (as I do with anyone who takes the time to reply to something I've written on FPF.)
As with my posts, in my notes I am always civil, and express thanks for their engagement, whether they agree with me or not.
But this is how that sometimes gets returned. I'll also be sending this to your membership team.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: [redacted]
Date: Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 6:50 PM
Subject: Re: The New Access Trail at Hubbard Park
To: Kristian Connolly
TL:DR
Boo fucking hoo. Your post was ableist bullshit. Do not contact me again.
PS I really hope you face a serious disability some day so you can see what it's like to have able bodied people speak for you.
****[My note: I did send that exact same note to the membership support email address, too]***
-----------------------------------
OK. Picking up from the end, that last email I had received privately was from one of the five people who had used FPF to join the conversation about the new trail. After being blocked by FPF, I reached out to the five people collectively (BCCing them) to thank them for continuing the conversation, and to let them know that FPF was not allowing me to respond, and why. The person above was the only one of the five who replied to that privately, and with a borderline threat. Something like that is definitely a violation of FPF policies and its terms of use.
I've received no reply from FPF to acknowledge reporting the private email, which FPF asks members to do should they receive anything from another member that would be in violation of its policies and rules.
Some things I'd like to point out here: In my original note to FPF, I mentioned that I'd combed their published information and could find no reference to the reason they were giving for blocking my ability to post. You'll notice that in their reply, they also did not point directly to any published policy regarding a monthly limit. They kept their reply and the information strictly within that email. If there was any information for them to point to, they'd have done so. I have screenshots of FPF's help center, using terms like "month," "monthly", "limit," etc., to show that nothing on their site points to the existence of a "monthly posting limit" for members. In that same initial response from FPF, you'll also notice that they said I "should" be able to respond on Nov. 1. Why wouldn't I?
Lastly about their response: My FPF post was civil, and I'd never written about the new Hubbard Park trail before. And of the 10 postings I'd made in October, only two originated with me. The others were joining a conversation started by other community members. There's a limit to exercising engagement with your community on FPF?
My wife allowed FPF 48 hours to respond to me, and once they didn't, she submitted a post (responding to the FPF thread) on Saturday, Oct. 29, at around 5:30 p.m. This is what the post said:
You've all raised points that should be addressed. Unfortunately, FPF is not allowing Kristian to address them, blocking his ability to submit a response (he can't even reach the "compose posting" page) to discuss what's been said in this conversation among members of our community.
This was done without advance notice, is not based on anything concrete, and is not because of any violation of FPF's published rules, policies, or terms of use.
FPF has no justifiable reason to limit my wife's ability to post on FPF. She is an infrequent submitter of posts, they never express a personal opinion, and nothing in the above is a violation of any published policies, rules, or Terms of Use.
On Sunday, Oct. 30, my wife checked at 6 a.m. to see if her post had been published to the next issue to be sent out. It was still editable, meaning that FPF had not yet "taken it" to look at. Sometime between 6 and 9 a.m., the post became no longer editable, which is the sign that FPF has taken it, and is deciding what to do with it, and when.
The first issue of Montpelier's FPF went out around 1:30 p.m. This is highly unusual, though it does sometimes happen that an issue goes out that late. My wife's post was not in that issue, it remained uneditable, and there was no communication from FPF about why they'd not published it. A second issue went out around 4:30 p.m., an issue that was sparse by Montpelier FPF standards. My wife's post was not in that issue, it remained uneditable, and there was no communication from FPF about why they'd not published it.
My wife contacted FPF at around 5:30 p.m., again using their member support email, and asked:
From: Deborah Connolly
Date: Sun, Oct 30, 2022 at 5:40 PM
Subject: posting question
To: <membersupport@frontporchforum.com>
Hello,
I submitted a post last evening at around 5:30 p.m., and two issues of my (Montpelier) forum have gone out today (Sunday 10/30 at 1:30 and 4:30) without my post included. It has been uneditable for nearly 12 hours. Is there a reason it has not been posted?
Thank you,
Deborah Connolly
The first issue of Monday, Oct. 31, was published at 1:30 p.m. (for the second day in a row, unusually late. This one really late for a first issue on Monday. You'd have to probably search a long time to find a Monday, or two consecutive days, without a morning FPF in Montpelier). Again, my wife's post remained uneditable, and there was no communication from FPF about why they'd not published it, after three consecutive issues since her submission.
Another issue went out in the evening that did not include my wife's post. She then heard back from FPF member support:
From: Front Porch Forum <membersupport@frontporchforum.com>
Date: Mon, Oct 31, 2022 at 9:12 PM
Subject: Re: posting question
To: Deborah Connolly
Hi Deborah. Thanks for reaching out. FPF declined to publish your posting, copied below, because it contains incorrect information about FPF. As was explained to Kristian, he hit his monthly posting limit. All FPF member accounts have posting limits, based on profile type and a variety of other factors. We established posting limits years ago as a way to create a balance in each forum that helps us achieve our mission of connecting neighbors and building community. For example, business profiles have a significantly lower posting limit than neighbor profiles, as we prioritize content from neighbors. The posting limit is built into our system, and we notify members of hitting said limit via the compose posting page.
Member Support
FrontPorchForum.com
Essential civic infrastructure in Vermont
Need help? Check the Help Center.
It should be obvious what I think about this explanation, and denial of my wife's posting. Again, you'll notice that they do not point to any specific place in their published policies, rules, or Terms of Use to justify what they are saying. What they are saying is kept within these private emails. You will again further notice how undefined and arbitrary this "policy" is, as they again failed to state a concrete number, or other definable, measurable, and known-to-the-member parameters for meeting the "monthly posting limit" they've cited. "Based on profile type and a variety of other factors"?
This is what my wife was referring to when she said the block was "done without advance notice, is not based on anything concrete, and is not because of any violation of FPF's published rules, policies, or terms of use."
Nothing in what my wife posted was inaccurate, save for the possibility that when she referenced not being able to reach the "compose posting" page she meant that I could not compose a post to submit, whereas FPF said that the "compose posting" page is where they posted the red box saying I'd hit this heretofore unknown and unpublished policy of a "monthly posting limit."
So yes, technically, I could go to that page. But it's not the place to actually compose a posting, because they were blocking that from me.
On Tuesday, Nov. 1, I went to post again. I was allowed access to the "compose posting" platform. I had prepared my response to the discussion in two parts to address the five people who had weighed in and were critical of me and my opinions.
I copied Part I and pasted it into the platform, at which point I learned that FPF had reduced by half the character limit for a post, from 5,000 to 2,500. At that point, I reworked my response into four equal parts of roughly 2,500 characters each, and then posted each part in reply to a unique part of the discussion thread.
Atop Part I, I included the following note:
[Thanks to all for discussing. I wanted to reply sooner, but I wasn't allowed access to the posting function until today. Ask me about it sometime. Also, the character limit for a post has been halved from 5,000 to 2,500 since I last posted, so I'll try to address the five replies in four posts instead of just two. Part I]
I then waited to see how FPF handled this – which again, is a discussion based on a project of our City government, and has morphed into FPF's limiting a community member's opportunity to engage further on the topic, but also respond to direct attacks and false accusations made against them by others on FPF. And now, also limiting, by half, the amount of space a member has to express their thoughts to engage with their community.
It was also interesting to note that FPF had cut its posting length limit in half one week before the general election. I doubt that's very common, or widely thought to be acceptable for "essential civic infrastructure" to have done.
Or maybe it's only me that they cut the character count down for. I could not say in the morning what they, or their software, is capable of. By evening, there was a different story.
But first, also that morning, my wife took two additional steps: she replied to the note she had received from FPF member support last night, and she made another post to the forum.
The email:
From: Deborah Connolly
Date: Tue, Nov 1, 2022 at 7:45 AM
Subject: Re: posting question
To: Front Porch Forum <membersupport@frontporchforum.com>
Hi Member Support,
I am having trouble understanding. Can you please point me to the part of my post that was inaccurate? Surely it's not the semantics of what it means to reach the "compose posting" page.
Also, please point me to where it is in FPF's published rules, policies, or terms of use that the "monthly posting limit" is explained to users.
Also, please tell me what my personal monthly posting limit is, as it sounds like you're saying each neighbor profile has a different limit based on "a variety of other factors" and I would like to know mine.
Also, please tell me why FPF had my 73-word post for roughly 36 hours (the time it was no longer editable) and two days of published issues before I was told that mine would not be published and the reason(s) why.
Thank you,
Deborah
The FPF post:
Question about your FPF experience
Asking for a friend: Has anyone ever had any experience with the below? Thanks in advance!
"The member [monthly] posting limit is tied into our software and has to do with activity level, posting length, topic variability, civility, etc. Your posting limit will reset … and you should be able to respond at that time."
"... monthly posting limit. All FPF member accounts have posting limits, based on profile type and a variety of other factors. We established posting limits years ago as a way to create a balance in each forum that helps us achieve our mission of connecting neighbors and building community. For example, business profiles have a significantly lower posting limit than neighbor profiles, as we prioritize content from neighbors. The posting limit is built into our system, and we notify members of hitting said limit via the compose posting page."
There was obviously nothing "incorrect" about FPF in this posting. It was FPF's exact words, as delivered to each of us.
Back to me: Front Porch Forum did not post what I submitted in the first issue that went out on Nov. 1, again around 1:30 (and again later than usual). Before 5 p.m., I checked my account, and what I had submitted had been deleted from my account page. I'd received no email from FPF about my posts.
I contacted them shortly thereafter:
From: Kristian Connolly
Date: Tue, Nov 1, 2022 at 4:52 PM
Subject: Submissions not posted, now deleted?
To: Front Porch Forum <membersupport@frontporchforum.com>
Hi,
I would like to know why what I submitted today, Nov. 1, has not been published, and has now been deleted entirely from my account submissions page.
Kristian
I did not expect a reply anytime soon, and did not receive one at all. Also, in relation to what I mentioned about FPF's character limit, I looked at the last issue published on Oct. 31. There were entries in that issue longer than 2,500 characters – one around 2,700, the other around 3,300. So this new 2,500 limit was either new today, or only for me.
The second issue of our FPF came out at about 5 p.m. on Nov. 1. Still I had not heard from FPF. In that issue is a post by someone who has been very critical of the local school board and its decision to install a new track at the local high school instead of using the money for other needs.
This person originally posted 3,622 characters about this issue on Oct. 26 (which happens to be the same day I posted about this new trail, if you'll recall). The next day, Oct. 27, she posted 3,651 characters on the same topic. On Oct. 31, she again posted about this issue – 2,693 characters – and today, after I experienced the 2,500-character limit on my later-deleted posts in the morning, she posted again on this topic, this time 4,113 characters. Not under 2,500, as the limit was for me.
Including a post earlier this month on the same topic, and one the next day, this person has posted six times in the past 21 days, and five in the past eight, about this one topic. And at length.
Oh, and the person who started the thread in which I initially responded, and to which I was trying to respond to again, also posted again on Nov. 1, this time to be critical of one side's policies and politics ahead of the election. This person is a FPF donor, and that was his 10th post in the past 30 days. Coincidentally, the same number of posts I made in a 30-day period before I was blocked. Though the difference is that half of this person's posts originated with him, whereas only two of mine did. The rest were participating in an ongoing conversation among community members.
But I am unable to respond to a conversation I didn't start, but later joined, and in which I and my opinions had been publicly attacked on a topic of civic interest in Montpelier.
On Nov. 2, I re-submitted only Part I of my response. I included this note at the top:
[Thanks, all, for discussing. I wanted to reply sooner, but wasn't allowed until today. Ask me about it. My character limit has been cut in half since I last wrote, so I'll try to address the five replies in four parts instead of two. If you're inclined to respond, I ask you to please wait until all four are published in two to four days. Thanks. Part I]
It was "taken" by FPF in the morning (meaning I could no longer edit it.) Two issues went out by 1:30, neither containing my post. At approximately 4:35 p.m., I was on my laptop in FPF when my page refreshed and I was suddenly no longer logged in. Upon attempting to log back in, I received this message:
You are attempting to log into a deactivated FPF account. Please email FPF Member Support for help at membersupport@frontporchforum.com and include your first and last name and street address.
I literally saw it occur. Prior to this happening, there had been no communication with FPF about any of the posts I had submitted after being allowed to post again on Nov. 1. Still none as of the launch of FrontPorchFlimflam.com.
I emailed to inquire:
From: Kristian Connolly
Date: Wed, Nov 2, 2022 at 5:00 PM
Subject: My account
To: Front Porch Forum <membersupport@frontporchforum.com>
Hi,
My account has been deactivated. Please explain why.
Also, I still have an email out to you from yesterday asking about why my posts were not accepted. Please include an explanation for that in the same email.
Kristian
Also on the evening of Nov. 2, my wife's account also was deactivated. In this recounting is the entire history of her communication with FPF – which is just two emails from her, one from FPF in between – as well as the two posts she tried to have published over those few days.
That is the entirety of her actual involvement here, and she no longer is allowed to use FPF.
On the afternoon of Nov. 3, nearly 24 hours since my account was deactivated and I contacted them, FPF sent the following:
From: Front Porch Forum <membersupport@frontporchforum.com>
Date: Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 3:23 PM
Subject: Your Front Porch Forum Accounts
To: Kristian Connolly, Deborah Connolly
Hello Kristian and Deborah. Your Front Porch Forum accounts have been closed for repeated violations of the following sections of our Terms of Use:
7. CONDUCT
You agree not to:
aa) badger or otherwise aggressively, repeatedly and/or abusively contact Front Porch Forum staff or other representatives (constructive criticism and reasonable feedback are always appreciated);
bb) use Front Porch Forum in a way counter to its community-building mission. Misuse includes, but is not limited to, public shaming, leveling accusations or insults, making personal attacks or otherwise antagonizing neighbors, repetition, dominating the discussion, making inflammatory or divisive statements, or otherwise driving away other members.
Member Support
Essential civic infrastructure in Vermont
Need help? Check the Help Center.
To which I replied:
From: Kristian Connolly
Date: Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 5:01 PM
Subject: Re: Your Front Porch Forum Accounts
To: Front Porch Forum <membersupport@frontporchforum.com>
Hello,
Please provide examples. And explain how I've repeatedly done any of these things yet you've not contacted me about any of them, at all, until after you've closed my account.
The only time I've contacted FPF staff is either after a post's publication seemed like it had been delayed, or when something changed in my access to FPF without prior notice and adequate explanation (first the "monthly posting limit," and then the deactivation), or to report when a member attacked me personally (which is definitely a violation of FPF's rules -- but FPF never even acknowledged that report).
If FPF staff doesn't explain its decisions or policies in advance, but especially without contacting the member before or after, how am I supposed to get information about FPF's decisions without reaching out? Which, by the way, is what your website tells people to do if they have questions about their posts, their account, if their account has been deactivated, etc.
Everything I've submitted to be published by FPF has been published by FPF. There is nothing in them that is a violation of 7(bb). If there had been, you would have deactivated my account sooner than yesterday, since I haven't been able to post anything since Oct. 26, when you activated the "monthly posting limit" and later told me I'd be able to post on Nov. 1. Which I did (and FPF deleted), then did unsuccessfully again on Nov. 2 before FPF deactivated my account with no communication at all until nearly 24 hours had passed.
I would like to point out a few things:
In a news interview earlier this year, Mr. Wood-Lewis said FPF sees "ourselves as a starting point and a catalyst for community conversations." I've rarely started a community conversation, using my posts to join in on conversations started by others. But in all cases, even when I have started one, it's been published. Where is the violation?
I noticed you left out the link to the "Keeping it Civil" page when you cited 7(bb). This page is where FPF states that users should "feel free to use it to introduce and catalyze harder conversations. But when doing so, please have a thick skin and treat your neighbors with respect." I have not violated this policy, and FPF continued to publish my additions to conversations, and my conversation starters.
In the same news interview from 2022, Mr. Wood-Lewis said: "When a posting doesn’t comply with our Terms of Use, we typically will bounce it back to the user and explain why." This has not ever been true, in my experience with a post not complying. Which was only one post, and the remedy (after I reached out to FPF first) was simply to change any "you" references to a more generic "we" when I addressed someone asking for advice. Which I did, and the post was published.
In that same interview, Mr. Wood-Lewis said: "As long as people keep it relatively civil and neighborly and don’t stray into personal attacks, racists rants, or spread disinformation that endangers public health or local democracies, it’s historically been anything goes." My postings have done none of those things.
Also, frankly I am shocked that you communicated with two members in this one email, and didn't give each person the respect of communicating with them separately about your termination of their account. There had been no prior communication to FPF that was sent to, or from, both members together.
Kristian
Later, my wife also replied:
From: Deborah Connolly
Date: Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 6:39 PM
Subject: Re: Your Front Porch Forum Accounts
To: Front Porch Forum <membersupport@frontporchforum.com>
To Member Support,
Please tell me how I have done any of this. My entire history of communication with FPF consists of just two short emails asking questions, with one reply from FPF in between and no further explanation or answers to my questions. The two posts I submitted the past few days were not published, without detailed explanation from FPF.
I am completely at a loss in understanding how this can be equated to repeated violations. I merely asked a question, that seemed fair given that in all the years I've used FPF, I've never had a post submission not be published - nor had a post disappear from my account without explanation. I was reaching out because I was confused as to why that would have occurred. Now I'm even more confused, and upset by these charges and the closure of my account.
Deborah
On Nov. 4, I followed up with a message:
From: Kristian Connolly
Date: Fri, Nov 4, 2022 at 6:01 PM
Subject: Re: Your Front Porch Forum Accounts
To: Front Porch Forum <membersupport@frontporchforum.com>
Hello,
Yesterday on its blog, FPF posted this member's words about the great value in sharing differing opinions on FPF, and said, "We love her perspective on this."
When you answer my previous email, I am hoping you could explain this perspective, and FPF's support of it, as it relates to what's happened with me.
The value of FPF is that it makes it possible to find common ground and discover you like or respect people despite the fact that you may wildly disagree on issues.
That’s missing in so many parts of our lives. Let’s not strip it out of FPF, too.
...
Knowing that we have such wildly divergent views on things is important because it’s part of what makes the connection so valuable and ultimately, gives me hope.
We can only control our own conduct. If I don’t jibe with a particular person in the community or with certain views and it bothers me to see some posts? The answer isn’t to tell people to be quiet. The answer is for me to decide I don’t want to listen. But I do listen and I know from personal experience that my world is richer as a result.
I hope everyone will feel free to keep posting and keep all of these conversations going. I agree there’s no room here for hateful political or personal attacks, but just because a view is expressed that one doesn’t agree with doesn’t make it hateful.
As of the printing of what you're now reading, that's the entire communication thread and history of events from Oct. 26 until the present day.
Further background information
-- This started happening in the same week that I spoke up about three local entities (two land/nature nonprofits and one retail business) hosting a fundraiser based on a celebration of White supremacists and American settler colonialism, and then also this City project in Hubbard Park which has not yet had its official opening for the community.
This sudden ban on posting also comes on the heels of my once-weekly additions to conversations this month about Covid in our community, and about CDC Covid transmission data that is not discussed by the state, national or local government, or the local media, causing bad decision-making among individuals, businesses, and governments during a pandemic.
Essentially, I use FPF to discuss with my community three main topics: climate change, ecology, and the environment (and human choices and behaviors); Indigenous rights, American settler colonialism, and the history of what has happened in this part of the world; official Covid data from the CDC that is a much better, clearer picture than what the predominant narrative would have you believe about the amount of virus circulating in our communities. Some versions of some of these have also been published as Commentaries on VTDigger or The Montpelier Bridge.
In all cases, I want people to think about things differently than they might be, and act differently as a result. If there is a common thread to those topics, I guess it's that I'm trying to get people to see that the story they are being told is not the same as the story that would be based on the full, true version of events, or the actual situation at hand, etc. This likely makes some people uncomfortable, unhappy, or something different entirely.
This experience of being blocked from using FPF, and then banned, would seem to fit right into that "false narrative" view of things since FPF is continually promoting itself as a place where community members can engage and discuss about matters important to the people in a community, while at the same time, in private, prohibiting me from participating in my community forum.
All of my posts have been civil, well-considered, and intentional in their creation and publication in the hopes of better communication and better information in the community. I've only had one post ever questioned by FPF ahead of publication (and I had to reach out to FPF first), and all they asked me to do was change any "you" references to "we" or similar in the post (even though the post I was responding to was from a community member looking for advice/suggestions to handling an "invasive species" on their property. I addressed that person directly, but FPF preferred that I didn't, so the change of addressing I used in the post was all that was required to get an OK.)
FPF generally takes longer to publish my posts, and they are nearly always placed toward the bottom of the issues in which they appear. FPF sets the guidelines, policies, rules, and Terms of Use for using its platform, and I've not violated any of them. None of those posts would have made it through to publication if I had. Nor have I violated the length parameter that FPF itself sets on posts. You literally cannot post longer than FPF allows. It'll get cut off.
-- This seems like a good place to mention that by and large, the responses (both privately and those on FPF) I received from my fellow community members to all of the posts I've just outlined are supportive and thankful that I have used my voice on one (or many) of those particular topics.
-- In late August and early September 2021, I interviewed for a position with FPF. At that time, I was an infrequent poster on FPF, and usually only for things like free piles, yard sales, and the like. We'd only been in Montpelier for about 20 months, and during a pandemic no less, so I wasn't yet fully comfortable engaging on most Montpelier subjects. The interview was for a position called "Online Community Manager." That process was led by FPF's Community Division Director Chloe Tomlinson, and it went to a second interview, in which I also met with co-founder/CEO Michael Wood-Lewis as one of two finalists for the position. (This is how I had their email addresses to send them the emails that were included in the above thread). Afterward, references were sought from me (though, to my knowledge, none were ever called), and about a week after that interview, I was informed that they'd chosen the other candidate, no further explanation given (though politely asked for) – but that if another position opened in the future, they'd reach out.
Just two months later, in November 2021, the same position was posted, and having not heard from anyone at FPF, I reached out to Chloe to express my interest and ask whether I needed to resubmit any materials, or if they would be using my prior materials for this new round. I was told that formal re-application was not necessary, and that they'd consider past candidates. I never heard from FPF about this position again.
In July 2022, the position was again posted, and this time I both formally applied and reached out directly to Michael Wood-Lewis. I never heard anything from Mr. Wood-Lewis, and in early August received the generic HR note about the process being closed after they'd selected their candidate.
All of this to say that I can only speak for myself, but my use of FPF as a community member looking to engage my community about issues and topics I care about is in no way related to the history I have with FPF in seeking employment. I do not know if their treatment of me, however, is based in any way on that part of our history. And if so, why that would be.
-- As I mentioned, the person who started this particular conversation about the City project in Hubbard Park is someone who has a background in "sustainability." He is a frequent poster to FPF, though this particular post was slightly out of the norm, as he is usually vehemently imploring people to reconsider the ways in which we are currently living so that we may better prepare for a vastly different, and more difficult, future. Frankly, his posts are more expressive of his anger, and sometimes more direct, than anything I ever write. FPF had no problem allowing him to critically address me and my opinion in the conversation he began, but they then blocked me from addressing his words, and defending my opinion and myself.
Related to that, because of the frequent topic of his posts, our interests have cross-over and we have communicated privately in the past about those topics. As such, I wrote to this person privately after I submitted my post in response to him opening a conversation about the new trail in the park. I did this to give him a friendly heads-up about the content of my post, and it being generally in disagreement with him. I also did this to thank him for writing something in VTDigger that same morning about the climate and housing crises in Vermont, both of which we in our family are very much living inside of. I never got a reply to that private heads-up/note of thanks, and instead the next communication from this person was the public reply he posted that was critical of me and my opinion.
-- This particular person is also a donor to FPF, and I am not. In fact, the other interesting thing about all of this is that the beginning of it was happening during FPF's fall fundraising drive, which just ended last Friday. If you've ever seen one of these fundraising drives in action, you know that it is clear that a person can say whatever good things they want about FPF on FPF. But if you raise concerns like my wife's post did, FPF simply won't post it. The first rule of Front Porch Forum is "Do not talk about Front Porch Forum – unless you're helping raise money and speaking glowingly about FPF."
Anyway, this particular person was one of the many who posted a public call for donations, touting the great value of the tool for fostering important conversations among community members. He was one of the two main substantive critics of my opinion about this new trail, and has not responded to me from the private notes I sent him about being blocked, and later banned, by FPF.
-- Neither have I heard directly from the other main critic, the person who has publicly accused me of being someone who derides people who are disabled or mobility impaired.
-- FPF is a public benefit corporation. As you can see from the included email thread, it self-describes as "Essential civic infrastructure in Vermont." In addition to touting the service it provides to connect people in their communities in a wide variety of ways, FPF's 2021 annual report dedicates half of its eight pages to testimonials from FPF members. I can't cite them all, but just three examples of what FPF promotes itself as existing to provide:
"When we have a complaint, we can write it large. When community issues require discussion, this is where we discuss them."
"Just a very warm accolade for the FPF founders and all who write, advertise and post on FPF. This is a crowd-funded local newspaper with all of the Community able to participate."
"I'm so grateful for the local neighborhood news and views that show up for free everyday in my home. I feel connected, updated and yes, sometimes saturated. There's so much going on here, and everywhere these days. The local issues and info are what I can best relate to and what I can choose to participate in if I want."
None of this speaks to the experience I am now having with FPF and the restriction it is putting on my voice and my expression in my community, as well as my wife's voice and her expressions in her community. And my, and my family's, ability to stay informed in our community.