So Tribe at least fixed its Terms of Use. The draconian "Item 5" I had such an issue with now reads:

"As a member of Tribe, you are solely responsible for all materials, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, that you upload, post, e-mail, transmit, or otherwise make available on Tribe. By posting your content on Tribe, you grant us a license to copy, distribute, modify and publicly display content that you post on the service. The purpose of this license is to serve the mechanical and electronic requirements of maintaining the website and its associated syndication technologies. This license does not extend to any use outside of this scope. This license is granted and in force as long as the content exists on the site. Your use of the service is in consideration for this license, we will not otherwise pay you for your content. You represent and warrant that you have not granted and will not grant any rights inconsistent with this license."

I particularly like "This license does not extend to any use outside of this scope. This license is granted and in force as long as the content exists on the site." That way, if they're bought by FOX, my images and text won't be used for advertising, and if I dislike Tribe again for some reason, I can delete content -- which is actually similar to MySpace. Not that I've got anything worthwhile up there.

Ok, so I'm abandoning Tribe.

A friend of mine got me started on it and slowly I began to "get" it. I liked the structure of discussions and the ability to keep track of all my "tribes" in one place.

A few weeks ago, Tribe management started changing policies. They introduced a flagging system where people from the community could flag photographs as "offensive" or "obscene." This system, however, is a dismal failure on the federal level -- the most sensitive members of the community get to decide what's appropriate for everyone. Essentially, they get the power to blind me -- to ensure that _I_ don't see something that _they_ say offends them.

Also of note is the item in the Terms of Use that gives them the license to use your content in a "non-commercial" manner (how that works on a commercial site I don't know) for all time for any reason. As an artist and a writer, I don't like how broadly they lay claim. Especially since that license is transferrable to any entity who purchases Tribe -- Time Warner, FOX, Disney -- any of them would have limitless access to my content.

In conclusion, I am abandoning Tribe. I came here to discuss, not to fight wars. I tire of reading posts by people who freely give up their rights because they don't happen to be using them right now. I dread visiting Tribe. It's why I don't listen to Bill O'Reilly and his ilk -- people who derive joy from arbitrary antagonism and bullying. It's now about arguing and not about sharing knowledge.

Bye.