A citi of unrest

[greatbear]

It seems I had run afoul of the site guidelines at bearciti.com. I had a pretty good idea what was up when I got this message:

Hi Greatbear, I received a complaint that your main photo didn't mean our guidelines and they are correct. I think your photo was rated as Main by mistake. We go through hundreds of photos and sometimes we do make a mistake. I need to change the rating on your photo to no longer be a Main photo but if you can upload a new main pic, let me know and I will make the change once your new pic is up. Sorry for the inconvenience and many apologies. - Site Admin

My inquiry as to what was disallowed in my photo got me this response:

Hi Greatbear, unfortunately our guidelines say that it must be a face shot from the front and must be able to see both eyes. Do you have another photo you could replace it with? - Site Admin

My question about the necessity of full-on face shots followed. Point of note being, is the necessity of having a face shot needed to enable use of facial recognition software on the site, or is it just to give a yearbook-like appearance to the profile pages:

No, not at all. We really want to keep a consistent look for all our main photos. So many bear sites are covered in random photos with random body parts and we really are trying to seperate ourselves from them. It's not that your photo is inappropriate at all, it's just that it isn't consistant with our policy and basically, unfair to our other members. Hope you understand, sincere apologies for the inconvenience. - Site Admin

I can accept this. And given the nicey-nice exchanges, how could I not comply? I uploaded a pic that buffalobear took of me seen in my user picture instead. And, I was a bit skeeved at 'someone' (how Fox News) complained about my original photo.

Thanks so much Greatbear :) When you upload your new main photo just check the radio button for Main and it should fix it automatically once approved. Many thanks. - Site Admin

I imagine if my friend Mike Wazowski tried to sign up on bearciti.com he'd be in for a world of disappointment:



Well, darn. By the looks of things, it looks like he already tried.

Comments

[beastbriskett.livejournal.com]

RMFAO!!!

[woofytexan.livejournal.com]

You should point out to the site admin that 2 of his pictures on the front page that are main pictures for their profiles only have one eye showing. Suggest to him to change this that way people do not get the idea that profiles for main pictures are not accepted.

[beefquest.livejournal.com]

cpratt was very nice enough to bring this to my attention a few days ago and you guys are right the ad on the welcome page did not meet our pictures guideline. It has been fixed. Sorry for that.

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

Holy "didn't cpratt go through this with them just a couple of days ago??" Batman. ;-)

It's not difficult to find profile pics of recently-added guys whose eyes are not entirely visible for one reason or another, such as the pic is really tiny and their face is very far away, or they're wearing sunglasses.

With everyone so p.o.'d about selective enforcement of arbitrary rules over at Their Not-So-Esteemed Competitor, they may find people up in arms towards them, too.

[reslbear.livejournal.com]

Talk to beefquest about your beef. He is the site owner.

[one-nightstand.livejournal.com]

THe more I hear about this whole bearciti thing, the more I laugh.. this is all such Drama with a capital WHATEVER..

I want to take a picture of me with an Eye Patch.. and see if it gets accepted.

My friend tried to submit a private pic where he was touching his dick.. it was not allowed.

So now Bearciti is trying to determine what people should look like... hmmm.. sounds very bear411ish to me lol

[beefquest.livejournal.com]

LOL If someone submitted a picture with an eye patch they would get approved. LOL
The issue about touching your genetals is do to a by product of our laws. Touching yourself is considered crossing the line. Go figure.
I understand your frustration trust me I do but what can we do. We are a US company governed by US laws.

[knarfd.livejournal.com]

That is a very cool handle and pic.

[baeritone.livejournal.com]

You know....I understand the rationale for this. They're right - there are too many profile photos already on various sites that are just a body part. It's pointless and objectifying, and bearciti wants to be the site that rises above that. I think it's a laudable goal. :)

[texaspenguin.livejournal.com]

*in his best little girl voice*

Mike Wazowski!

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

I laugh uncontrollably every time I hear that in the movie. LOL

[mondragon.livejournal.com]

Is it a fucking modeling agency?

Consistent look of main photos and this is how they want to differentiate themselves?

Isn't that setting the bar a bit low?

[cpj.livejournal.com]

For a full frontal face shot, you should get a Bear License within 4 weeks in the mail. :)

[knarfd.livejournal.com]

*rolls eyes* When do they start advertising those insipid cutelittleblokes?

Cute little blokes

[feygelegoy.com (from livejournal.com)]

I would think it was cute — if it didn't cost $60 and look like they just photoshop it from a standard template in 15 minutes.

For that money, you could probably have a starting consultation with a debt counselor.

Re: Cute little blokes

[feygelegoy.com (from livejournal.com)]

Umm... Not that I have anything against anyone who actually bought one... Particularly if they
just posted on this same entry a few days ago (http://greatbearmd.livejournal.com/154018.html#t1596834)...

(blushes with embarrassment)

[beefquest.livejournal.com]

During the design stage of the site, the biggest survey result we got is "I am tired of seeing X rated pics or guys not wanting to show their face on profiles as main pictures" Based on that result we formed a policy that each user should have 1 MAIN picture showing a full face shot. Every so often we go through a review of all MAIN pics and see if we were consistant in our rating of pictures.

Our picture approval procedure is actually the hardest part of our job.
It's not a perfect science. I think that it will be very hard for us to overcome the feeling that we are "behind the wall" as admin and being judgemental. It's the farthest from the truth we are just trying to monitor the site based on the policies we formed from our surveys. We make an effort to form, as our site grows, policies on the back end so that we can approved MAIN pics with a consistant rating. And we will make errors. We are not perfect. As you can imagine we get a large quantity of pictures to go through. We decided to go with a 2 eye policy on the main pic so that we had a clear policy between a clear shot showing both sides of a users face and just a side shot, and the best way for us to explain that is to say we need to see the users 2 eyes.

We don't filter your conversations or what you put in your profiles. It's your CITI. We welcome critisism and feed back about the site. It is your site your virtual community. We are there to make it the best we can.

David
Senior Site Admin
Aka beefquest

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

I have to give you major props for addressing one of my biggest peeves regarding online personals sites. The first thing I notice when meeting someone is their face. So many sites have headless shots and seemingly disembodied torsos that at times I feel I am staring at statuary in a Greek ruin. Upon browsing profiles, I dont feel the sleaze factor I do when checking BMB, etc.

Also, I am glad that your site does not feature a 'popularity contest' as do the various Bigmuscle sites rating people on the number of "I Likes" on their profile or the number of views a profile has received. This puts everyone on an even footing and stops any fishing for 'likes'.

I killed off all of my online personals profiles not only from not using them anymore, but I got tired of the nonsense. Your setup seems to be devoid of the things that turned me off, so now I can actually enjoy the exchanges again (except when I get the random database/asp error that makes me have to log out and back in again to read messages. lol).

Keep up the good work!

[feygelegoy.com (from livejournal.com)]

I think you deserve bonus points for even acknowledging complaints, and being willing to work on them.

[scozart.livejournal.com]

...just goes to prove what I already know to be true..
...any organized group will have the fucking "hall monitors", "jocks", "stoners" and "geeks"...


Thanks again for listening to the PONR!