Discussions

I thought I should post to clarify the types of photos and video that are appropriate for eBrandon, specifically photos and video that are related to sensitive and sometimes tragic events that may happen in our city.  
 
As many people look to the discussion forums portion of eBrandon to know what is happening in their community through the eyes of fellow Western Manitobans, there is a responsibility to allow a medium through which we can keep each other informed. Normally that is a pretty wide open thing, but in rare situations we are forced to deal with tragedy that changes what may and may not be considered appropriate in order to respect those effected yet still allow the respectable sharing of information. In those situations, there's a responsibility to allow photo, video and message postings that inform people of what has happened (or is happening) in their city... but to at the same time also make sure that those postings stay within respectable bounds that respect familes and friends of those effected. Those bounds are essentially the same bounds that most TV networks follow, to not depict victims (or suspects) and to not identify victims (or suspects). Not all networks or media outlets in this world adhere to those exact same standards, but this site does everything it can to strike the very delicate balance of allowing people to be informed, but to do it as respectfully as possible.  
 
If there is a tragic occurence in our city, it is appropriate to have photos or videos that give us a sense of what has happened PROVIDED that there are no photos of actual victims or suspects, there is nothing in the photo that specifically identifies a victim or a suspect and that you are not releasing private information. If and only if the proper authorities have publicly released a name is okay for there to be identifying information but under no circumstances is any photo involving a victim to appear on eBrandon.  
 
There may be very rare times when, depending on the photos or video and situation, they may be removed from archive after a few days after those that would like to view them have viewed them.  
 
I don't expect everyone will see things this exact same way. There will be some that will say that absolutely anything should be allowed and others that will say that there should be absolutely nothing related to these kinds of incidents show up on eBrandon. Through it all we have to keep in mind that eBrandon is something new and unique, not only to Western Manitoba but as far as I can tell to Canada. You can't really compare the discussion forums to a newspaper, TV station or radio station even though some people look to it for *some* of the same things. You also can't compare it to Facebook where you're only communicating with a circle of people you know. When coming up with these kinds of policies, it involves examining at the most basic level what the 40,000+ weekly unique visitors to eBrandon expect to get from (and contribute to) it when they visit... and ensuring it's done as responsibly as possible at a personal and community level.  
 
If anyone has any questions or concerns, please feel more than free to private message or click on the "contact" link at the top of the page and I'll be happy to discuss.