Westender,Originally Posted by Westenders
I always find it strange that some people only believe what they want to believe regardless of the facts. I created Negril.com in 1995 - 19 years ago, as a way to promote tourism for Negril! This is a tourism focused website. When you registered, you agreed to abide by the guidelines. Here is guideline #1:
"1) Since this is the Negril Message Board, we would like the topics to try and reflect Negril and Jamaica tourism. This is meant to be a rather common sense guideline."
This board's only obligation is to provide the best information possible for our visitors to make their stay in Negril and Jamaica the most fun possible. It is not a free-for-all message board - but the Negril Message Board. There are literally hundreds of thousands of other places you can post anything you want, but the Negril Message Board is not one of them.
Yes, there have been others in the past that would not abide by this simple concept and some actually demanded that it be changed. But we have been here for 19 years with these guidelines and plan to be here a lot longer. We had over half a million unique visitors to the site last year, our busiest year ever, so we are doing something right.
The way you talk about Jamaica. "I think the term of squatters is generally different in Jamaica to our countries" gives me an insight to how you see Jamaica. I see those faces of people who have to deal with living in challenging circumstances every single day. Many I consider friends. And I live by the idea that it is better to teach a man to fish so they can feed themselves for a lifetime, and not simply give them a fish for a day. One is a cure, the other is a band-aid.
And while you find my posts unethical and disgusting, I find your posts made about Red Ground on this public message board that has readers who live in Red Ground equally unethical and disgusting. You are publicly posting negative, untrue comments about an entire area - many of whom are also my friends. To not allow the residents of this area to know that someone is publicly posting these misleading comments about them would be equally unethical and disgusting.
You say my behaviour is unprofessional because you cannot "redress" the folks at Red Dragon who saw your post, yet how are you allowing them to redress your comment? Wouldnt they need to see your comment first? It is okay for you to make your comment publicly, but it is not okay for them to see it?
You talk with your husband about these residents, yet I am not allowed to speak with these residents? And what makes you think that some of the residents of Red Ground are not reading this thread? I have personally helped dozens of them get online with their computers, phones and tablets and showed them how to access the Negril Message Board here on Negril.com so they can better understand how tourists think and view their country.
This is the Negril Message Board, owned and operated by myself as well as born Jamaicans. I do not hide behind some fake name, my name is right on this post and virtually everyone in town knows me and what Negril.com is and does. In fact, my girlfriend and I cannot go anywhere in Negril without someone calling to us.
As with anything in life, not everything is perfect and there has been clashes here on the Board in the past. Some posters would try to dominate and respond to every single comment made. Some posters would continually post rumor and speculation regardless of whom they may harm by these untrue comments and others posted highly private, inappropriate and/or illegal matters that had no business being discussed in a public forum. And of course you get the cliques that form that I go out of my way to prevent as cliques by their very nature are exclusionary, making it an us vs. them mentality.
And I find it amusing that you think I have or would want to have "groupies". If you actually think that, you dont know me at all.
I did not create Negril.com nor have I spent nearly 20 years working daily on this site as a popularity contest. There is not even an "About Us" link on Negril.com that says who I am. But as a former tourist who has been given the extraordinary advantage of living full time in Jamaica for 21 years now, this allows me to see tourism from both sides. And this forum does allow me to give a voice to what many of my local Jamaican friends would like to say, but are restrained due to the risk to their jobs and livelihood.
I am always up for a face to face meeting, but out of all the times that I have heard people say that, less than 2% have ever done that. It is interesting how powerful people feel when they are anonymous on the internet. I am not anonymous - when you get to Negril, ask anyone where Rob with the internet can be found...
. . . westender, it is crazyness to argue with all of these peeps . . .
