Childress is misinformed. Tim and I do not want to eliminate either the Fractal Universe Calendar or the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest.  But we do believe neither competition is currently being run fairly or with a high degree of professionalism.  We show evidence on Orbit Trap to support such claims and go on to analyze who benefits from keeping these entities as they are.  We urge fixing both competitions to bring them in line with the rest of the professional art world.  That’s a more accurate summary of our position.

We are not censoring anyone at Orbit Trap.  We have, though, barred several trolls from posting there.  These people have shown they are not critics.  They are hecklers who we published until it became clear they had no interest in discourse.  See this post for a full explanation.  There are only two hecklers for whom we had to call security (three if one also counts Childress), and they have hardly had their free speech abridged by us.  After all, each one's voice is heard loudly and regularly in the comments section of Childress' blog.

We have and will continue to publish comments on Orbit Trap -- including views that disagree with ours -- but only when submitted remarks adhere to our comments policy and come from people who engage in discussion rather than heckling.

I do hope forum members here take a challenge to visit both blogs.  I agree that looking closely at tone is a must, as well as keeping a running tally of the number of insults, distortions, and ad hominem attacks one finds.  Members should also carefully compare which blog presents empirical evidence and which relies on emotional venting.  Ask plenty of questions, too -- like which blog has a sense of humor?  What longstanding ties do the individual bloggers have to various people managing or judging the two competitions?    Which blog plays a whistleblower role by presenting controversial, even unpopular issues relevant to fractal art and artists -- and which one merely responds negatively to the issues raised by the other in order to keep the status quo safe and its established power structure intact?