Our relationship with our members is one of trust - and our aim is to nurture a progressive community. As we are in the business (we are a private business) of helping to nurture the emergence of the burlesque industry and surrounding scenes so that it has a future, I'm sure most will agree that some sort of regulation is required, at the very least on our own website.

In reaction to community opinion given already here that you would prefer some sort of 'approval' system and to counteract the continual undermining of our posting rules and good will by a certain few, we are now implementing stricter rules regarding the advertising of goods or services, especially teachers and competitions - so that all such posts will require prior moderator approval. Posters can contact any moderator by PM to have their advertising posts considered by the moderating team.

Posts which attempt to circumnavigate the pre-moderation will be deleted. Those using our website to promote goods and/or services are also required to a) participate in the discussions and b) provide a visible reciprocal link back to www.ministryofburlesque.com. We feel this is reasonable courtesy to us and MoB members.

We are, as has been kindly noted, really quite generous in allowing people to freely post about their paying services in the first instance - and we cannot continue to have this undermined (especially where the person/event in question is already banned from using this website and is using a 3rd party colleague or pseudonym to use us anyway).

So, in order to maintain quality of information and prevent over-saturation by the bandwagon, new rules are now in place. Please familiarise yourselves with them here:
Ministry Of Burlesque Resources :: Site Rules

Regarding the 'Approval' system:

  • Some teachers we can vouch for (because we have personal experience of them as being able and trustworthy) these teachers will go in our 'MoB Approved' thread (at the top of the thread list here in Learning Burlesque ). These are approved but not necessarily formally endorsed i.e. they are not 'official MoB' unless stated.
  • Some we cannot vouch for (perhaps we simply haven't encountered them yet). Much the same as with performers - we can only recommend those we know to be able and reliable, first hand. These teachers can submit their post for moderation. If it is posted up, it's because we know of no reason not to - but it is not endorsed by us or even 'Approved' because we have not had 1st hand experience of them.
But note this increasingly important but often unnoticed 3rd situation:
  • There are teachers who we do have knowledge of and, because of what we know, we cannot in good conscience support their activities nor have them use us to advertise , to you. This a) undermines our good will in providing a free platform for genuine people b) undermines the quality of information supplied on the community c) invariably means the MoB is dragged in to some dispute or other between a disreputable service provider and disgruntled customers got through our website.
We have no desire to be involved in exposing anyone. It is not our place to do this. It is however, our place to decide what is and isn't suitable material for promotion on Ministry of Burlesque . We do not want involved in any scene politics.

So to put it plainly, if we are taking the decision to remove posts or not allow posts - and not giving a public explanation why - it might be worth reading between the lines.

Also do remember that it's our opinion - based on our experience and information. Always do your own research.
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