http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1281593606/1#1
Redacted text from above URL:

Topic disappearance  happens when a "Moderator" feels the conversations have  
gone too far astray or are not appropriate (in the moderators view)

Instead of deleting topics, I believe a moderator should redact the entire topic .
ie. "Text deleted by Moderator ModeratorName. Topic does not comply with Forum rules"
    "Rules violated: rule1 .. rule2 .. etc"

Speaking of rules ... Where are the Forum's rules posted?
Rules should be in a sticky at the top of every Forum ..

Moderators need to be upfront regarding; what is deleted, who deleted it and why it is deleted ...  
" I don't like it " is not a valid reason and "Everyone knows" is not a valid rule



Forum Rules
Redacted from a PM:

|This is the| user agreement that we all signed:

You agree, through your use of this YaBB forum, that you will not post any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually-oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of ANY law. You also agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or you have consent from the owner of the copyrighted material. Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are also inappropriate to this YaBB forum.

... Anyone who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to notify an administrator of this forum immediately. We have the right to remove objectionable content, within a reasonable time frame, if we determine that removal is necessary. ...


Should we request that a revised form of this be published on the Forum as a standard rules document

I second that.
I know I don't have any weight as a newbie, but official houserules upon which mod-actions are based, when a violation occurs,  and which are then quoted,  are a good thing. This helps in not letting a fight against skilled trolls become a fight on a personal level. It would be from the start a troll vs. the forum conflict and not troll vs. Rockman or curious_aardvark (my second favourite ENglish word after "flabbergasted").

wrote on Aug 12^th, 2010 at 1:23pm:

I second that. I know I don't have any weight as a newbie, but official houserules upon which mod-actions are based, when a violation occurs,  and which are then quoted,  are a good thing. This helps in not letting a fight against skilled trolls become a fight on a personal level. It would be from the start a troll vs. the forum conflict and not troll vs. Rockman or curious_aardvark (my second favourite ENglish word after "flabbergasted").

you've got as much weight as me or steven or at least close levels, as long as you show you are truly interested in the sport of slinging.

i think that a lot of the deleting is getting out of hand, but the rules nagging at you are a no from me. the rules will make this seem a lot more standard like all those other forums out there. i like this forum the most because, quote from someone- i forget, kuggur maybe? "From house heating to homocide in just 11 posts, that´s slinging.org for you... Grin"( i found the quote, yay) it's our own distinct web culture, and i am not xenociding....especially when it's against myself.  however, a small discussion between the mods, and maybe a few PM's around will give a nice answer. if we do however find something out of hand, a small reason for edit as C_A does is always nice.

I've not been around for the past few weeks, so I've no idea what revived this thread, but it has been my distinct impression that deletions happen much more frequently than they did when I first joined.

Many of us value(d?) the openness of this forum, where some fairly tough but enlightening discussions used to take place. With very few exceptions these threads were allowed to stand. Regardless of where in the world we live, I would like to think we can write honestly and openly here, and perhaps encounter a wider range of views than we get from other sources.

Free speech is of absolutely no use if all you allow is some 'official forum view'. We should not expect everything we read here to make us feel warm and fuzzy. I can find all kinds of specialist Forums where I can go if I want that.

Having said that, there have been a number of topics where well rehearsed positions have been repeated endlessly and entirely predictably by a few members, and it seems to me reasonable that at some point a moderator feels it necessary to intervene.

Moderators have got a very difficult job, it's one of the more thankless tasks one can take on IMHO, but it seems to me entirely fair that we express our concerns about what we see as changes in the character of the forum.

Maybe it's only me being German... ::) if there are rules for interventions there is freedom to act.
(Is this grammatically correct? I mean it's about cause and effect not about probability...)

It's all about information and fairness and in second line it protects those who have to intervene from unjust criticism and from egotrips (not that I know of any.).

Imho a short statement including what has been edited and why (e.g. copyright infringement) is only polite.

Different folks, different strokes. As I don't know yet, how things are handled here, all my points are of a rather abstract nature. There's always the (in small communities not so improbable) possibility of a benign dictator. ;D

i think all this deleting of things is getting out of hand. if it's wrong, PM the guy and tell him to fix it, or get it removed.

Yes I think the rules should be a sticky.

I also think that when a moderator decides to remove a comment they should have to explain why they took that action, not just make it disappear leaving the rest of us wonder what happened.

I have seen comments disappear that did not offend me, I might not of agreed with them, but I was not offended.  But I think a moderator was offended and just removed them because he was in a bad mood.
Possibly 2 moderators should PM each other and have to agree on removing those sort of items????????

to my knowlege the only topic that isn't spam that's been removed recently is one posted by the user formerly known as techstuff.

And no we're not going to start up committees and have stupid amounts of rules and tick lists before people dare post a thread or reply .

I don't know what particular bee is in stevens bonnet this time, since he refuses to discuss anything with anybody in a civilised manner, but the forum has managed with relying on members common sense and discretion for 7 years.
Very few topics - that aren't started by spammers - ever get deleted. usually it's sufficient to have  a quiet word with any members involved.

Any other guidelines are clearly posted before we implement them.
As far as I'm aware we currently only have a moratorium on topics concerning certain religious discussions and gun ownership in the states. Given the sheer amount of bile and bad feelinjg both these topics have raised in the forums past I'm not about to remove that just yet.

There are changes coming to the forum in the future - but that's for another topic entirely.

I for one don't believe that adding layers of rules and bureaucracy ever benefitted any culture, civilisation or web forum.  And i'm not about to start here.

Curious Aardvark wrote on Aug 14^th, 2010 at 11:45am:

....And no we're not going to start up committees and have stupid amounts of rules and tick lists before people dare post a thread or reply . ... refuses to discuss anything with anybody in a civilised manner ... ...  guidelines are clearly posted before we implement them. ...

I believe I asked a civil question in a civil manner at the beginning of this topic.

 I  believe the items we agreed when joining the forums to should be posted for reference.
I further believe Moderators  should redact (edit) topic and delete offensive verbiage rather than wholesale deletion.  

As for the guide lines ... what guidelines; where are they posted ?

Cordially Yours In a Civil Manor :

*

I just came across a thread where Rat Man said he deleted 3 items.  I am starting to get the idea that the deleting of items is happening a fair amount of the time.  But I don't know that, so I think there should be a space left everytime explaining the reason why.
Generally the system is working well but from a user point of view a moderator can remove items as they want and we would never know we are being censored.  It might be justified but it might not be and we would not know.

I also believe Steven asked a valid, civilised question.  I don't like lots of rules but I do like to know what is happening.

Poll is at 50/50 split .... no strong feeling in favor or against ....

I'm locking the poll

* P.S.

The rules we agreed to when joining the forums are now posted
as a sticky in the Other Topics Forum

Thanks Rat Man.

i really don't like this being done. a lot of topics disapearing, members getting banned, safety rules sometimes getting overboard (no, i'm not talking about you Kuggur, jax, or Pj, i mean the radical's flipping off- occasional though). i think it's wrong mainly a lot of stuff from Jabames. he might sound weird, but i honestly think he wasn't that bad a person. correct me if I'm wrong of course.  

to my certain knowlege only spammers have EVER been banned.

We've had a few members over the years who have removed themselves from the site, anda couple who have been on the verge of being kicked off, but to my knowlege it's never actually been necessary to ban an actual posting member.

Again, without any kind of specific information about what particular incident wound steven up this time, it's hard to comment. But that would actually involve talking to one of the mods - like everyone else on the forum - it's very difficult to have any idea what this is about.

It is very very easy to make waves maliciously, it's not constructive or particularly useful. But we let him do it. Does that make us bad people lol Or just trustingly naive, who knows.

I will state again, if anyone has any concerns about anything - please contact myself, ratman or aussie and we will do our best to sort any problems out or justify any actions we might have taken.

But this constant crap-stirring serves no practical purpose that I can see.

Oh and steven I don't think 8 votes is sufficiently large representation of the forum - so I've re-opened the poll ;-)

Curious Aardvark wrote on Aug 15^th, 2010 at 6:46am:

Oh and steven I don't think 8 votes is sufficiently large representation of the forum - so I've re-opened the poll ;-)

lol

IMO, a good thing about this site is that there's a bit of controlled chaos. But when theres sensitive and personal debates about animal cruelty and such, I believe it's a good thing to drill in whats right, that animal cruelty is wrong - animals should only be hunted when most of the animal can be used and needs to be used. Just remember to keep it controlled, there's no need to directly insult the person, even if you and every is thinking it.

I'm surprised nobody took issue with the killing of cats I read in a topic a few months ago. I would have banned that person right away if I was a mod.

Mr. Boss wrote on Aug 15^th, 2010 at 4:28pm:

I'm surprised nobody took issue with the killing of cats I read in a topic a few months ago. I would have banned that person right away if I was a mod.

I don't actually recall that discusion but certainly the subject would cause a lot of emotion. Feral cats in the Australian bush kill lots of native aimals which are totally defenceless against predators. However killing someone's domestic pets is quite another matter.

Nevertheless, banning someone for a difference of opinion is something that I would be very wary of. Other than spam, the only posts I have ever deleted are those which were directly offensive to someone else on the site. Even then I PM'ed the poster and asking him to desist, pointing out that he would be banned if the behaviour continued.

We need to be aware that this forum is open to anyone. Other than our common interest in slinging it is almost inevitable that we will have a wide range of opininions of other subjects. So if you know your particular view on some controversial subject is likely to offend it may be tactful for you to avoid stating it too bluntly if at all.

I know that as moderators we can come across as heavy handed if we delete material. Also we are not always in complete agreement as to what should be deleted; it's always a line call to some degree. For example we decided some time ago now to not allow "2nd Amendment" discussion (read: nigh on open warare). By no means were all posts on this subject offensive but it was all too easy for it to degenerate into personal attacks. On certain subjects we just have to agree to disagree.

So if your particular toes have been trodden on it may hurt. You may have a legitimate grievance and we may have got it wrong to some degree. But I do ask you to allow that our motivation is to keep the site functioning as smoothly as possible.

Mr. Boss wrote on Aug 15^th, 2010 at 4:28pm:

I'm surprised nobody took issue with the killing of cats I read in a topic a few months ago.

Don't want to take this too far, but what about discussions like these http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1272926096/0 ? Whatever one may think about the war, the subject of the thread is killing people. It may be necessary sometimes, but it should be no reason to rejoice. Or to treat the killing of humans like a sports event.

What Aussie says.

As for the post on the sniper.  it wasn't us who treated it as a sports event but some foul mouthed american blogger.
I'm proud the guy is in the british army, and any way you cut it - that was some incredible shooting.
I wasn't aware anyone had been offended, and even if they were - well as aussie said. we're all different. The trick is not getting offended by the opinions of people who don't think the way you do.

The world is too wide and people too varied for any kind of polarised stance to not offend someone.

The best way to deal with topics you dislike is simply to ignore them and concentrate on topics that don't wind you up.
There's romm on here for everyone, as long as we all respect the opinions of others.

Curious Aardvark wrote on Aug 14^th, 2010 at 11:45am:

to my knowlege the only topic that isn't spam that's been removed recently is one posted by the user formerly known as techstuff.

One was removed fairly recently I believe to do with immigration - the only reason I remember it is that I probably set things on fire my self ;). It just disappeared - poof!

Quote:

And no we're not going to start up committees and have stupid amounts of rules and tick lists before people dare post a thread or reply .

Couldn't agree more.

Quote:

There are changes coming to the forum in the future - but that's for another topic entirely.

Care to share?

Quote:

I for one don't believe that adding layers of rules and bureaucracy ever benefitted any culture, civilisation or web forum.  And i'm not about to start here.

Agree absolutely :)