Disappearing Threads,unacceptable!

**J'Pol** · 12-06-2003, 12:44 PM

I agree with hobbes - I despise book burning and that is all the total removal of threads is. Lock them, fine - remove them entirely - no.

If for no other reason it is how I get to know who I am conversing with. Not by start date, or number of posts, or sig or avatar. I judge people by what they say and do. Like Cromwell I want it warts and all.

As hobbes said, I wish to be able to discuss things that I chose to discuss, in an adult (or sometimes puerile) way. I will do my own censorship thank you very much.

If the thread got so bad that it had to be totally removed then it should have been locked much earlier.

JJ

Thank you for coming forward and explaining the situation. Perhaps you will carry our message back to the admin / mod area. This is no joke or knee-jerk reaction. Some of us really are not very pleased.

**Lamsey** · 12-06-2003, 12:52 PM

I've never used the trashcan for this kind of thing myself, it's more for outwar spammers and the like as far as I'm concerned.
However, each moderator does things differently and if a thread gets out of hand to the degree where it reflects badly on the board then it may be removed.

**J'Pol** · 12-06-2003, 12:58 PM

Previously in these instances the bulk of the thread was left and the extreme posts removed - even that was rare.

If necessary the thread was then locked, but for preference it was left open with a mods warning to the participants. I think most of us have been there once or twice.

I believe it was the consensus that this was the right way. Things appear to have become somewhat draconian of late.

**Billy_Dean** · 12-06-2003, 01:25 PM

I think a public warning to offenders in the thread they posted in is a better solution than locking or deleting threads. Although I do realise they do have to be locked sometimes.

**vivitron 15** · 12-06-2003, 01:53 PM

i agree with the need to remove any clear attempts at racism/flaming/spamming etc, but i do think that many threads just need a "spring clean"...if the easiest way for mods to do this is to move to a "cleaning" area, with the intent to tidy it, then move it back, then i am all for it, however i think its a bit much to remove threads/lock threads which contain interesting/useful stuff.

**hobbes** · 12-06-2003, 04:59 PM

Originally posted by james_bond_rulez@6 December 2003 - 09:45
hobbes i am not sure what you are trying to achieve by posting threads about race and skin colors. some other dude the other day started a "calling all indians" or whatever and that didn't go so well too

so why start something that you KNOW will end in name calling and flame wars? what message are you trying to get across?

I was just citing that thread as an example of a trend I have been noticing. I certainly did not start that thread. Despite it's provocative title certain people were able to devlelop a sub-discussion within that thread amid "STFU you racist

".

I only noticed it was gone because I wanted to quote something from it that I had posted and place in response to a different thread. So I was not really concerned about THAT particular thread, just worried about a new trend of disappearing threads in general.

**brotherdoobie** · 12-06-2003, 05:42 PM

Peace brotherdoobie

**leonidas** · 12-06-2003, 05:51 PM

I totally agree with hobbes.

It's a transgression of the speach freedom principle.

What we write is also some kind of history. And we can learn a lot about history.

The threads from this forum might be studied by historians 50 or 100 years later. Who knows? This forum's one of the first places where lots of people from lots of countries all over the world can discuss of miscelanous subjects without having to be carefull of what they are saying.

I hope some overzealed/overzelt forum moderator won't waste this

**jetje** · 12-06-2003, 06:14 PM

well maybe you guys should realize you just can't say all in public, the topic wasn't shut because of the debate, but because of the flaming and the personal attacks also done by pm. A lot of you talk about censorship then but i think you guys sonmetimes need to realize what you post. If you try to post sharp as a knife expect a sharp remark back. It was past 3 in the night over here, no other mods around.. You guys have an easy chat sitting behind your keyboard

if the topic would get out of hand you were accusing us of not do the mod job right, if i locked you also would have started a debate about censorship. In these cases mods only do wrong... now i just took some cooldown time... placced it right back when i was awake...

Oh JP i already posted in that topic and asked to keep it clean, if people don't take that serious expect topics to get locked or deleted.

For myself I just did what i thought was best at that time. Simple as that...