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Censorship - where do you stand?

Awol

By Awol
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Should Mods censor?  

47 members have voted

  1. 1. Should Mods censor?

    • Yes, anything that they personally dislike
      4
    • Yes, but only when on dodgy legal ground
      18
    • No, it's a free country and I'll say what I like within the law
      9
    • Dont know, I am the only person on the internet without an opinion
      4
    • Posts that break the site guidelines :)
      12

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Awol Grand Master

Awol

Posted
Posted

Anyone who uses a few 'tinterweb message boards will have come across this issue before. In my experience, censorship of posts has often been justified for treading a very fine legal line that could land the website owner in hot water. Fair play, no-one can really argue against that.

Then you have cases of severe and heavy editing or deletion of posts when the legal justification is not relevant and the reasoning, unless for being wildly off topic, oftens seems to be holding a contrary view to moderators - please note THIS IS NOT A CRACK AT VT.

I think of these boards as being similar to an online pub and as such I expect free, frank and flowing discussion but recently this seems to have dropped off considerably due to excessive and imho unecessary use of red ink. In turn this obstructs free discussion and imho starts to undermine the whole point of using message boards.

Any thoughts?

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R.I.C.O. Newbie

R.I.C.O.

Posted
Posted
I think of these boards as being similar to an online pub and as such I expect free, frank and flowing discussion but recently this seems to have dropped off considerably due to excessive and imho unecessary use of red ink. In turn this obstructs free discussion and imho starts to undermine the whole point of using message boards.

Any thoughts?

I agree with you, especially the part in bold. I don't think the mods should decide what people find offensive - they can make those things up for themselves or comment themselves - i.e. if there was a report post button.

Most people call people names in jest. I think mods should send the poster a message as well if they delete a post, at the moment they disappear as if by magic, its weird and confusing.

And I think the word cuuuuuuuunt should be allowed too. "Word removed" sounds silly. Why not censor all swearwords in that case?

But hey, its their forum. I think they personally do a very good job.

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BOF Grand Master

BOF

Posted
  • Moderator
Posted

Regarding modding legally questionable stuff - I think this is because limpid likes his status as a free man and he doesn't like court rooms.

As for the rest. All message boards have their own way of doing things and that's fine - more power to them. Posters are free to pick and choose the fora they contribute on.

VT mods try and ensure that when you click on a thread, the posts contained within it will actually relate to the original post - a crazy notion but we think it makes sense. Plenty of fora don't really do this and become very difficult (and frustrating) to actually have a conversation on. We also try and make sure there is no name calling or general lack of respect towards other posters. Again, some fora are less strict on this, but that's their choice. We like to think people on here can post what they want about a given topic and have it discussed. Of course this doesn't always happen, and cards can get dished out for transgressions but the mods go by the guidelines which are there for everyone. A certain level of modding disgression is given - which is why one mod might card someone for something that another mod will warn you for - this is where 'inconsistency' accusations get thrown around, but it's never anything more sinister than a mod doing what he thinks is best for the site/thread/poster.

One of the common misconceptions people have is that it's 'free speech' on a forum. No it's not free speech, as you have mentioned in your post. There are things you can't say, things you can't reproduce, things you can't link to, things you can't call other posters.

We freely admit we try to run a tight ship. Those who are used to it, know and (I think) appreciate that they have a forum where they can discuss everything sensibly and have mods who will deal with numpties quickly and efficiently. The balance of how tight a ship it should be is what the mods talk about often - just in case you didn't know that!

Rgds

Brian

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villab0y Newbie

villab0y

Posted
Posted

What I dont understand is when certain threads get locked, even though in OT, with no explanation to why, and PM's to MODS are basically ignored?

Strange one that....

But I guess the MODS know best afterall... :notworthy:

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tonyh29 Grand Master

tonyh29

Posted
Posted

My site , my rules

would be how i would view the internet

you've seen how some threads turn into a war zone on here , so without some form of moderation , it would just scare away those that just want to have some idle banter / friendly but heated discussion

The world would be a boring place if we all agreed on everything but healthy debate is one thing ,point scoring and abuse is something else

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Awol Grand Master

Awol

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The world would be a boring place if we all agreed on everything but healthy debate is one thing ,point scoring and abuse is something else

I agree with that but do you think sometimes people get a little overly-sensitive?..we're all big boys after all..

Edit to add: ...also, if someone is deliberately winding you up, what's wrong with a swift 'feck off'? It's pretty easy for Mod's to discriminate between that and torrents of abuse surely?

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tonyh29 Grand Master

tonyh29

Posted
Posted

Ive voted but dont know what to write!!

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool , than open one's mouth and remove all doubt

Homer's Brain : Quick , say something clever

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The_Rev Mentor

The_Rev

Posted
Posted

You need to agree to the terms and conditions of the website before you can post a message. The censoring here is hardly draconian, and more often than not is just removing petty namecalling between a handful of users which the other 99% of the members of the site have no desire to see anyway.

There are plenty of unmoderated forums on the internet. The majority of them are painful to read.

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