Censorship, pre-moderation and forum rules, a few thoughts. Discuss!

[Ian Adams]

Under the previous ownership;

A lot of my posts were removed, some were edited. The effect of doing so totally changed the bias of the topic being debated. It wasn't just deletions or edits that concerned me, there was political manipulation (deliberate or otherwise).

I also received a warning but despite asking, was never told why.

I complained at the time and what I got back was (not verbatim because I cannot remember) "This is a private forum, not a public forum. If you don't like it you don't need to stay".

That stung and smarted for a while until I actually realised what was being said to me. Simply, it's a private forum and "I" have no rights, "I" am a guest and if I am expected to follow the rules.  Sounds a little daft?  Then I realised that exactly the same rules apply when I wanted to visit someone else's cave, mine, pub, shop, visitor centre, home or Library.  I stopped smarting  :blink:

With the new owners I have had no such difficulties at all.

I don't think any of my posts have been edited or removed, I think the mods are all the same so I guess there is a more laid back environment, an easing up on moderation and/or maybe I have been less troublesome (or any combination of any of them).

Still, the pivotal moment for me was realising where I was  :-[

Ian

 

[Badlad]

[admin]Please see my comments below. I have re-instated this thread as it was. I have locked it as there is now a similar thread running anyway. Please note that arguing about moderation decisions on the public forum is against the rules. [/admin]

This thread was started in response to a moderation decision.  It has attracted posts from across the spectrum including those few who feel aggrieved from previous moderation decisions.  The rules state that arguing about a moderator?s decision on the public forum is a bannable offence.

Moderating a forum is a tricky business and it is impossible to please all of the users all of the time.  On line forum users may troll, flame, bully, dominate, insult other users, but on today?s UKcaving this generally only takes place at a low level and rarely is there one single post which shows that a clear line has been breached.

Moderating decisions maybe based on a number of things; past history, complaints from other users, previous warnings, knowledge from within the caving community, a breach of the rules, etc.  Moderators cannot make all the issues public or enter into a debate on each matter with the wider forum members.

Some forums have quite detailed and strict rules (see http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/info/guidelines.html).  Others are more generalised.  Most forum users, especially those with a thousand plus posts know when they are pushing the boundaries of acceptable behaviour.  In the end all forum members just have to accept that the moderation team have the best interests of the forum and the wider caving community at heart.

UKcaving reserve the right to edit, remove or lock any posts if the moderators think there is good reason to do so.  To read some of the above posts you would think this was a daily occurrence.  Usually this only happens by request of the poster in order to remove information such as a name or email address which shouldn?t have been made public.  To my knowledge posts are NEVER tampered with to change their meaning or otherwise.  At the very most, on a very rare occasion, something like an insult might be removed.