Speaking of censorship...........

badger

Senior Member
Just want to air a thought or two here & get some feedback/discussion. I frequent quite a few outdoors related sites, some virtually unmoderated, some are moderated very heavily. I have gathered some impressions and noticed a trend comparing the levels of moderation/censorship.
I find that most unmoderated sites are not ones that I would want my family to spend time on and as a result don't spend much time on them myself unless looking for an answer or info about hunting or shooting. The exception to this is 24hour Campfire. It is pretty unmoderated for the most part but the regulars are also savvy enough to keep things mostly civil. Sites like these attract people who generally are a wealth of information about shooting, hunting & the like and are quick to recognize a phony & will say so. Nothing wrong with that IMHO. Over-moderated sites (and there are more than a few) tend to become boring and lose members over time because there is already too much political correctness and fear of saying something that may just tread on someone's toes which would result in censure or ejection as a member.

I certainly draw the line at vulgarity, obscene language and personal attacks, but, surely if one disagrees passionately with another poster while keeping things civil, should he/she be censored? I recall a thread a week or two ago about medicare/social security and the war in Iraq taking money from these programs. The thread disappeared, I'm guessing because I had an opposing point of view? I sincerely believe that we (members and Moderators) need to think carefully before replying to posts AND before censoring same before it sets a tone that is so restrictive that Woody's suffers the same fate that some other forums did in the past. (Shooters is an example)

I posted this thread not because I have any axe to grind, but because I truly love Woody's, & look forward to getting online every day to read about whats going on in our neck of the woods. The intention is to generate discussion (& maybe a little introspective look at ourselves) to ensure that Woody's doesn't lose that campfire atmosphere & take on the "big brother" syndrome that tends to alienate members, rather than encourage participation.

What say Y'all................?

If I stepped out of line mentioning another website, my apologies, censor away. :cheers:

badger
 

Jim Thompson

Live From The Tree
Nothing wrong with mentioning the others:D

Badger, we have had the exact same rules and regs since day one (+/- one or 2 for legal reasons). In the begining we did not have to do as much editing, deleting or banning of members posts. But as we grow we have to do more of it because of the sheer number of posts we have.

Most of the time (and I know many will not believe me) when a FULL thread is deleted it is done by the thread starter, not a moderator. I say this because one of our "mod rules" is to edit or delete the actual post that causes a problem and not the thread. This is not to say that management does not delete threads, cause we all know we do. This happens when a thread gets out of hand or is over the boundries we have set.

All members who are new or old must remember that the rules have not changed. We do not bend on these, other wise we may as well close shop now because as you can tell from a few weeks ago when we get slack the door is wide open.

2 rules we never budge on (although we do not catch them all)...

1. Posts appear on the Forum as they are entered. It is impossible to monitor each post in real time. The Forum will strive to ensure that all posts are polite, professional and conform to a "G" rating due to an absence of violence, sexual content and strong language.

2. Posts containing personal attacks or harassing, inflammatory, vulgar, abusive, threatening, sexually-orientated, hateful, or obscene language is prohibited on this Forum. Posts violating this prohibition will be removed. A member who violates this prohibition may be banned from the Forum. This prohibition includes attempts to alter words or phrases to avoid technical violation of the rules. The Forum will act more harshly toward those who intended to achieve a violation of the intent of the Forum rules by "typing around the censors".


This is not to say that all other basic rules located here http://forum.gon.com/showthread.php?t=192 will not be applicable, but the above 2 are the most infractions.



If anyone has issue with the way things are run or why they were edited or why a post was deleted...I will take full responsibility for all mods actions. Please email or PM me. It may not get you what you want, but I will listen.

Jim
 

Dustin Pate

Administrator
Staff member
Like Jim said those rules have been in place since the beginning. They have never hurt membership. Useful and helpful information can always be found also. Most of the time when something gets deleted is because the boundaries were overstepped.
 

badger

Senior Member
Jim,

fair enough :) I can live with that. It just seemed to me that there was a lot more intervention than I remembered from days past. Maybe I'm paranoid :banginghe , but I don't want to "lose" the Woody's that I know........... (I was a Shooters refugee when things went sour there & it wasn't 6 months before their sponsors pulled the plug because they lost so many members & hits on their banners)

badger
 
Last edited:

Jim Thompson

Live From The Tree
badger said:
Jim,

fair enough :) I can live with that. It just seemed to me that there was a lot more intervention than I remembered from days past. Maybe I'm paranoid :banginghe , but I don't want to "lose" the Woody's that I know...........

badger

You are right that there is more intervention than in the past...

but we also had 1217 new posts so far...today and 37 new members......since Tuesday:D

Thanks for the concern, we need as much help as we can get:)

Jim
 

Buzz

Senior Member
Badger - one thing to rember is that the thread starter can delete the entire thread at any point. Some of the threads that didn't turn out the way people wanted (for whatever reason) were deleted by the people that started the thread.
 

Howard Roark

Retired Moderator
I am making an assumption these disappeared from the political forum. Is that correct?

As stated earlier an individual can delete individual post and the original poster (#1) can delete the entire thread by deleting the first post.
 

badger

Senior Member
Howard,

I believe you are correct about which forum. I guess thats what happened.

badger
 
Top