STOP CLOSING MY POSTS!!!

Well as Amin has said both my comments and some of his have disappeared from this thread.

Don't know if my post supporting the right of moderators to moderate and expecting Professioanal photographers to supply thier own backup equipment has been censored or theres been a convienient bug.

My post was definitely in as I'm visiting the forum in between waiting for computer jobs to run and it was there 10 mins after I posted and I was showing up as latest contributor to this thread in list of threads


EDIT - Just looked at my personal messages and I had one from John Riley saying he had removed my post.
John, Although I think moderators do have the right to censor I don't think the right to moderate includes the right to say nothing has been censored after YOU have censored my post by removing it.

Very interested in the deleted posts, and the opinion of the members who's posts have been deleted.

This is not fun.

Now I know why Pentax User seems such a friendly place... everything vaguely confrontational gets immediately deleted! Welcome to the Stepford-Forum

All this argy bargy is totally unnecessary though - in my humble view, the original thread was innoccuous and should not have been deleted, but I also think the OP should have contacted the mod behind the scenes rather than create this thread to air his grievances... I am sure John is willing to be reasonable but this thread only esccalates the situation.

Fun though.

I'm sure it's tremendous fun, but also unhelpful and I expect that you're wondering how long my patience will hold...there was a similar trend when the forum design was changed and we listened to some pretty dreadful stuff then.

But to summarise, whether or not the original thread should have been locked is now immaterial. It wasn't deleted, just the brakes put on before it moved into a fight. Nothing was removed, unless of course any of the posters removed some of their own stuff. It that's the case then it will no longer make sense anyway.

What was removed from here was a very inflammatory and personal post, not directed at me as it happens, but to reinstate it would not really be very helpful and I think regretted by some. The relpy to it was removed because in isolation it made no sense so was redundant.

Censorship is removing the ability of someone to state an opinion, and I think it's pretty clear by now that you're free here to state your opinion. However, you are not free to launch personal attacks on other members or to post potentially libellous material.

Hopefully common sense will now reinstate itself and we can move back to discussing photographic subjects.

John, don't take it as offence, but:
- I didn't see any "argument between individuals" in that subject, but even if it would happen and people wouldn't be able to stop it personally then the particular posts should have been moderated (if it is not a massive "fight" including a number of people). Especially that saying "subject fully explored" has not much to do with mentioned "arguments..." reason.
- I don't think anybody could know at that stage that subject has been explored, you could expect anyone who has some experience in the subject recently to find this subject at any day and add something. If "fully explored" reason would be valid, then you could close a lot of topics here on this forum (pointless of course).
- I completely disagree with approach as you wrote "start a new thread If there's anything anyone wants to add", this way just causes mess, makes searching/finding information much harder, creates a number of duplicated threads, doesn't scale; they way is to keep comments related to the subject in the subject.

Is it really the thread Nathan is referring to in the OP of this thread that this is about? I read the whole thing and cannot see that it was in danger of moving into a fight. (But then, I'm a grown up boy and can take a cotton ball or two thrown at me.)

I think both sides made their points (and I for one can agree with both sides as it seems can most of the contributors to that thread). All posts are less serious IMO than locking a thread. Even if one post was going a bit too far (I cannot imagine that it was removed otherwise) I think we do respect each other here and can forgive a momentary lapse of judgement.

Let's just put that in the 'overreaction' drawer and forget it. It would be extremely sad to see an overmoderation develop here as has happened in other fora that I used to read. But of course since posts have been removed we have no way of judging the removed posts. That is exactly what makes such censorship so dangerous.

Prieni

John,

this is not your forum. I do not care of how much patience you have, and if you want to 'kick me out' well go ahead.

Your judgment can be debated because this is not a fascist regime.

Closing a discussion without even notifying the members of the reasons for closing it, is irresponsible, rude, and very un-democratic.

I haven't seen any "potentially libellious material" and cannot therefore have an opinion on those regards.

Common sense (and democracy) is, not imposing one's own view on another.

This is not a personal attack, it is a personal defence.

With respect, you cannot judge a post that you haven't read. The last time a post was removed for this reason it was a truly shocking attack. This is not censorship, and it confuses the issue to discuss it as such.
The danger was in publishing potentially libellous material, apart from causing unnecessary distress to the attacked person.

Unfortunately you can't judge a thread either, as posters can edit and delete their posts at any time, so after the event things could change. At that point things would no longer make any sort of sense. I'm not saying it has happened here, but it could.

In this case it was not so severe, but still out of order. That's what moderation is for and in future it can be discussed I think by PM rather than in public. If I reinstated the post so we could all see it would not be a good thing to do, and you might not like it much.

Fortunately this sort of thing is very rare here, but where necessary posts are removed, quite properly. In the entire history of this site there have been very very few occasions where some sort of action has been taken.

The worst thing is prolonging it, and it's time now to stop.

John, I take your word for it and I do believe that you and all other moderators on here don't take the decision to remove a post lightly and that you all are aware of your responsibility. As you rightly say, I don't have any way of finding out if that post was out of order and this is exactly why it is so important that the power to remove posts is applied with uttermost care.

With all due respect (and I assure you of the same), this should not be your (as in the moderators) call, but can only be the call of the members. If they feel that all has been said then the discussion will stop, just like in any other thread.

You cannot remove posts and call a stop on debating that action.
If you think it's right to use the moderator 'superpowers' than you should have a skin thick enough to endure the discussion about that.

Prieni

That's an interesting Catch 22 situation, but don't forget that everyone has a right to be treated properly and we're here to help ensure that that happens.

Now I know some forums, indeed one that I frequent quite a bit, nothing to do with photography, where I constantly urge my fellow moderators not to be so trigger-happy. They can be quite as touchy as some of the posters!

Having said that, attacks on a forum by trolls do occur and have to be dealt with, otherwise the whole place becomes inflamed with anger. We've been very lucky here to avoid this.

Now by all means discuss whatever you want, and I would point out that nobody, apart from one rather excessive post, has been stopped from saying anything, so there really is no attack on anyone's freedoms! But when it becomes personal or when it's just an unpleasant argument going round in circles, then that's the time it may well be stopped.

To be honest im with John here.

Nathanever82 i dont think you know how you can come across some times. Posts such as :

John, please, try to understand what i'm telling you here, and stop turning it around.And..

John, this is not your forum. I do not care of how much patience you have, and if you want to 'kick me out' well go ahead.


They come across as very abrupt. You said to me on a post "try to learn how a camera works". its a bit insulting.
You want the freedom of speech and freedom to do what you want but dont want moderaators the freedom to do what they want?!?!
Perhaps thats how italian people are (abrupt/straight to the point/direct) but its not how people are where i live.

Matt

Matt,
Not everyone is the same Italians and other's can sound a bit abrupt at times my ex son inlaw (Italian) is the same, you have to take people as they are that's life..

ttk,

I know. I was just saying people from different countries/areas do have different personalities. I was actually saying it to explain why he might come across a bit abrupt.

Matt

I am a Mod on another non camera related forum. It is similar to this one in as much as everyone is very friendly 99% of the time and will go out of their way to help each other or have a laugh.

Very occasionally there is a spat and something has to be done to sort it. It is very unusual to be in a situation where the decision to lock a thread or delete a post or posts to be 100% black and white. More often it is a question of thinking how other members are going to react to a post. There are posts which are quite correct but are likely to light the blue touch paper. The decision to let them stand or not can be very awkward.

Yeah.. there's this one guy on this forum, Don, he's a real peice of work, and if ever there was a reason to censor anybody, just wait'll you see some of the crap that guy posts.
Canadian... pretty much sums it all up.. damn Cannucks