People, I've been watching for the last couple of weeks and the complaining about locked threads or deleted posts is approaching the absurd. Complaining about 1st amendment rights and the like.
As a website owner/forum operator of MANY years and quite a few forums, let's summarize.
First Amendment rights/censorship claims only apply to the government quashing your freedom to express yourself (USA). When you are dealing with an entity such as a website, there are scenarios in play where website owners are trying to absolve themselves of litigation (libel and/or slander and the like) should such statements be made. So if a website owner thinks a post broaches into that area, they may remove it and they do not have to state why (however most will).
When a site becomes as large as this one has in such a short time, the website owner will need to recruit members to police (mods). In a community such as this, it's not really possible to do a physical 'interview', so the site admin must judge whether or not a poster can be trusted to do this. People make mistakes. Admins sometimes recruit people who like to use the big red button because they can. They are usually rooted out very quickly however and replaced with someone a little better at the job.
Along the lines of people making mistakes, mods and admins make them as well. They may very well delete a thread or edit one that may not have needed it. Not out of spite or retribution, but just because they didn't know the specifics. You will find that rather than calling out a mod publicly, a PM to any of the mods will garner a better response as they all typically have access to find out who made a specific edit or delete. They can then address amongst themselves and report back to the forum as a whole, or, depending on the case, in a PM.
So rather than claiming you are being censored, find out privately what is going on first. Calling out mods publicly is like inciting a riot and has a domino effect.
EDIT: also, keep in mind most do not traverse the forum 24 hours a day, so they cannot keep up with all that is going on. And considering the volume of posting going on, even if they were on 24/7, it would still be difficult.
As a website owner/forum operator of MANY years and quite a few forums, let's summarize.
First Amendment rights/censorship claims only apply to the government quashing your freedom to express yourself (USA). When you are dealing with an entity such as a website, there are scenarios in play where website owners are trying to absolve themselves of litigation (libel and/or slander and the like) should such statements be made. So if a website owner thinks a post broaches into that area, they may remove it and they do not have to state why (however most will).
When a site becomes as large as this one has in such a short time, the website owner will need to recruit members to police (mods). In a community such as this, it's not really possible to do a physical 'interview', so the site admin must judge whether or not a poster can be trusted to do this. People make mistakes. Admins sometimes recruit people who like to use the big red button because they can. They are usually rooted out very quickly however and replaced with someone a little better at the job.
Along the lines of people making mistakes, mods and admins make them as well. They may very well delete a thread or edit one that may not have needed it. Not out of spite or retribution, but just because they didn't know the specifics. You will find that rather than calling out a mod publicly, a PM to any of the mods will garner a better response as they all typically have access to find out who made a specific edit or delete. They can then address amongst themselves and report back to the forum as a whole, or, depending on the case, in a PM.
So rather than claiming you are being censored, find out privately what is going on first. Calling out mods publicly is like inciting a riot and has a domino effect.
EDIT: also, keep in mind most do not traverse the forum 24 hours a day, so they cannot keep up with all that is going on. And considering the volume of posting going on, even if they were on 24/7, it would still be difficult.
(actually I am way to opinionated to be a mod, I would interject myself in way too much since sometimes I think I know everything, even those things I don't know, I can fake it.
