Mephisto

[Joachim]

primitive said:
Seems like nobody gets my point here (maybe I need to work a bit on my communication skills ).

If Shrapnel wants an off-topic free forum, thats their prerogative. It will be boring, and maybe a bit suicidal as many of the regular contributors (like me) won't bother to check in very often. But it's their choice.

A censored forum however, is different. Even if posting something political on a game forum is not a big issue, it has become an integral part of the freedoms I value.

So, Please.
Could any Shrapnel personel or one of the Moderators answer this simple question: Is the moving of the election thread a glitch, or is this a policy decission ?

And if its a glitch, please move it back.

Very good points Primitive. I bump your post in the hope that we see an answer....

[PvK]

Hmm, ya. There have been tons of heated OT discussions on this forum before, including politics, and I don't remember any being moved out. It didn't really seem to be a problem to me, though was there not recently some mention by some people about wanting to tone down the current Iraq/election topics, or at least keep them in one thread?

It is a good point though that there is a community in here in the SE4 forum, and we talk OT and generally enjoy it, even the heated and political bits, and few of us look at the general topics more than very very rarely, so personally unless something is getting out of control, I'd rather just have the OT stay here.

PvK

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I don't come to this forum for technical talk, although I do participate if nobody or very few people have answered and I can contribute something(Aside from scattering funny remarks here and there ), so, if all the general threads where moved to the general forum, I would probably eventually drift over there. And I probably would stop checking the seiv forums.

I really don't know if moving the general threads to the general section would have a long-tern bad effect, but I do know it would generate short-term complaints, as already seen.

But, there's two important points: Why change at all? This works. Second, a firm policy is allways needed. Prevents confusion.

[Gandalf Parker]

Joachim said:

Very good points Primitive. I bump your post in the hope that we see an answer....

I already answered it. No one ever said "Do not post OT" and no one ever said "we will censor opinions".

We always said that occassional, interesting, (friendly) OTs are what make a community worth visiting.

This has always been the SEIV forum and the Shrapnel.General has always been the "discuss other subjects here" forum.

We always said that some subjects will be deleted but more in the area of their tone or legality than for subject matter. Dont confuse the actions for one reason to reflect on the other.

We also said that a moderator can moderate forums with the ability to delete, edit, lock, or move a thread (with a recommendation that moving a thread is best).

From the looks of the thread that was moved I almost got the impression that it was moved to allow it to become a more heated discussion than OTs tend to be in SEIV

[primitive]

Mephisto, GP
Thanks for clearifying. Again, could you please move the thread back where it belong.

Sorry to keep clubbing this. I know this is just a small freedom, but unlike most US citizens (Kudos to Fyron for sticking up) I am willing to fight to keep all my freedoms. Man, this Bush guy got you seriously whipped

[Mephisto]

Primitive, the moving was a one way thing as I'm only moderator in this forum, not in General. Now that the community has washed my head clean can we just let it stay at Shrapnel General - just this one thread? It really won't hurt, I promise!

[primitive]

But it do hurt, inside

Sorry Meph, I didn't realise the technical difficulties.

[Mephisto]

primitive said:
But it do hurt, inside

Oh, come on! You are a big, though primitive! Just this one time!

[Gandalf Parker]

primitive said:
Mephisto, GP
Thanks for clearifying. Again, could you please move the thread back where it belong.

Its gotten rather flamey. I dont know why you would want it back in SEIV.

Sorry to keep clubbing this. I know this is just a small freedom, but unlike most US citizens (Kudos to Fyron for sticking up) I am willing to fight to keep all my freedoms. Man, this Bush guy got you seriously whipped

Freedoms? You mean like one of the "Internet Constitutions"? http://com1.runboard.com/bmessageboa...e.fmainchat.t1
Im afraid that document has not been ratified by virtual nation known as Shrapnel.

[Richard]

Just wanted to weigh in here...

The issue appears to be resolved so I won't comment on the moved or non moved Posts. However if you have an issue with something a moderator please handle it via PM's to the Moderator, and if that doesn't work you can work your way up the chain to other folks. I don't like allowing a habit of publically questioning Moderators, when it can be easily handled with PM's. And if anything else fails feel free to contact me also.

And yes OT is fine in the SE:IV forum, but remember there is no such thing as freedom of speech in a privately run forum. So if a thread needs to be moved or locked, it is a totally apprioriate thing by the mods depending on the circumstances.

As far as rules go, no we don't make hard and fast rules since we trust our Moderators to deal with things appriopriately. Favoritism can be shown by a Moderator no matter what the rules are, so that's a fairly invalid point. I am not a big person for telling folks how to do things, expecting that over time corrective actions and the community will set the community standards for Moderators, Admins, and forum posters alike. Now I could start making very specific rules, but I don't think folks would like that much either .