just wondering

[strip_wonders]

been reading many comments from all interesting contributors.....good and bad.....and i think terb is doing a wonderful job of sharing info

what bothered me lately is.....shiek threatening to cancel the membership in public.

is this going to be a routine when one does not agree with others or offensive?

i do recognize the importance of "some rules" to ensure the success of the terb but a censorship is not the answer. (and i do recognize, the moderators do delete "offensive threads")

As much as i may not agree with members' view, i do enjoy enjoy their commments (especially troops) and i hope no one is "threatened" with a membership cancellation.

btw, am not slamming you, shiek...just hope to see, if there is a better way handling such members (ie pm, rather than in public forum or delete offensive messages before they get posted) I believe "threatening" (yes, i used word, "threatening") is not the answer and it will make the terb, less informative.

PS I rather want to know "what psychos are thinking", rather than guess

 

[Goober Mcfly]

I like pie.

 

[Fred Zed]

btw, am not slamming you, shiek...just hope to see, if there is a better way handling such members (ie pm, rather than in public forum or delete offensive messages before they get posted) I believe "threatening" (yes, i used word, "threatening") is not the answer and it will make the terb, less informative.

PS I rather want to know "what psychos are thinking", rather than guess

That's infact what happens - usually the posters are sent several warnings privately before their accounts are suspended or cancelled. We never
promised to be everything to everyone. Noone can really be "censored"
in this day and age. If someone thinks there is market for their ideas which site X will not allow them to publish, all they have to do is start their own forum. There are a lot of free sites out there that will allow you to install your own forum within minutes.
Board administrators set the standards of what is acceptable on this forum. That is not to say
they are always right or that mistakes will not be made, but you got to start somewhere.

 

[Goober Mcfly]

Fred likes pie too.

 

[V12]

Sheik - One of the problems with doing anything is criticism. You will never please everyone. I believe that there comes a time to remove disruptive people from posting. One of the tough jobs is deciding where to draw the line.

I appreciate the time that you and the other moderators put in to do this job.

V12

 

[strip_wonders]

thanks fred (and all other moderators)

well, it is good to know that you give warnings to the "trouble-makers" and i just wish you just delete their accounts without making the threat in the public.

ps. sheik, you are welcome to vent your frustration ......am sure your time and effort are very much appricated by many members, regardless whether we agree with you or not in certain things.

 

[xarir]

In my not so humble opinion, our moderators do a thankless task and they do it well. I have posted previously that I think they perform an essential task; that being the ongoing governance of TERB to ensure its continued success and smooth running.

Can I have some pie now?

 

[Goober Mcfly]

No, xarir, then someone would say we were paying you off for a good review.

NO PIE FOR YOU! NEXT!

 

[zog]

Just a question...

There has been a lot of talk already about Troops's "departure" from these pages and I don't want to stir up more controversy. However, I'm still curious to know what happened.

The posts in this thread (and several others) emphasize quite strongly that the posting of certain types of inapropriate information violates the guidelines of this board. I think there are a variety of arguments that can be made against this policy but I won't air them here.

I really do believe that the owner of this board has every right to establish guidelines and take the necessary steps to enforce them. As TERB members, we can appreciate what this forum offers and still go elsewhere for discussions that are not supported here. That's easy enough and not a big deal. Overt discussions of legal activities, naming names, needlepoint patterns, and cookie recipies (to mention just a few) are all very well covered on numerous other web-sites.

My question, however, is: why was Troops banned?

He was graphic, rude, made jokes about things some of us don't laugh about, and certainly inspired controversy. It's true that his posts used up some disk-space (and, I guess, some bandwidth) and many were not, technically, related to the core subject matter of this board (though many were on-topic, if atypical).

However, I don't recall Troops making overt disclosures of illegal activities at MPs or SCs, which is the main type of transgression described in these threads.

As one who does, from time to time, like to express an off-the-wall and (perhaps) risqué sense of humour, I would hate to accidentally cross a threshold of taste or propriety and be removed from this site! I enjoy TERB, have found it very educational and helpful, certainly find it highly entertaining, and have (maybe once or twice) made a contribution that has been of some value (serious or otherwise) to others. I don't want to get booted because I accidentally crossed a line that I don't need to cross!

Fred and the other admins...you don't owe me or anyone else (except perhaps Troops) an explanation for your actions. As a regular TERB member, I have no standing to demand an explanation. Nevertheless, I am asking for some clarification on what caused this banning.

As I have said elsewhere, I personally found Troops to be entertaining and funny about 60% of the time and inane and childish 70% of the time (there was a fair bit of overlap!). I didn't go out of my way to find and read his posts but I also didn't go out of my way to avoid them either. There are many other posters on this board that bother me personally much more than Troops ever did. I even posted in support of the banning of several members in the past when the reasons were given and more than valid.

So I guess I'm just wondering if Troops was banned for having poor taste or if there was more to it that I (and, it seems, many others) don't know about. Like I said, there's no compulsion to answer my question, but I thought I'd ask it anyway.

Thanks,

Zog.

 

[einar]

A very fair and appropriate question.

Einar