Topic Binned for Difference in Philosophical Beleif. Wrong?

[Stefan]

Tony Gosling has reacted to a difference in philosophical beleif with a new poster by binning his first thread on the forum.

Meanwhile posters like fred and david carmichael, who have repeatedly broken the set guidelines for conduct are left to troll with impunity.

Do I believe in psycic phenomona? No. I don't activley disbleive it either but that's beyond the point. Christians are allowed to be christians here, Muslims are allowed to be Muslims, but someone with a belief in psycic abilities is binned?

My main objection to this is that this is a new poster, we should be welcoming him as long as he doesn't break forum conduct rules. A shift of the topic to controversies would have been a far more suitable response.

This action, to me, is an example of intollerance of another persons personal philosophy fromthe view point of a moderators personal belief system.

Forget whether or not you think ceylons psycic claims are true or not; laughable or interesting; we allow debate here on topics such as beam weapons, computer generated metropolis', chem trails and the EU as "evil empire", we allow posts which quote the Bible and the Koran; we allow differing views to flourish under the correct forum heading, yet someone's beleif he is a psycic is a step too far?

I think this is wrong.

I think it should be reversed, and the topic moved to controversies.

[TonyGosling]

actually it was binned because it was an unsubstantiated bit of anonymous and inarticulate paranoia

[spiv]

Thank you Stefan, and I couldn't agree with you more. Normally I have no issues with Tony Gosling's judgement, but here I think he is wrong!!

[Stefan]

Well am I glad to see that this complaint hasn't been binned as well, as Tony assured me it would be.

Who decides if a topic is worthless or not?

That takes a judgement of taste, and that is not a moderators job.

It is easy to see if a post contains an ad-hominem attack, if it quotes someone else in their signature (actual infringment of forum conduct which goes unpunished every day) or if a topic is in the wrong section, and move or bin it.

90% of the posts here are unsubstantiated.

More than 90% are anonymous.

Inarticulate. Yes. How do we know Ceylon is not dyslexic? You can't be punished for that, or for not having a high level of writing skill.

I stand by my claim: this was done because of a difference in philosophical opinion.

Move it to controversies? Fine by me.

Bin it? Disproportinonate response to a new poster we should be encouraging, whether or not we think there is anything behind his belief he is psycic.

[flamesong]

I've no time for Tony Gosling any more. As far as I'm concerned he is a classic example of one arrogant ideology oppressing another.

It's about time there was a reshuffle in the mod squad!

[rodin]

The thread started badly. Odd that it was banned after a resolution had taken place, and other posters turned round to support Ceylon. I, too, think an injustice has been done here. Perhaps it can be undone?

[John White]

I thought it was typical general chat myself. General chat is exactly that: chatting generally. People have feelings of impending doom, they should be able to chat about it: if in news or articles it would indicate a move more. Plus not everyone comes to a site blessed with perfect empathy for how their words appear to others, that only comes with experiance (and is never perfect!)

Its Tony's call though, and his right to move it. Mods having different perspectives is as much a strength of the site as an apparent weakness. Still if people want to talk about matters psychic, their welcome at illusions: ceylon in particular would find many new friends

[Busker]

As someone who has deleted my own posts after they were edited and contorted to distort what I had said, yet my name was left against the "new and improved" posting, I firmly believe where a moderator edits, deletes or takes any other moderatorial action it should be clearly noted in the thread.

Not doing so is sinister, cowardly and just confirms the perpatrator thinks their position is weak.

[ian neal]

Agreed. Any post deletion, editting or locking should be accompanied by an explanation by the moderator concerned

[telecasterisation]

There should never be any ambiguity when a mod or admin has to step in and do 'something', in other words, the poster and the rest of the community should be aware of exactly why something was done.

You either have a set of clear rules where everyone knows what can be posted and what cannot, there can be no grey area where moderators have to start making interpretive judgments based upon their individual bias and beliefs. This is one of the major problems of opening everything out beyond 9/11 and including more general topic headings - with 'just' 9/11 everyone knew where they stood.

As long as a post does not contain profanities, personal attacks or links to dodgy content and it meets the obvious criteria of the heading it is posted under, then it cannot be 'wrong' in any way.

Posts should never be edited or deleted based upon perspective, if this is the case then the rules that exist are not clear enough.

[ian neal]

Hi tele

Agreed all major moderator decisions should be known about, owned and where necessary justified by the moderator concerned

Agreed that moderator decisions should be based on rules as much as possible and absolutely should not be biased by the personal beliefs of the moderators

Whether it is right to broaden discussion beyond 9/11 is debatable but from those I've heard from there is a sizeable majority in favour. That's not to say that we can't learn from this, improve the forum's structure or review what should and shouldn't be discussed here..

The rules as I see can be summarised as

no promotion of violence or racism
no content that breaks UK law
a tolerance for each other and for our differences of opinion

but they are more fully described in the moderation policy