Why Close Any Thread? Censorship

If a thread is so important to individuals in a community that they get mass postings and huge readership, and yes, heated debate, why is it accepted for LL to shut it down?

Tolerance is supposed to be the cornerstone of this company and yet that only appears to be true if everyone stays away from subjects that are important to real human beings.

Look at all the topics that have been closed by Torley and others lately. They are the most read and the most active. By shutting them down, Torley and others have effectively become the thought police.

Last I looked, I was able to ignore any individuals, fight the urge to click on a thread and in fact, if I wanted to, I could leave the website all together. I'm not sure about this but my guess is that every other person involved has the same capabilities.

So why is it acceptable for an individual who has her/his own personal position on a topic to simply decide they don't like the topic or what is being said so they simply censor it, effectively telling everyone what they are and are not allowed to discuss in this forum.

If it is simply because these forums are not to be used to challenge the company or its policies, then stop pretending the purpose if the free flow of ideas.

The very fact that threads are closed only if they are extremely active and controversial, says only one thing. "You all are not capable of making up your own minds what to read and what to say so we will make up your mind for you."

Free speech? As long as what you say means nothing significant to anyone.

These are the forums of a private company on their servers - free speech does not apply. They can remove any post for any reason.

"thought police", check
"freedom of speech", check
"omg censorship", check
"why can't people just not read them", check

I'm waiting for the Nazi analogy now.

I agree with that and only bringing the fact to the attention of those deluded into thinking this is an area for the free flow of ideas so they seek somewhere else to make their important points about SL. Try to make them here and if they are controversial, they will be silenced.

Except that those threads weren't making any important points about SL; just a few people ignoring and insulting everyone else in their quest for Paedogeddon, and crapflooding the forum.

Which you doubtless disagree about, but somebody has to make the decision.

it is funny how the grid enjoys freedoms that are not present in the forums. Why cant a linden come by and close down a griefers grief-inducing lot?

No seriously, that was a rhetorical question. No need to elaborate further.

On the flip side if a minority of people who regularly post here were not so hateful with their strong opinions and strong language maybe it would not require LL to come and shut stuff down.

So I say Boooooo to both sides of the equation.

LOL


Troy

I always laugh when people cry censorship on a forum.

It's like being offended by someone who turns off the TV when porn comes on because he doesn't want the family to see it.

I just don't have time to be offended by rules I already agreed to when I set up my forum access.

I agree with Cris and Levi both, but in different ways.

They can and do censor, and as Cris said that's fine, because it's their baby. So, I really have no issue with them closing threads, although calling a thread "inappropriate for the forums" after it has been allowed to live and breathe for a couple of days does confuse me.

However, I would like to see the personal opinions left out of the closing notices, as well as the gratuitous use of huge fonts.

Mods are supposed to check their emotions when modding.

I never once saw Jeska or Robin yelling in giant fonts or exclaiming how much something sucks.

Quote the pertinent bits from the rules and move on.

If no real people are being hurt in RL, why not ignore those threads and click on others? I don't have any interest in threads about writing scripts so I've never clicked on one. I wouldn't know if there were flame wars going on there because I simply don't click on them.

http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=89428

Part of forum moderation is to keep the forums from being overrun. You have to admit, the number of threads being spawned about age play, and the sheer amount of personal attacks and fighting going on in them, along with all of the parody threads, was just completely out of hand. Had there been a single rational thread about the topic, I doubt it would have been closed. One person alone created 6 or 7 threads all on almost the same topic. I am not a fan of censorship at all - but it is important to maintain some level of control over these forums or they can become complete chaos. Linden Lab overall is very hands off on terms of the topics we can discuss (including topics very critical of them), but even they have limits - and 50 threads about child porn and age play is pushing it.

I am of the opinion some threads need to be closed for the greater good of SL. Some topics of contention might be:

1. How to hack and steal content from SL and it's residents
2. Posting RL information about SL residents
3. How to money launder US$ using SL
4. Posting password lists for SL accounts
5. Posting confidential information about LL or a business in SL

Those things might need to get closed down. Anyone disagree with any of those?

Torley is a human being, that didn't change when she became a Linden, human beings get frustrated. I got so many abuse report emails over the last 2-3 days yahoo turned off my inbox, until I deleted things. The whole topic was completely out of hand. I don't blame her one bit for trying to get the point across in great big font, cause the person in question had already been told a couple times to drop the subject.

From what I read, the entire reason new threads were opened about child porn and age play was because the first ones were censored. Had they left the first one thread open, why would anyone open another unless it was for a valid new angle on the topic?

Personally I think Torley's response was founded, I felt sorry for her, and wanted to send her a cookie.

I was impressed she was able to do it without using an expletive, myself.

If it is indivual abuse, then censor the person, not everyone's ability to discuss the topic. When topics get out of hand it is usually because of a few people. But the very fact that so many threads get opened and become crazy busy is because it is obviously a topic people care about. Of course some will go in and cause problems, so ban them from posting and let the conversation continue by rational people trying to find solutions to what they consider very real problems within the SL community.

Censorship would require that you be unable to view the posts at all.

It was locked, not deleted. And this forum software does permit wholesale thread deletion.

She didn't censor a discussion, because it wasn't a discussion. All discussion had technically ceased at page 2, and the pages that followed were basically you, Aeolus, and bella having your failure to successfully argue a point driven into the ground and stomped on. This was perpetuated by your and their attempts to regain credibility and a firm foothold on the thread.

In other words, we were just taking up webspace.

Maybe I am being too hard on her, and I do understand frustration.

At the same time, we're all human beings, most of us have jobs, and we're supposed to notch up the self control a bit while at work.

Several mods made it through months of FIC wars without going that route.

I am sure mod's wouldn't want to be talked to like a child in large fonts by a player, so expecting the same in return from someone who is running the place isn't asking too much.

This is going to be part of your jobs new mods and resmods. There are going to be periods when all hell breaks loose. How you deal with it when it happens determines to a large extent how you will be perceived by the community. It is therefore in your best interest to strive to be professionals at all times. And that means first and foremost - stop appealing to emotion by telling us how many ARs you get, vague number or not. The guy who changes tires can handle putting on the 300th tire of the day without telling everyone about it, because it's his job. In fact, if he repeatedly did it, he'd likely lose his job.

No offense Maeve, but your frustration is seeping out too. You guys are supposed to be leaders, and part of being a leader is being able to check that at the door when you put your resmod or mod hat on.

Just because the person working at McDonalds has had to talk to 5000 customers on the day after Thanksgiving doesn't make it ok for him to start shouting at people, and he's not even supposed to be a leader.

I don't know, maybe having worked in customer service my entire adult life makes me think this way. And "this way" means there are certain things that are taboo. One of those things being diclosing information like how many customer complaints they received that day. Another being shouting at people because it happens to be a busy day, and the customers are acting like idiots.

I wonder if I would be getting the same reaction if the mod in question wasn't Torley.

The threads have more readers than any other threads, that means there are people concerned about the topic or they wouldn't have clicked on them. Of course the attacks on Bella and Aeolus and then later me would intimidate most sane people from jumping in but all three of us have received a support privately by people who not only agree but point out their own personal knowledge of the problem and what they think should be done about it.

Ever heard of the concept of the silent majority?

The difference there Nolan, is people at McDonalds get paid minimum wage, I get paid nothing, I do this out of some strange altruistic hope that I'm helping SL become a better place, by playing babysitter on the forums I free up a salary that can go to someone who can program, and make some of the changes SL needs. So I'm a human being who doesn't get paid to put up with some of the stuff I have had to put up with. So if you want professional, LL can hire "professional" mods, and we can wait another 3 years for havok 2 and HTML on a prim.

While, at the same time, professionalism and politeness are the two most accepted forms of pretense.

Better an honest, angry Torley than a sunshine-up-my-bunghole Torley.


Props to her for what she did.


Edit: Did you just say HTML on a prim????

But wasn't Nolan's original post on this issue about a paid employee?

And in the same vein, just because a cop risks his life in a high speed chase for 2 hours doesn't mean he's excused when he finally catches Rodney and then he and his friends beat the bejeebers out of him to vent their frustration.

After all, doesn't it seem just touch ironic that if we vent, you close threads or ban but yet in the closing of a thread you see it perfectly acceptable to vent?

Eh I was giving my reasons, since he decided to jump on me too. I stand by my opinion that Torley is human, and humans get frustrated. I don't care if you work at Mc Donalds, or LL or whereever, everyone is entitled to have a bad day.