I have cleaned up this thread again. I am going to leave it closed to you can read and hopefully understand what I am saying here.
First, this is a huge drama over nothing much. About 150 posts were removed which were drama inducing, moderation questioning and mass speculation.
A couple of things
We do not ever discuss moderation of other members with other members, but in general (and you can find it somewhere here on the forum), except in the cases of spammers or very very blatant rules violations, (for example, someone who creates an account to be profane or to harass someone or a minor posting their age), we never just ban someone because we feel like it. There is a system in place. While we can and do issue infractions on a first offense, we normally issue rules reminders, or 0 point warnings. (And each warning, reminder or infraction comes with a private message detailing the violation and an invitation to discuss it with a Staff member.) Once we do that, the next like violation may receive another 0 point reminder or a full points infraction.
Infractions carry points. Once infractions start, the points add up. They normally expire after 90 days, so in order to receive even a 2 day suspension from the forum, a member has to rack up a considerable amount of 0 point reminders and then full points infractions. Once enough points have accumulated, the system automatically suspends them from the forum. Even then it is hard to be suspended as it is a rolling system. After 90 days the oldest points drop off.
Bottom line? Respect the forum's rules and there won't be any issues.
Regarding Freedom of Speech- This is a privately owned website. The rules are what govern what you can and cannot do are created by the owner and moderated by a volunteer staff of experienced people.
Regarding deleting posts and accounts.- We do not delete accounts. We delete posts on a case by case basis. If they violate rules, or are quoting or replying to a removed post, we will remove it for continuity purposes. We may delete a post on request, but only if it will not impact the thread and we will refuse to do so if the post is valuable or contains great info. We may edit the post to leave the value, but remove any personal information.
. Any questions may be directed to a Staff member in a private message in a respectful tone, not on open forum. Discussion among yourselves should also be in private, not on the forum.
