Free Speech

I think David should be given a break. 99% (okay, slight exaggeration) of the other forums in the world practice a no negative comments policy - legally there is room I believe for libel to be brought against the hosting site. I think the ME forums have actually tended to be surprisingly lenient when it comes to this, perhaps that's why it seems odd when it is enforced.

If there are problematic experiences to be talked about, to potential customers, often it's been handled in private messaging.

We have to remember that the internet is not always a cosy chat room, it's a record of peoples comments and views in the public domain.

I understand what David did and have no problem with it. As part of a reply to a post on another forum, I said "there are millions too many guns in the USA" and my post was removed very quickly with an email to say it was too political !!!!!

Cheers Derek.

I would say gross exaggeration even among forums of this type and excluding Usenet. Many forums have a hands-off approach because of the perception that, as soon as the forum is moderated, the host thereby incurs some liability for what is said. Not to mention that a user who's post is removed might consider himself "damaged" by that removal in some circumstances.

If the forum is clearly unmoderated and stated to be so, that responsibility lies with the poster.

A grey area to be sure but murky enough for many to take a non-intervention stance.

In the case of these forums, MHS's intervention/censorship history goes way back so they could not claim to be unmoderated and David might well have felt obliged to step in in this instance

Derek.

Assuming you weren't a million miles off topic, then this is another case of being 'moderated' for having an opinion that is hard for some to swallow, but has more than a grain of truth about it.

So for simply 'telling it as it is', your comment was removed and might as well have never been made.

More importantly, the history trail of that thread will now show no sign of your opinion, so future viewers will conclude nobody wanted fewer guns in the USA, and is an obvious distortion of the truth.

Martin.

Hi Magpie

I don't have a problem with gun posts.

Very unlikely the gun manufacturers will complain about a posting on a forum.

regards david

For goodness sake, let's have a sense of proportion. David is getting a lot of flak - but he has made no attempt to 'censor' the criticism of him of his employer. He has only curtailed criticism of a competitor.

Think about it...

Neil

And a supplier.

Jo

I completely agree with this!

On the other hand I have followed this forum for a couple of years, and noticed a deteriorating level of friendliness and helfulness. Sometimes, and more and more often, posts are met with comments not compiled to be friendly, but rather unfriendly!

- you don't have to ask that here, go google it...!

- This post should not go here, there is another thread for that....

- Your language is some kind of bad English... (hits me bad because i'm not English )

- Spelling is way off......

All these things could easily have been answered in a helpful, friendly way and...if not....then these things are soley the job of the MODERATOR. If anybody feel the need to post like that, they should do like Isac Asimov did when he got critic for something he wrote - write an angry letter/post, then angrily and sermoniously throw it in the bin!

I would have to do that now, wouldn't I? or is it to late

If anything, I would critisize David for beeing to kind in his moderation, but I still say he has done a great job.

Kai

Hi, I kinda agree with JasonB's comments, although I got there about 1/2 hr before he says he left. I did spend most of the rest of the day there browsing and buying a few tools. I did take one photo on my phone of something that I've never noticed before, maybe it's always been covered by a stand in the past or maybe it's just been more crowded in the past to spot it.

However apart from all that, I think you have to be careful what you say on here about an event in progress by a magazine that is a direct competitor, which they may consider detrimental to them.

Anyway, a lot of kids were having loads of fun on their sledges down the snowy grass slope of Muswell Hill as I walked up to the palace from the car park at the bottom.

Regards Nick.

For goodness sake guys can we please get back to model engineering discussions.

David , as Editor and Moderator of this forum, made a decision which was entirely within his remit. Those who were aggrieved by his decision he has now allowed to make their points. Can we now please draw a lineunder it all?

N

HI Martin, my post was about a gun sight made by a friend of mine so very much ON topic. However it was only to be expected on a US site when they think the way to stop killing in schools is to give teachers guns !!!!!! who can explain that kind of logic ? I dont however blame David as i am sure the legal profession trawl web sites looking for custom,sort of "hey he just said somthing that could damage your business, let us take him to court , if we win you get some cash, and we get a lot, but just in case we lose you must take out insurance to cover our costs. THAT is what is messing up the whole country.

Cheers Derek

David ,

I was not questioning your motives in regards to the moderation issue i was just curious whether a person who has had their posting moderated was contacted to explain why.

That explanation should be enough - end of story .

Hi all,

Complaining or demeaning an event just before or whilst it is still in progress regardless of who is running it does nothing to improve the event or Model engineering as a whole .

If there are safety issues the organizers themselves should be made aware so they can fix them , Complaining about them on this forum will not fix them ,

If one is unhappy about how an event was run then send the organizers a message outlining this so they can change it for the next one .

I agree with Skarvan about some of the negative replies to posts and my least favourite one is "this question has been done to death go and search the forum "'.

Problem is they may have already done this and could not find what they were looking for - not very inviting to a new comer.

Spelling - Do the best you can as you are not being payed for it !

I think that if one wants to have a slagging match with another member they should remind themselves that this is a public forum and not the parliment !

That is why there is a Moderator to keep us on the straight and narrow .

I hope David gets to enjoy his last few days as Moderator (nothing to moderate)and will find time to contribute to the forum in the future .

Ian

Edited By SLOTDRILLER on 21/01/2013 23:13:07

I don't see the point of this and similar statements. There are plenty of other ongoing threads on the site discussing model engineering. They didn't stop when this - additional - thread started (under "General Questions"  ). So there isn't a question of "getting back".

Anyone who is bothered by this particular thread can just ignore it and read those others. I'm sure many have. Nothing here impacts anyones ability to discuss "pure" model engineering in the appropriate forums.

Edited By Sid Herbage on 22/01/2013 01:15:52

Ok I have posted a totally neutral reply to the postings talking about commerically available vices and hours later I am still waiting for it to be moderated. How can members engage in a conversation if we have to wait so long for our posts to be published?

Jo

finally....

Edited By Jo on 25/01/2013 17:52:28

We seem to have a delay in the system...Why?

Jo

Edited By Jo on 25/01/2013 18:16:48

Davids running a moderated system.

David must be a glutton for punishment!

Its not that long ago that he was snowed under/overloaded with work, having to read every post that is submitted to the forum must take quite a lot of his time.

Dropping the editorship of ME must have made his life a little easier, maybe if we dont discuss any controversal subjects the need for moderating might dissipate and free him up some more.

Ian

Hi Jo

This thread has not been moderated for a long while, certainly all today, so I suggest you did not post correctly if it has not shown up.

I set up the website the other day so that if a thread starts to get out of hand I can calm it down by activating moderation.

That worked with this thread and I unmoderated it.

regards David

David,

The problem was not this thread but the one about vices as I mentioned in the posting. I posted three times before I spotted the "item has to be cleared" before it will be posted...

Sad world isn't it.

Jo