A Personal Opinion

[toopeekaa 1]

One Persons Opinion

Scanning the Forum as I tend to do periodically, I seem to sense a change in the atmosphere on the TV board.

An article was posted today re the death, apparently a homicide, not a suicide, of an older female, a foreigner, in a hotel at Patong Beach, Phuket.

This is news, it is Thailand related, and I feel that it of interest to many, many posters on the TV Forum. Some may even deem it to have more sincere interest and be of more importance to more expats, than would be a story, say of some local guy humping a sexy dog.

Yet this story [read thread] was moderator closed.

I don’t, and perhaps many others do not understand why.

I would interpret something that is reported on/in the media to be of public interest and quite possibly public domain and would not think it should be something to be snuffed, if the members and other contributors feel it a topic worthy of discussion.

I found no offensive or abusive language, nor personal attack on any other member, much less a moderator.

A moderators job is not easy one and is definitely one that I would not want, but a good moderator [again my personal opinion] should moderate not censor based on what their individual personal feelings are. A moderator, much like a judge should be unbiased and listen and/or read the facts presented not close, snuff, or completely erase a thread based on their personal feelings.

Moderators are human [hopefully] and are thereby not perfect. They too can get carried away with vested authority and carry things too far. Moderators should not be thin skinned. While they are closer to each of the other moderators than to most members this alone should not create a defensive posture at the mere mention of fellow moderators name.

I ask the moderators and especially leader George, to take a breath, step back and out of the moderator shoes for a moment and try and see the mere mortals position. I think this forum was created for open discussion, but not for an air of “Pravda” or “Tass”, where each post must be submitted to a censorship review board and be cleared before it is allowed on or to stay on post.

The ‘kill’ button , I think, is being used more and more and maybe too much. Almost as if there were a prize at the end of the month for the most kills.

Now I fully expect the extremist far right to harpoon and lambaste this post, and the soused up left to have their haha and off the wall comments…. But there a lot of center folks out there, and it is to those that balanced minded and hopefully clear of mind moderators to whom I direct this post.

I like this forum. Its generally fair, while opinionated both left and right; and does have its share of wackos to supply the humorous element, and I would like to see it flourish and improve.

This is just one persons opinion…

[gburns57au]

One Persons Opinion

Scanning the Forum as I tend to do periodically, I seem to sense a change in the atmosphere on the TV board.

An article was posted today re the death, apparently a homicide, not a suicide,  of an older female, a foreigner,  in a hotel at Patong Beach, Phuket.

This is news, it is Thailand related, and I feel that it of interest to many, many posters on the TV Forum.  Some may even deem it to have more sincere interest and be of more importance to more expats, than would be a story, say of some local guy humping a sexy dog.

Yet this story [read thread] was moderator closed.

I don’t, and perhaps many others do not understand why. 

I would interpret something that is reported on/in the media to be of public interest and quite possibly public domain and would not think it should be something to be snuffed,  if the members and other contributors feel it a topic worthy of discussion.

I found no offensive or abusive language, nor personal attack on any other member, much less a moderator. 

A moderators job is not easy one and is definitely one that I would not want, but a good moderator [again my personal opinion] should moderate not censor based on what their individual personal feelings are.  A moderator, much like a judge should be unbiased and listen and/or read the facts presented not close, snuff, or completely erase a thread based on their personal feelings. 

Moderators are human [hopefully] and are thereby not perfect.  They too can get carried away with vested authority and carry things too far.  Moderators should not be thin skinned.  While they are closer to each of the other moderators than to most members this alone should not create a defensive posture at the mere mention of fellow moderators name. 

I ask the moderators and especially leader George, to take a breath, step back and out of the moderator shoes for a moment and try and see the mere mortals position.  I think this forum was created for open discussion, but not for an air of “Pravda” or “Tass”, where each post must be submitted to a censorship review  board and be cleared before it is allowed on or to stay on post.

The ‘kill’ button , I think, is being used more and more and maybe too much.  Almost as if there were a prize at the end of the month for the most kills.

Now I fully expect the extremist far right to harpoon and lambaste this post, and the soused up left to have their haha and off the wall comments….  But there a lot of center folks out there, and it is to those that balanced minded and hopefully clear of mind moderators to whom I direct this post.

I like this forum.  Its generally fair, while opinionated both left and right; and does have its share of wackos to supply the humorous element, and I would like to see it flourish and improve.   

This is just one persons opinion…

Totally agree with what you say, I didnt read the mentioned thread but have run into censorship trouble on other forums....there is a fine line between moderation and censorship.......after all everything in moderation....

[Explorer]

and.....

Okay Mods time to close this thread

Explorer

[fatter than harry]

A good point, unfortunately the moderating team have been asked to be very wary of posting news topics these last few days as there are copyright issues involved. The thread you are referring to was one of a couple that have been suspended pending Admin aproval, nothing to do with censorship in this case.

You can probably see George does most of the news posting, as more members have been posting news items in other topic areas, such as General or Farang (they can't in the news section as of the copyright thing) and moderators have helpfuly been moving them across to the news section you can see how we're running the risk of infringing copyright.

New methods for posting news items are being discussed as we speak, it was unfortunate that such a serious news story was suspended pending approval, but it was for the right reasons - not censorship.

[Wolfie]

Being as i can read the moderator forum and have been a part on the discussions therein i feel i can make a comment on this...

We have an issue with news items, and certain copyright issues. Which is why no-one is allowed to directly post a thread in the news section. Recently there have been a lot of users posting threads which are classed as news, we have no problem with that at all, in-fact its a good thing (until we hit these copyright issues, that is)

What we have recently started to do is ask people who have a topic worthy of being in the news forum to e-mail/PM these directly to George, who will in turn check that we are allowed to repost it and then act on it accordingly.

What we have done also is posts found to be news posts have been flagged for moderator approval, this means (in real terms) that they simply disappear from public view... but moderators/administrators can see them still. The Phuket news item the OP is reffering to hasnt been deleted, its been marked as awaiting approval.

Hopefully this explains whats happened satisfactory - so i will lock this topic now (blatent censorship - evil mods )

/Edit: Darn FTH is quick today - must have had his cuecumber sandwiches for lunch today!