I think I had the right to post a polite response.

I think I’d at least had the right to post an answer to some things directly addressed at me.

I’m sorry, Dannii, that you decided to close the thread: that would have been better moved to some place else, outside of the IFComp forum, than locked. Locking a thread means censorship. I understand it’s your right and duty to apply such an enforcement, but this was not the right time. This may not be a banning, but if staying here means hearing what the same old people have to say and than having no right of reply, I may very well be banned: the result is the same.

I’m definitely not opening a new thread for this.

At 42, I still have to learn that discussing things on the internet is lame, if not pointless. Fortunately enough, the world is somewhere else.

Personally I thought it was a strange point to lock the thread. Things seemed to have calmed down a bit, Emily had explained the whole Gamergate controversy (which I’d never heard of before today) and then - BAM! Topic closed.

Yeah sorry, matt got in before I could. If anyone should be replying it’s Peter. It’s not censorship, and we can’t stop you replying, but neither can everyone have the last word. Maybe another mod will unlock it.

Luckily days like today are not very common. It’s late and I’m going to bed. No one break the internet please.

As far as the community is safe, I’m happy. Keep up the good work.

I unlocked it myself.

Just so nobody is confused in the future, this is a moderated forum. Almost since the beginning. It isn’t often needed – luckily – but if ever it was implied that “anything” goes, then that’s my fault. It was recently brought to my attention, and to the attention of moderators, that we’ve never really put that into official words. I naively thought that everybody just kind of already knew.

That said, I don’t think it’s possible to list out exactly what is and isn’t “allowed” here. I don’t think it needs to come to that anyway. But I’ve offered a couple suggestions to the moderators on keeping it simple, but at least making sure it’s not just implied that stuff may occasionally get moderated. It’s not a job that anybody wants, anyway. But when things escalate and people are driven away because things are becoming hostile and unwelcoming, well, there’s a problem.

Not that this is a direct response to the topic – I haven’t read the locked/unlocked topic in question – but it felt an appropriate time to mention. Yes, the forum is moderated. No, it’s not ideal. And nobody is looking for particular ways to censor people. I’m 42 also, but on the flipside, I’ve come to realize that things will deteriorate when not maintained. I’ve seen it happen. And somebody will always hate the very idea that moderation of any kind happens. But it’s a sad necessity.

I completely understand your point. I just thought this was not the right moment to lock this particular post. I would have accepted it anyway, knowing how good Dannii is.
What drove me mad (well, not that much) is that I didn’t get the chance for an answer, or to make things clear, in that precise moment. I don’t want things to escalate, usually :slight_smile:

Btw, thanks for your clarification.

Sure, no problem. I wasn’t even aware, until told, that the forum is getting a reputation as unfriendly and unwelcoming. I never expected that to happen, but I’ve basically just been the guy with the server for a long time – not really much of an admin. If that’s the case, though, it needs turned around somehow. I can see it being a cycle. Discussions go elsewhere, but then “elsewhere” becomes the thing nobody wanted over time, so it moves again. Discussion was elsewhere before it was here, anyway.

I think moderation always feels like somebody is choosing a side. And somebody is always going to feel like it should have been their side. But just speaking to what I see of moderator discussion, that’s not really what’s happening here. I haven’t seen it being about who’s right and who’s wrong – nobody even wants to make that call – but about whether or not a topic or a user has gone above and beyond what’s even marginally tolerable. Sadly, that probably seems like a moving line, but in light of what I’ve learned, it sounds like a lot more slides through than many people would even prefer.

As to whether or not the topic in question should have been locked, I don’t know. This kind of feels like a period of growing pains. As membership grows, so do the disagreements. There needs to be a balance between feeling free to be yourself and speak your mind, and respecting that some of this could be contributing to the notion that the forum isn’t a place some people even want to be. Knowing the old adage that you can’t please everybody, I still wish we could.