| GVD2 |
First, pardon my need to go to a backup account. Seems this thread is locked to my primary account, symbolized by a black dot. Not sure what's the deal, but where there is a will there is a way, as they say. :-D
. . . I would like to point out that as far as I know, the moderation (at least in the sense of warnings being issued) has not been 100% in one direction. . . .
. . . I think the moderation has been targeted against posts that are insulting, NOT posts that are merely negative.
Charles and AZR,
I can't dispute with you as I have not been keeping close score. I can say that I have seen complaints in this regard. This brings up a point I consider important - perception. There is a perception, however, much supported or unsupported by any accounting of something resembling bias or unfairness, in practice if not necessarily intent. Such is just as chilling as any, in fact, bias or unfairness in application. I certainly perceive as issue.
The perception grows, I believe, from the manner in which the entire matter has been handled, particularly the leap to action from the "Is this board representative of how Paizo wants to be seen?" post. That post was freighted with negative meaning and its "logic" was unquestioningly adopted with moderation following immediately. If there was a problem that counseled moderation, given the supposed wonderfullness of the Paizo message boards and generally their participants, a word here or there would have, IMV, sufficed. I certainly saw nothing to require wholesale and immediate action in response to one rhetorically phrased post. YMMV.
. . . The idea that its OK to use all and any means to get your point across at the expense of anyone else is something alien to me. . . .
No one is suggesting this. As I noted George Carlin has not been invoked. No ones parentage has been brought into question. Etc. Were such the case, then it would be a different matter. What "insults" were present were of the off handed sort and then rare. With moderation in effect we now have "I'm looking for reasons to be insulted" "insults." Last one to cry "victim" is a rotten egg! Oh wait, can that somehow be seen as insulting? See my point? With a sufficiently strongly worded point in response to another it is easy enough to "find" an insult.
Case in point, I was warned that the phrase "It takes little imagination to think that . . ." or words to that effect were potentially inflammatory. I was shortening and paraphrasing, "by no stretch of the imagination" a common colloquialism or cliche. The phrase was used devoid of any reference to anyone or even the anyone behind a veil but was used to set up my thoughts that followed. In essence, I was referring to myself as I warmed to and expounded upon my topic! Yet, I was warned because "imagination" and the lack thereof is a frequent "drive-by" insult. The moderation was inexact, inappropriate and chilling to myself any anyone else inclined to write with a modicum of variety in how they present their thoughts.
I don't find your criticism apposite. Dealing with vulgarians and those who directly insult is one thing. Trying to divine intent in "passing" insults that the "insulted" may self-define or which the overly cautious moderator may define is a slippery slope and another matter entirely, and the one to which I address myself. Vigorous debate demands that such debate not devolve into insults but also demands a certain latitude of expression before one is branded "insulting" or warned that their language is too potentially inflammatory. YMMV.