Along comes an interesting thread.
A debate about health and comfort. Personal freedoms. Liberty, fraternity.

Not the usual inane pish, then. A serious discussion. Good!

Passionate views from both sides of the fence, and the usual fence-sitters too.

No flaming, no personal attacks. No ganging up, no clear 'victory' on either side.


And our great leader closes it down.




And I say again - Boo hiss!

I'm, on the whole, against censorship, but I generally like to know what I'm protesting/supporting. What occurred that was troubling? If someone could update me I'd appreciate it. Send me a personal message, if you like. Thanks.

[q I expect he's talking about the No smoking at the Marriott thread, which was locked with:

Are we reading the same thread? Cause it looked like Vee took things said on that thread as personal attacks to me. KP even seemed to feel that people were ganging up on him.

Sorry if you feel that me stopping the thread to salvage one of my friendships as a personal attack on your civil liberties, but I felt the need to do so.

Opinions are like assholes...

The problem with threads of this type is that even though you try to keep things as low-key and non-intrusive as possible, there is always the possibility that people are going to be upset or hurt by comments that are made. Although I'm sure that no personal attacks were intended, I can see where a person could feel attacked by some of the comments made.

Ultimately, this is not a political discussion or debate board, and although we do sometimes go into such areas, there is always going to be the chance that threads of this type will be stopped. No one should feel attacked or feel unwelcome in this community, and when we reach that point it's time to rethink as to whether the discussion needs to stop or be allowed to continue.

I fully support Gary's decision to close that thread.

Really after a while you know where everyone stands and that there's no way to change opinions, so continuing is pointless and just leads to trouble.

Even in a Parliament, invoking closure of debate is used when it gets to that point.

I think the closure was justified and it kept the thread from really causing someone to get hurt. Bad enough that some felt they were attacked (either side) but I'd hate to see friendships ruined over these kind of topics.

I also ask that no one use this thread to start up the discussion again. The decision has been made so please don't rehash it.

I agree with everything Nightcrawler, Spellbinder, and Lightning Lad have said. It was time for the thread to be closed.

The only thing I would add is for people to please remember to be respectful toward their friends on this board, even when their lifestyles and/or opinions differ from your own.

Thanks guys. Changed thge last message to read -

Maybe that'll help.

But I know you know logic and that logic just doesn't flow. There's a huge differnence between a poster being personally attacked and a poster taking opposing opinions as personal attacks as has been indicated here.

Usually, in my experience, big disagreements amongst friends end in better understandings and big hug fests. Personally, I think your action prevented the logical conclusion of that thread but I feel it was also done in an insulting way to those that were attacked in Vee's last post.

The thread was begun by a poster posing a controversial opinion and ended in a way so as that person, intentionally or not, was given a forum to demonize others by taking their comments out of context without rebuttal and without the logical conclusion of common understanding.


I certainly wouldn't want to see Vee's or anybody elses (here) sensibilities hurt, but when a poster starts a thread concerning an obviously controversial subject on a forum set up for "anything under the sun" then the reader of the thread has reasonable expectations that the person starting the thread will be able to handle opposing viewpoints without getting bent out of shape.

I concur with Numf El. No one personally attacked Vee or any other poster. They attacked the opinion. I hope Vee understands that because I wouldn't want him feeling he was the target of the dissenting opinion.

Couldn't the mods avoid these harms to sensibilities by redefining the forum as "everything under the sun not remotely controversial?" It's a bit bland but hey, vanilla's a flavor too and on other topic related boards like this one, mods ban topics on politics, religion... it helps members to avoid accidently hurting sensitivities and it avoids members being accused of trying to hurt sensitivities.


We've had this one before: you're the boss but I found not what you did, but the manner in which you did it, made things worse. Mods, moderate. There was no attempt at moderation that could have brought the group together.

JMHO

I'd rather change it to "everything under the sun not remotely controversial?"

I'm a little too busy right now to "Moderate" discussions. I don't get paid to do it anyway. I actually pay for it to happen.

So until everyone can learn to mend their own fences and discuss things and read things without blowing them up out of context...

No more topics on politics, religion...or smoking.

{Sorry if you feel that me stopping the thread to salvage one of my friendships as a personal attack on your civil liberties, but I felt the need to do so.}

It's not an attack on anyone's civil liberties. This Website is private property. Nightcrawler owns it. He has a perfect right to shut down anything from one thread to the whole board at any time.

That doesn't mean, though, that this does anything to support civil and interesting discussions. In fact, it's discouraging this. Many of us who were asked to respond to particular points (as I was, for example, by Lightning Lad) now cannot do so.

You can have a venue where "your friendships" are thus overly shielded, or you can have a venue where free-wheeling, civil discussion is encouraged. But you can't have both at once, and it doesn't make sense to try.

[Spellbinder]
{No one should feel attacked or feel unwelcome in this community [...]}

If people here are going to take vigorous, but civil, debate as an "attack," then this isn't a discussion forum, and we shouldn't pretend that it is one. It's a feel-good forum for friends, and nothing else.

I'm not trying to be pointlessly harsh. I'm stating realities. Vigorous discussion is clearly not wanted here, it's clearly going to be cut off when it gets too heated (again, however civil), and I, for one, will conduct myself accordingly: I will not participate in threads that touch on politics, however tangentially, any more.

{So until everyone can learn to mend their own fences and discuss things and read things without blowing them up out of context ...}

Which will never happen, on any forum -- but that's beside the point {sigh}

{No more topics on politics, religion ... or smoking.}

If this is a genuine new restriction, please state it at the top of the section page, then (and in SPHQ), so that it's plainly visible. And so that no such topics will be started from now on.

I don't see how we can reasonably enforce a ban on "controversial topics" in the long term. I do think what is needed is more vigorous moderation of these threads to monitor for misunderstandings and to prevent people's feelings from being hurt. Which is not to say, of course, that Nightcrawler himself should do this, but that perhaps we need one of the moderators (or perhaps someone newly appointed as moderator) in this forum to be specifically charged with monitoring these threads for potential problems of this sort.

I don't think that having one thread locked "clearly" shows any such thing. Numerous vigorous discussions have been allowed here, with either no moderator restrictions or mild ones that ask that people tone it down a little when it's getting a little crazy.

However, when a regular poster is feeling unwelcome or uncomfortable then that topic has obviously crossed a line that shouldn't be allowed. No one was punished for their opinions or for anything that was said and done. It was simply decided that this particular topic had run it's course and was best left alone. I still think that this board is one of the more open-minded and unrestrictive boards around.

As always, for anyone wishing to discuss the topic further or to respond to anyone's questions, there is always the option of PMs or email.

Waitaminute. This isn't a thread about things to do when they announce the Red Sox? Go Yanks!

BTW, I agree with Nighty. The posters are more important than the topics.

But I think Eryk's right too. We need a mod in this forum to monitor that stuff. But man, I don't envy the mod who has to read all those political topics...

[Spellbinder]
{[...] when a regular poster is feeling unwelcome or uncomfortable then that topic has obviously crossed a line that shouldn't be allowed.}

Make an attempt to be serious about this, please. How are you going to police this? Will any thread be held hostage, and thus closed, to a complaint being expressed by one "regular poster"? (And how is that reasonably defined?)

Are we to find ongoing discussions cut off upon private complaints in PMs, that the rest of us don't see?

"Not remotely controversial." At least the owner of this forum has the cojones to say so openly: This is no longer a discussion forum.

[Spellbinder]
{[...] As always, for anyone wishing to discuss the topic further or to respond to anyone's questions, there is always the option of PMs or email.}

That is NOT the point. Committing to a public discussion means -- again, if all parties remain civil -- letting it run its course in public view.

Lightning Lad, again, asked me a question about how I viewed something he'd posted in this thread at issue. I cannot respond. He asked in public, and I ought to be able to answer in public, for the benefit of all who are following the topic -- if there is to be genuine discussion.

Either you commit to letting civil discussions run their course, or you decide to "protect" the participants you favor. You have to choose. Nightcrawler has made his choice, and many of the rest of us will act accordingly. We won't have any discussion.

I've already put the kibosh on bringing up one topic today that I have posted about at two other sites -- because it is, yes, "remotely controversial."

When and how this will spread to the main focus of this board, of course, remains to be seen. "Nothing remotely controversial" in discussing the Legion? I'd like to see THAT.

Well, if you can't make an attempt to not be rude, then I can't see any point in discussing this topic with you.

Maybe this should just be the "Entertainment News" section since that's really what most of the topics are about, here. I mean, most of the threads are about movies, tv shows, books, etc. Let's just leave the heavier topics like religion, politics, sex and smoking off of LW.

Seriously, on the whole first page here, the only topics not having to do with the entertainment industry are the now locked Marriott one, Cobie's "what to send to your military friends" one and the Dieter's Support thread. The last two could easily be moved to the Mission Monitor Board.

I think I'm on to something.... Gary? Scott? Spellsy?

That's an idea, Sketch. Keep this as Raymond Luxury Yacht's Forum.

Hah! I was hoping for someone to come up with a catchy LSH name!

GO FC!

Allow me to offer my apologies to anyone that I may have inadvertantly insulted in what turned out to be the last post in the "smoking" thread. Although I tried to maintain my composure, I'm certain I did not express my thoughts appropriately (I even alluded to that in my post.) When I saw that the thread had been locked, I immediately assumed that it was due to my "crossing the line" and apologized to Gary via PM immediately.

There is no doubt in my mind that the tone of the thread had started to head south yesterday and that I kicked it much further along. I agree completely that the thread deserved to be locked in order to avoid a nasty dispute with the potential for more hurt feelings. I only wish that it had been locked one post sooner or that I had simply walked away and not posted that last time.

I also would like to point out that various posters on that thread have contacted me via PM in order to clear up any misunderstandings. I am very grateful for their kindness and courtesy.

As wonderful as message boards are, they are still very imperfect and the words written on them are much more powerful than when tempered by the tone of voice or body language or personal interaction. Unfortunately it is the only means we all have as a group of online friends to share our thoughts, ideas, and opinions but we must be ever vigilant that our words be finely crafted in order to avoid misunderstandings and hurt feelings.

Again my apologies to all, and to the Founders for putting you into such an difficult position.


Vee

Are you calling me an ................