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| Tree Climbers Discussion Group | |||
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Bob: You raise a very interesting situation.
I have not been active at this conference due to the fact
that it may be construed by some that I am biased, that is
far from the truth, in fact I have admiration and sympathy
for all who run a Forum/Conference.
As a WWW site author and Public Forum Administrator I see
the need for constant monitoring of reader input.
And yes I agree with this conference administrator to a
"certain" degree, we should and do have the right to delete
unsuitable messages.
That's the grey area, what is "unsuitable" or if you prefer
"offensive" in the eye's of the admin.
Trust me, it is not easy to run a successful Forum/Conference,
you the reader only get to see the finished product.
As an example, you all come here and expect to see postings
related to "Tree Climbing" what if you had to wade through
all kinds of irrelavent junk?, that has No place within a
Tree Climbing forum, well, we delete those for you.
So the need to delete is there as I am sure you agree.
The problem comes when we are heavy handed or biased in
"your" opinion, bearing in mind we don't all have the
same opinions.
Bad language is hard for any Forum to accept, one would not
condone or even allow this in a resturant or classroom etc.
Try placing that type of response into the local newspaper
and it would be rejected. Why not here?
Yet we stand fast on the rights of free speach, most of us
have learnt that in a public setting we would be foolish
to ourselves to use certain words.
Now, where does that put us? It is my view that if an
individual wishes to degrade himself on a public forum
then let him/her, PROVIDING it is strictly relevant to the
topic and in a reasonable context.
Lets face it folks four letter words are part of some peoples
vocabulary, it reflects their individuality as well as how
they conduct themselves in public, there is no need for the
use of bad language, but we cannot hide from it.
With that said:
Presuming the "f" word was the reason (Which I doubt) for
total deletion of that topic and it's follow up threads.
I must question the decision to delete the whole thread,
each message in this conference is an individual HTML page
(Just ask those chocked up search engines), so the man with
the axe certainly could of kept the original posting and
the follow-ups deleting just the offensive material.
Further more he could have flexed his "Muscle" in a better
way by just "XXXX"ing out the offensive words, therby leaving
little imagination as to that persons ethics & morals.
Or replaced the whole message with a generic "Censored" HTML
that could state the reasons for censoring.
Of course this would involve effort/dedication beyond the
easy "DELETE" button.
Generally common respect and decency minimizes this problem,
possibly it was a futile attempt to protect the image of
a few members, So if your an ISA member "BEWARE"
you may be deleted for useing bad language in public.
Should the whole topic thread have been wipped out, due
to a few badly worded responses....NO
I understand your complaint and feel it is justified.
To all Females of our Industry, I apologize for the
ignorant few, you play very important roles in the
past/present & future of our trade.
In fact your a great improvement over many of my male
counterparts.
It is not my wish and I presume yours either to segregate
you in any way, but knowing women as I do, how would you
like a "Tree Women's Forum" all to yourselves?
Where you are secure from "jerks", a place where you can
converse with each other in total privacy and security.
It's just an idea, if there is enough interest I will give
it a shot for you, (send me e-mail).
To the administrators of this conference, I understand
what your up against, we purchase/setup/maintain & offer
these forums for our readers at no cost, in return we have
a right to demand a high ethical standard.
If we are to use Censorship, lets get it right, but if a
fool wishes to show his ignorance by knocking another
person with socially unaccepted words "let him" it may come
back to haunt them, or is it the ISA image your worried
about???.
Rather than Censorship, how about flagging posts that
contain offensive material (actually they might prove
popular), us humans are inquisitive creatures.
So lets face reality and stop masking what we all know
is really out there.
It may appear that I am riding two horses here, in a way
I am, not through fear of making my opinion public though.
The fact is I can genuinely understand both sides of this
issue.
The subject of Censorship has finaly reached the Arboricultural
Industry, the forums only exist through readers so it is
only fitting that they should also have a say.
I will not sign off with my usual WWW address just in case it
gets deleted under the heading of Advertizeing.
That's if it survives the edit controler, due to the fact
that this posting is irrelevant to "Tree Climbing".
Doug
(With-held)
(http://www.--------)