Thread Closing

[Ephemeral]

I was surprised about several things in the closing of the Whiz thread.

Guess I never thought much about it, that someone would take so much offense over something like that thread that they would request it be closed.

It is a stretch to wedge it this closed thread into Rule 4...
4. No Warez/Serials/Cracks/Hax0ring/SS Cheats/etc, including links. This includes discussions of bittorrent/DC or other file sharing programs. It’s just not what these boards are for.

First taking things to defeat a drug test is not illegal (I wrote the drug policy for my company and we test people). But continuing to follow the logic of this thread closing, telling someone about a new gasoline additive that will boost their car's horsepower so it will go faster then the posted speed limit would be enough to close the thread. It can safely be said that anything that encourages a person to go faster in their car is a 'bad' thing.

But why stop there? Please close the thread about selling kids sugar sofa drinks in school. It has posts about kids who might sell these very harmful habitual items out of thier locker, clearly breaking school rules. Even worse, this thread contains information about the selling of diet soda with it's aspertame content!

[HeavenSent]

Excellent point Ephemeral!
It's power trips like this that stirs thinking citizens to rebel.

Once again it's an attack from the intolerant on the tolerant.
It's paranoid control freaks that wanna exterminate all they disagree with.
It's INTELLECTUAL GENICIDE!

[Liquid Blue]

I think there is a difference between threads about selling soda in school and drinks used to clean your system of drugs, doesn't seem like a very fair comparison.

I remember Zeus saying that these forums are supposed to be "family friendly", or something to that effect (sorry I can't paraphrase you word for word, chief)- while I personally don't find the disucssion about which drinks can help clean your system of drugs, I understand why it would be deemed inappropriate for these forums. It's up to the owners of the forums to decide which content they find suitable, not much you can do if you disagree.

[Ephemeral]

I think there is a difference between threads about selling soda in school and drinks used to clean your system of drugs, doesn't seem like a very fair comparison.

I remember Zeus saying that these forums are supposed to be "family friendly", or something to that effect (sorry I can't paraphrase you word for word, chief)- while I personally don't find the disucssion about which drinks can help clean your system of drugs, I understand why it would be deemed inappropriate for these forums. It's up to the owners of the forums to decide which content they find suitable, not much you can do if you disagree.

Understood, but was it one of the forum 'owners' who complained?

And I also understand your point about 'family friendly' but if that is the case it should be well defined and not attempted to be tied to another rule that 'kinda' is the same. It could easily be argued that 'family friendly' means no curse words and no references about homosexual activities, but I see plenty of both in these forums.

So let me get this straight, I plan on visiting a place where smoking dope is legal. I go and smoke dope there, perfectly legal, and then come back home. My company has a drug test rule so I want info on not getting caught, so I make a post on these forums about this topic. These are all legal and legitimate activities. But this forum has moral issues with this?

This is a VERY slippery slope to start drawing a line (forum rules) between legal things and moral things.

If we are going to get down to what any of us considers 'family' or 'offensive', it is going to become very subjective. And let me be the first to say that I find a lot posts more offensive to me than the one about dodging a drug test.

[Ephemeral]

Excellent point Ephemeral!
It's power trips like this that stirs thinking citizens to rebel.

Once again it's an attack from the intolerant on the tolerant.
It's paranoid control freaks that wanna exterminate all they disagree with.
It's INTELLECTUAL GENICIDE!

I don't know about tolerance, but I do know that those who stand for nothing will often fall for anything.

[RATTY...]

If a thread starter request a thread to be closed, and if the mod isn't retarded, then it should/will be closed.

[T3l Ca7]

I don't really see anything wrong with bittorrent discussions. Why are they banned?

LOL, I love how the teenage mods baby sitting those forums.

[Troll King]

I got the sense that Zeus intentionally let it go on a bit before closing it, just so people can talk about it for a while before it got closed. I could be wrong though.

[Nickname]

my thread about mp3 downloading was left open for awhile, and when a mod did delete it he sent me a message explainign why, and sharing his own personal preference towards it. I was impressed.

[WuTang420]

omfg.... so what happens if i make a thread on how to make crack from cocain, will i be banned? i should be, cause thats assisting ppl in fucking themselves up. however, everyone involved in the pee discussion already smokes and probably have for quite some time. what im saying is ppl arent gonna read that and be MORE inclined to do drugs, its simply a discussion about how to hide it for those of us that partake. also weed is socially acceptable, and likely legal within the next couple years.

btw if it was anyone but face that requested that thread closed, get a life and stop fucking with ppl cause your day sucks, get a clue on whats really important, seriously, getting a weed thread closed? man thats like 2nd grade tattle tale shit right there. or hey, go after the drunks that actually kill\hurt ppl when they fight\drive\get beligarant, oh wait, that would require actually thinking about it nvm

[Liquid Blue]

Understood, but was it one of the forum 'owners' who complained?

And I also understand your point about 'family friendly' but if that is the case it should be well defined and not attempted to be tied to another rule that 'kinda' is the same. It could easily be argued that 'family friendly' means no curse words and no references about homosexual activities, but I see plenty of both in these forums.

So let me get this straight, I plan on visiting a place where smoking dope is legal. I go and smoke dope there, perfectly legal, and then come back home. My company has a drug test rule so I want info on not getting caught, so I make a post on these forums about this topic. These are all legal and legitimate activities. But this forum has moral issues with this?

This is a VERY slippery slope to start drawing a line (forum rules) between legal things and moral things.

If we are going to get down to what any of us considers 'family' or 'offensive', it is going to become very subjective. And let me be the first to say that I find a lot posts more offensive to me than the one about dodging a drug test.

I have no idea who complained first, when I orignally read Zeus's post I thought Face was the one that requested it to be closed, and saw no problem with it.

My first post was going to start out with this subject being a slippery slope, but I feel that the forum 'owners' gave the mods a loose set of guidelines and most of staff is trying to follow that as best as possible, without limiting the realm of free speech and popular topics. For instance, religion and politics usually get alot of replies as far as topics so I can see them allowing discussion on certain aspects and opinions, as long as things don't get needlessly vulgar ("all jews are stupid and eat babies" for example).

The wonderful thing about the inernet is that if a certain topic is prohibited at a set of forums, I can almost guarentee you that there are some forums out there, somewhere, where you can talk about that topic without worry. The enormity of the different kinds of people you can interact with and learn from is one of the best uses of the internet, and limiting your questions to one or two forums alone would only be using a small faction of it's potential. That and google, google can usually find whatever I need in a matter of seconds.

Again, what we individually find family friendly or offensive is not important, whatever is defined for staff, is. Now the obvious question to that is " what is family friendly? Where does the line get drawn? Why do you write so much LB?" And to those questions I have no answer, but I am glad you aren't going about this with ignorant flaming or childish threats to staff.

[Ephemeral]

But just to stress the point a bit more (and finish beating this dead horse), how can a thread about dodging a drug test be less family orientated than having a entire forum marks as "Sports" "Talk about men and balls"?

The thread about drug dodging was posted by a non-forum staff person. Granted it is not what I would call acceptable as 'family orientated’. But no one is forced to open that thread, forced to read what might be offensive to them.
But in the case of the Sports forum, we have the forum staffers posting a description that is clearly not family orientated. Not only that, but it is also sexist in nature since women play sports too. It opens and can be read as soon as a person opens the main link to the TW forums.

[Saturn V]

oiajsdoijasdioaj dioasjdoiasjdanaloiajsdoijasd iosadioasdsexoijasdoijasd

[ZeUs!!]

The bottom line is that there is a cut-off point between what's acceptable and in the spirit of the forum and what's not. If I was going to follow it to the letter then I'd outlaw swearing... and sexual references (re: your men/balls point). People have sex, people do drugs, I'm not going to remove all references and instances on the forum, but they don't really need instructions. I realise it was a dubious close - I was more than happy to let it slip - however someone complained about it and I wasn't in a position to say no

[Pandagirl!]

Did anyone besides me notice that the rules expire on 6-6-06? CONSPIRACY! ALERT TONE!