I was just Censored at HappierAbroad, Bizarre.

[lavezzi]

I disagree with you and every one else's opinions on "trolls."

This is Lord of the Flies shit here.

NO ONE should be banned, NONE of them were 'trolls.'

You and many here are very sensitive and don't have your lives put together, so you fracture online when reading other people's viewpoints .. you fracture because you lack confidence and an internal compass. Because true strength is allowing and relishing debate and viewpoints.

Maybe you all are protected and sensitive, but you'd be laughed out of any forum for thinking they were trolls.

It should be OK to be an idiot and post but not OK to deliberately be an idiot and post solely for the sake of taking the piss. Look at anything the Filipino virgin has written since he was caught out with that fake Columbian gf lie and it should be obvious to you which one of these two categories describes him as a poster. Perhaps billy was just a plain idiot, but he posted far too much and should have at least been given a warning for it.

It should be up to the moderator to judge who is simply a plain idiot and who is deliberately being an idiot and ban/give out warnings accordingly. Repatriate showed poor judgement in doing this as he deleted sincere, decent posters.

[odbo]

Repatriate, that still doesn't explain why you banned guitarguy. He was here for a few months and made good posts. I know "homme" was swincor. He probably had a few other usernames.

[S_Parc]

You trolls are validating Repatriate's decisions by the minute. Prepared to be banned again. Go cry on your mother's shoulder. There is no such thing as free speech. Nobody owes you anything. This is Winston's site, this isn't lowest common denominator public school. If every mentally deranged loser was allowed to post here, it would keep real men out. TROLLS LIMIT DISCUSSION. Period.

You have a weak mind .. and there are forums with free speech, and where admins allow people to express their opinions.

Not really, many forums have rules and believe it or not, even I've been banned , just for saying that Ivy League schools were overrated, while providing evidence like comparing course materials between schools, where costs of attending were 300+% off. Yes, a lot of folks were incensed when they heard that someone, paying less money and not playing by some admissions rule book, were in fact, intellectual equals. That's an elitist group think mentality forum & in general, you'll find plenty of them out there.

On the other foot, I don't think this place is quite so fascist or hierarchical. Believe it or not, odbo, despite having right of the center, conspiracy/federated control cabal theories, is rather fair minded in letting people speak their minds, even if he doesn't agree with them. And likewise, same goes for most others here, until the nefarious characters, who show up, specifically to divide and conquer, like WomansView, late last year and more recently, with the Bible thumping Yahoo news spammer, who's been trying to hawk his so-called trading secrets, while vying himself as some defender of the Christian faith around here.

[Repatriate]

Repatriate, that still doesn't explain why you banned guitarguy. He was here for a few months and made good posts.

Several reasons.

I looked at his posting and he was baiting in a few threads along with the new registered trolls. He had a few legit posts littered with a lot of nonsense too. If he wasnt a total troll he was still participating in what was going on. Like I said I had good reasons to do what I did and read the post records of all involved before pulling the trigger.

[Repatriate]

Btw, i've been watching Intothewild, Billy, Konradsky, and a few others since the registered to see what they were up to. It's pretty obvious when you can check posting histories and content side by side to see who is trolling. I was even going to let them do what they wanted for awhile but the general level of content dropped to such a low that it was time to clean up.

[MrPeabody]

Good job. The babies are crying. You must be doing something right. I quit posting because it seems that lately there has been a rash of fabricated posts with the same people popping up as multiple identities. One of the rules of any civilized forum now is that a poster is only allowed one identity on any particular forum. For me, I just don't want to waste my time. I am looking for clarity and not more confusion.

[zboy1]

Why was Martianmay and Guitarguy banned? I understand why Kondrasky aka Philosophical Filipino, that Christian freak, and IntotheWild were banned, but the others'? Billy wasn't fluent in English because he was a Turk, but to ban him? And what did NedZepellin do? I guess Repatriate felt the need to clean up the forum, which is his right as a moderator. It worked the last time, I just hope he didn't go too far this time.

[Winston]

Ok well I apologize to everyone for what happened. I guess we got rid of a lot of trolls, but a few legit posters were deleted in the process. I agree that guitarguy, martinmay and intothewild, seemed like legit posters who posted legitimate points, but perhaps got into too many flame wars or pissing contests.

From now on, let's not delete posts unless they are spam, contain illegal/dangerous content, or if the poster wishes to have their own posts deleted because he regretted what he said or decided that it may damage his reputation or offline life. Or of course, if the poster's posts were 100 percent pure garbage.

Otherwise, when we ban people, we will just ban their usernames (and perhaps emails), and let their posts slide down into the archives over time. But of course, we should give warnings first before doing that. That way, good essays won't be accidentally deleted, like guitarguy's were.

Is that a fair compromise?

Any other suggestions?

Btw, odbo was partly to blame too, since he kept calling out for trolls to be banned and deleted. Do you guys think odbo would make a good moderator? lol

[Winston]

I clashed with Repatriate many times before over his cowardly censorship. No one cared. Winston was too lazy to do anything. He especially likes to delete posts I make ABOUT his actions as moderator. I would keep putting the same post up and he would keep deleting it, this went on for several cycles until I got bored. But if he kicked out the trolls he's done a good job. Problem is he seems to have kicked out good posters as well. Can anyone confirm WHO he banned?

PM from Winston:

It looks like you got your wish. Repatriate deleted about 5 of those trolls and their posts.

Yes but the problem is there is no record of it, I TOLD YOU TO CREATE A TRASH BIN feature or create a locked section where only mods can move "bad" threads to archive them at least for a week.

Odbo, that would be a lot of work, to move each thread one at a time to a "trash bin section". What would be the point of that? Why not just not delete them, ban the users, and let the topics slide down into the archives?

Another thing we could do is just ban the top one or two worst trolls, and see if the other ones calm down.

I guess we did billy a favor. Now he has time to clean up his apartment, like he said he was trying to do but couldn't due to being addicted here.

Btw, keep something in mind. The reason this forum is a "free speech forum" to you guys is because the theme of it validates you and your views. If you were an ardent feminist, for example, you would not find this to be a "free speech forum". lol Instead, you'd find a feminist forum to be a free speech forum. lol

Or suppose you were a person who lived for war and battle. Then by joining the army, you will become free to do what you desire. Thus you will feel that the army gives you freedom to be who you are. Isn't that right? lol

In short, when you are compatible with something, then you are free. lol

[Twobrains]

I think this cull was too severe. No way should GuitarGuy have been banned. His first post (that I can remember) was a heartfelt and apparently genuine plea for advice and help in getting out of a miserable situation - just the kind of thing we should be listening to and offering help with. Ok, he may have got drawn into some stupid arguments later, but no way was he trolling.

Billy was a decent guy with some interesting posts, but he did post too much and the content was often unclear. A warning would have sufficed.

IntoTheWild was provocative and didn't take any prisoners, but he made some solid posts amongst the inflammatory stuff.

Other behaviour that I would consider trolling has gone unpunished, such as gratuitous name-calling (one poster seems to call anyone who disagrees with him a 'fag' - like in the playground at school).

Odbo as a moderator??? [faints]

I think it's a good idea to try to keep outrageous trolls off the site, but it's hard work. Email addresses are a million a penny. Even banning IPs will not work if the troll is determined.

[Repatriate]

Just for future reference:

If you're recently registered and you see other recently registered usernames stirring up shit it would probably be wise not to join in and bait them or long term veteran posters into a long drawn out flame war that spills out into various other threads.

[Maker55]

I had to create another account because Repatriate deleted my account with NO explanation. I didn't even do anything wrong.

[FreeYourMind]

Glad to see billy and some of the others gone. This forum has as much free speech as just about any. It's needed tighter moderation because of all the trolls and goofballs and I'm glad to see it.

[Repatriate]

I had to create another account because Repatriate deleted my account with NO explanation. I didn't even do anything wrong.

You had ad links in your sig and were advertising.

[Maker55]

I had to create another account because Repatriate deleted my account with NO explanation. I didn't even do anything wrong.

You had ad links in your sig and were advertising.

What links? Can you clarify what website I had in my sig? I never created a signature.

I only posted a link to www.warriorforum.com in a thread to give advice about internet marketing. It's not MY website but it's where I go to get advice about internet marketing.