Censorship on ICF

[cabintom]

First: I understand the reasons for the current rules of no politics/religion in this forum. This forum has little to do with either of those topics and they have the potential to lead to unnecessarily heated arguments and hurt feelings.

My concern is that currently when someone crosses the line the administration is simply and abruptly editing out/deleting parts of comments so that there no longer is an issue. Unfortunately, I believe this type of response is also dissuading members from continuing participation in the forum... which isn't a good thing when our community is already small and when the commenter may not have been aware of the rules to begin with.

When one has his comments edited or muted in this fashion it feels a bit violating. How we express ourselves is part of who we are, so silencing something someone says/writes should be done with respect and care.

So, to get to my suggestion, instead of deleting comment content, I propose that, for first time offenses, mods/admins simply edit the offending text colour to white so that it is hidden but still there and add a warning notice explaining that a rule has been broken. If that commenter commits the same offense again, by all means delete their posts or escalate it to an outright ban. But, please start with a warning and explanation, in my opinion it's a way of showing respect.

Secondly, I would ask mods/admins to ensure that they are providing detailed explanations for any of their edits of other peoples' comments. I don't knwo why admin deleted half of what I typed up in the original post here: collector-secret.proboards.com/thread/1012/last-post-main-page-corrupted
Perhaps it was to save face? At any rate, having words I typed up disappear without an explanation just doesn't feel comfortable...

Respectfully,
Tom

[mygos]

I have never been edited by admin/.mods on this forum, therefore I don't know what you are talking about Tom ?
I recently saw someone has been edited on Brexit post, and I feel an admin/mod know what they are doing without having to explain each and every situation even if it would be interesting to know or to learn.
I am admin myself on 2 old Jaguar's forums, and sometime it would be too much time consuming to explain each case : remember admin/mods are doing this on their spare timle if any ...
I came and join this forum to talk about insects, and hopefully nothing else, unless in close relations with our hobby !

A+, Michel

[timmsyrj]

I appreciate what Tom says, if i've crossed a line unknowingly I would like to know why exactly, just having it edited would obviously mean I had crossed a line but may not be sure why!
For me , to edit a comment in the Brexit thread for being political seams strange, how can the thread itself not be political as the whole issue is a political one?

Rich

[wollastoni]

Hello all

Here are our rules that are simple : collector-secret.proboards.com/thread/3/rules-insect-collectors-forum

All new members automatically receive a link to these rules when they register.

I repost our rules here :
Before posting on this forum, please read our rules.

Rules :
. Please respect all other members (even if they disagree with you)
. No post about politics and religions
. No commercial post on the forum.
. It is an international forum, so please write in English.
. If you know them, please use latin names when discussing about an insect species.
. Respect local and international legislation about insect collecting.

Posts that do not respect those simple rules will be edited by the moderators.
Members will be informed and can be banned if they cause serious problems on the forum.

I think these rules are very "simple"
As written, "posts that don't respect these rules will be edited"... and yes, they are edited. Sorry but we don't always have time to go into long explanations + we don't want to open endless discussions on those topics.
We respect all political and religious views, we just want to avoid people fighting and insulting themselves because of those sensitive topics (politics and religion) as we have seen on other insect forums or facebook.

We can remove the full "Brexit" topics, but we thought the "economical" debate could be interesting and non "political".

For example, "I think British economy is strong enough and will sign a good economic partnership treaty with EU" is not a political post.
"Nigel Farage fans are &%&%&&&" or "EU is a band of corrupted a&&hol&&" are political posts. Those kind of posts have been edited in the Brexit topic.

"I went to collect insect on Sunday after going to the church" is not a religious post

"Prayers work that is why I am still alive and God give me the strength" is a religious post. Those kind of posts have been edited in the Arizona topic.

10.031 posts have been posted on the ICF and I think that less than 10 of them have been edited by mods.

So I find the term "censorship" and this whole topic a little bit unfair for the mods of this forum who are just trying to make a nice place without insults.
Olivier

[cabintom]

Jun 29, 2016 6:35:25 GMT mygos said:

I have never been edited by admin/.mods on this forum, therefore I don't know what you are talking about Tom ?
I recently saw someone has been edited on Brexit post, and I feel an admin/mod know what they are doing without having to explain each and every situation even if it would be interesting to know or to learn.

This and another post elsewhere is what prompted my suggestion.
I personally have never made a religious or political post, so my concern isn't directly for myself. As for an explanation, it doesn't need to be long. Something like:
Post edited by Admin due to political content. Please see rules here: "link"

The rules of the forum aren't very visible, so it's possible that people are posting in good faith and are a bit shocked when their post is censored and all that is said is "edit by admin, no religion thanks".

Now, it's been a long time since I registered for the forum... if people are clearly being made aware of the rules from the start, then I wouldn't be as concerned. (EDIT: I see in Olivier's post that people are informed of the rules from the start.)

[wollastoni]

I can add a link "Forum rules" on top of the forum if needed.
As only 0.0009% of ICF posts are edited, I am not sure it would change anything.

[nomihoudai]

Jun 29, 2016 6:48:54 GMT timmsyrj said:

For me , to edit a comment in the Brexit thread for being political seams strange, how can the thread itself not be political as the whole issue is a political one?

Rich

You have to differentiate between statements and political opinion. Take welfare as one example. If I say "The public social expenditure in Germany is about 27% of its GDP", then this is a statement. It is a fact that you can read up and there is no argument on it. There is numbers, unquestionable. It should be fine to post this, depending on what you are talking about. If I say "the bloody welfare system is bankrupting Germany", or when I say "the welfare system and social security is what makes Europe great" it is a political opinion. You can either claim it to fit your idea of a good/perfect world or be against.

Another example is about future notions. We all have a sense of future, and what can happen, if you find what will happen good or bad then this it is politics. If I say "they will probably put border controls back in place" it is a future notion. If I say "It's about time they claim back their borders", or "borders are an outdated concept" it's both a highly political message.

tom, we have a clash here, a clash between the American idea of expression and a clash between the European idea of expression. First, you can't put a bunch of people into a room and let them freely express their political ideas or religious ideas. It will end up with a fight. Now why do I call this American or European? As Americans are more used to express and fight for completely different ideas they might come to an end in their discussions more quickly. Europeans are not used to this and it can become nasty in the end. This is what I have learned from living both in the US and in Europe. People are not as similar as they think and this is one of the big differences. For Europeans it is fine and a good idea to simply delete a comment, for Americans (let it be the States or Canada) it is a cut in their freedom.

As we had long, tedious, unnecessary religious and political discussions in insectnet, where this kind of discussion is allowed, I can tell you that this system will much quicker shy away your user base than you can ever imagine. Therefore banning this type of posts is a good idea, and deleting these comments a necessary "evil".

The only wrong I can see in how the Brexit topic was handled is that it has the feeling of preference. With the above explanation some people's comments were righteously deleted and some not, but in the end it feels like one user is preferred and the other not. The whole thing should have been deleted altogether before any reply could ever have been written.

@about the religious one. I think Olivier's example is good. Many American's don't think about how they say something. In Europe pretty much nobody would ever express the latter as it is a highly religious sentence that only makes sense for one kind of people. I have also in my personal speech asked people to cut out sentences of the latter kind when addressing me. I'm not preaching you my idea, so don't give me yours.

[cabintom]

Jun 29, 2016 7:28:13 GMT wollastoni said:

So I find the term "censorship" and this whole topic a little bit unfair for the mods of this forum who are just trying to make a nice place without insults.
Olivier who feels a bit depressed by this topic today...

My apologies.

I'm entirely on board with the rules. They're great and will prevent this forum from getting out of hand.... and my using the term "censorship" might be a bit strong.

I'm just advocating a more tempered initial response that won't dissuade participation. Perhaps, it's a cultural difference between Europeans and North Americans... but we're a bit sensitive when it comes to "free speech"... perhaps too sensitive?

If I'm the only one who feels this way, I can accept that and I'll apologize for, perhaps, stirring up trouble.

[wollastoni]

I would add that mods are "human beings" and not robots.
We are doing our best.

[cabintom]

Jun 29, 2016 7:53:22 GMT nomihoudai said:

tom, we have a clash here, a clash between the American idea of expression and a clash between the European idea of expression. First, you can't put a bunch of people into a room and let them freely express their political ideas or religious ideas. It will end up with a fight. Now why do I call this American or European? As Americans are more used to express and fight for completely different ideas they might come to an end in their discussions more quickly. Europeans are not used to this and it can become nasty in the end. This is what I have learned from living both in the US and in Europe. People are not as similar as they think and this is one of the big differences. For Europeans it is fine and a good idea to simply delete a comment, for Americans (let it be the States or Canada) it is a cut in their freedom.

I entirely agree with this assessment, and also understand and agree with why these topics are banned. I'm advocating a bit more moderation in the response though when someone isn't trying to be malicious. When someone deletes something I've typed up I see that as a very serious and heavy-handed response... now if you simply hid the offending comment in some manner and warned me... well that's something I could live with.

[Admin]

I have added a "F.A.Q." button on top of the forums to make our rules more visible and to answer some recurrent questions of new members like "how to attach pictures".

I will complete the F.A.Q page when I will have free time (how to put an avatar, how to change my signature,...)