[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Platapus

I will join in...
First and foremost, this is Neal's forum. He gets to make the rules. If the rules are unacceptable to me, I won't voluntarily participate in this forum. There is no freedom of expression on a privately owned forum.

That being said, and acknowledged....

If the goal is to protect and preserve social morality (think of the children) then in my opinion, swearing is the least of the problems here in GT.

Here in GT we have individuals denigrating other members based on their religious beliefs; their political beliefs; their personal philosophy beliefs. Personal attacks and denigration is common.

These type of comments, in my opinion are far more damaging to the morals because they stigmatize people and over generalize groups.

That's what I want the moderators to monitor. Not the occasional swearing. Now if a member were to engage in gratuitous or rampant swearing, sure, pounce on them... especially if that is one of Neal's rules. His site his rules.

But please don't do it under the guise of enforcing moral standards, when much worse, and much more damaging comments become common place.

Which is really more damaging to the morals of our members

1. "Conservatives don't care about babies after they are alive"
2. "Typical Liberal, They don't care about the country"
3. "You can't be a Muslim and an American"
4. The word "damn" used in a sentence

Why would number 4 be moderated while 1,2,3 and many more, and worse, examples, be allowed to be posted?

What is the priority of moderation and what should be the priority?

Only Neal can and should answer that. But I, respectfully, would like an answer and to have the forum rules updated so that members know what the rules are and the moderators know what the rules are and can enforce them equally and consistently.

I am all for moderation, and I want moderation. I visit one un-moderated forum and it is horrible. But, as a member of this forum, I want consistent moderation and i want moderation on the truly offensive posts.

Yeah, it's too common.

You want the moderators, all two of them, to manage other people's opinions and freedom of expression? I'm not sure what the solution would be to fit your wishes. It would take all of 3 seconds for the member who had his opinion censored to be accusing the moderator of bias. Let's just ban topics on politics and religion.

I will give you an answer, as best I can, as to the priority of moderation: We can discuss topics we feel strongly about, trying to make our point without attacking the person we are engaging. Attack the member's argument, not the member. That's always been my goal. Allow as much freedom to express opinions as possible and still maintain as much civility as we can.

But please, don't ask me or the moderators to clamp down on every expression you do not like. This is not a college safe space. There are a lot of members here, in addition to you, and you have to know that is too much work, and impossible at any rate, to make everyone happy.