Is thread closure a form of censorship?
Oh, I suppose you could define it as censorship if you like. Still, it seems to be a worthwhile tool in certain circumstances. It helps people "switch gears" and turn the tone of a discussion into something more civil. It doesn't remove anything that has been said, but it does make it a bit inconvenient for people to continue a fight. If a thread is closed, people are free to start a new one. If a thread has been closed because of aggressive behavior or general nastiness, it's unlikely that we would be willing to reopen it. Sometimes, though, I'll let a topic cool down, and then quietly reopen it a few days later.


There was mention above of "Joe's rules" at Mudcat. I think that more-or-less, they're a generally-accepted interpretation of how Mudcatters expect Mudcatters to behave. I'm just the one who wrote them down. Most of it is common sense, and I don't see anything particularly arbitrary or onerous about our conduct guidelines. You'll see them spelled out in this message in the FAQ. As you can see from the date at the bottom, they were last updated in November, 2003.

We're constantly changing the way we deal with problems, but our general guidelines haven't changed much over the years. No, we don't delete every message, or close or delete every thread, that violates "the rules." We have better things to do with our time than that, and closing and deleting aren't the only ways to deal with problems. This doesn't mean that we "tolerate" aggressive or abusive behavior - that's just not the case. Still, it would be nice if people would adhere to to our guidelines without any control at all, and just be civil toward one another.

-Joe Offer-