Subject: RE: BS: Is closing threads censorship?
From: Little Hawk - PM
Date: 09 May 06 - 07:36 PM

Anybody out there listening? Close this fucking thread. Do it now.

You can quote me, Roger. ;-D

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Subject: RE: BS: Proposal for members only posting of BS?
From: Joe Offer - PM
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 03:59 AM

Well, I actually get more flak about what what we don't delete, than about what we do delete. Generally we follow the same guidelines we've always followed - we delete personal attacks, threats, racism, and Spam - but we do our best to allow people to express their thoughts and opinions freely. I suppose some of those opinions are objectionable, but if they're not outright hateful, we usually don't delete them - much to the chagrin of some Mudcatters.

For a long time, I opposed members-only posting, because I didn't want to scare away visitors or make Mudcat a closed, exclusive club. And yes, we have a lot of that exclusivity already - I feel like an outsider myself when I go into the "BS" section. But our nastiness has been too much, and it has gone on far too long, to the point where it's impossible to carry on an intelligent discussion on most non-music subjects nowadays. I have three Mudcatters on 100% review much of the time, and I have to do partial review on a number of others, and then I have to deal with all sorts of petty complaints about so-and-so saying this or that - and I deny about half the deletion requests I get, and undelete a fair number of messages deleted by JoeClones.

And despite our best efforts, Mudcat is no longer a pleasant place to hang out and goof off or have a good discussion. So, I think something has to be done. Ebbie's suggestion about putting Secret Santa in the music section is a very simple answer to one major objection I had to members-only BS posting - duh, why didn't I think of that?

So, short of members-only posting, what can we do to bring peace to this place? I'd rather have another solution, but I haven't been able to think of one.

-Joe Offer-

As this thread has not yet been closed and it is still open for ALL posters (rather than just the usual suspects on BS section) to make an alternative suggestion to members-only posting - perhaps it would a good idea if those suggestions could be made in this thread?

My suggestion is that Perhaps Max creates (and charges for) a additonal memebers-only forum for those who wish this - or those who wish this and cannot accept the realities of a forum that is freely open to the public - stop complaining about and asking for more restrictions on what others post and go and form one of their own.

I can assue them now that they will not have to read or skip any of my posts on such a forum.