"Delete first, ask questions later." Topic

I get a sense that TMP's new editorial policy WRT controversial topics is to delete with extreme predjudice. Which, I guess, works up to a point EXCEPT that members who took the time to respond (or create) these topics are having their work vaporized and, if you took 2 or 3 minutes to craft a response, that's 2 or 3 minutes of your life (literally, gone) that you won't get back.

I'm beginning to find the prospect of losing my work tediuous, how about you?

Bill's house, Bill's rules.

C'mon: everyone say it together.

Allen

Bill's house, Bill's rules

Don"t start or respond to CA type controversial topics and your "work" (sounds elitist dosn't it) won't get deleted. It's a new world at TMP. Live in it or leave it.

It's the internet. I can no longer work up a good head of "I really give a darn". You think something's going to be controversial, don't post on that thread, and your time is saved.

I guess if you see a topic that might be controversial then you should leave it alone.

On the other side what do you really get out of your 2-3 minutes of work anyway? Probably a lot of people who are going to read it have read it by the time it gets deleted, maybe not every time but often. It is not like these posts are going to be something that future peoples look back on and immortalize. They might be here for a while but so will the other trillions of words written all across the internet.

Who cares if a 3 minute post is vaporized? I have spent hundreds of hours writing code & applications that were mission critical at the time, but are no longer remembered other than by those who worked on the projects.

If losing a 3 minute post bothers you, wait until you're retired & your entire body of work over a lifetime is erased or forgotten. Posting on a hobby forum pales in comparison.

Don"t start or respond to CA type controversial topics

But that assumes you know the direction an topic will go and assume other posters won't hijack it. Consider another topic I started (non political) TMP link and in no time we have "Soon as we get Gordon Brown's goverment out the better!!" Now if that gets picked up on and other people talk about it, the thread would be hijacked and under threat of deletion.

Bill's house, Bill's rules

For you, yes, but some of us do help pay the rent around here. A certain level of representation would be in order.

I'm beginning to find the prospect of losing my work tediuous, how about you?

No. Not that much I post here could be considered "my work". And certainly nothing I ever posted to a thread that would be likely to be deleted in the first place.

‘Work', now, is it?

Come on, this is an internet forum. It's the height of meaninglessness, the ultimate in ephemera. This time tomorrow, 99% of the people here will have forgotten you exist, let alone anything you've written.

Write your ‘work' on tissue paper and toss it into the sea. It'll last longer and mean more.

Write your ‘work' on tissue paper and toss it into the sea. It'll last longer and mean more.

Good one Pete

Dave

It'll last longer and mean more.

If it weren't for the fact that Google appears to be archving everything, I'd almost agree. I ran across some "work" of mine from 1998 the other day. Turns out people ran with the idea on other websites until around 2005. Long after I stopped caring.

Good lord.

Bill chooses to leave a post and he is "enabling" issues here, he chooses to delete it and he is a tyrant.

He makes the choice on his own and its blasted as "Bill's house"

He asks for input from us and gets blasted for not being decisive and stopping problems.

You can please some of the people some of the time but you cannot please TMP anytime.

I enjoy and am bettered by rigorous discussion, which I mostly get to do on the internet. But this only happens when informed people who understand that their knowledge is no all encompassing try to wrestle to complete and improve their own viewpoints, even as they try to explain them to you.

On the other hand, some people have settled into some viewpoints and aren't reconsidering them for nothing. They've entered the mode of rejecting facts that don't fit, and have even achieved the mental state wherein they've arrived at summary judgements about the people who hold different viewpoints.

When a couple of these latter people get together, there's no point in getting involved. I think, and hope, that its mostly these situations, not the first one, that gets people dawghoused, banned, locked, deleted, etc. So I steer clear, and I think I've avoided a lot of aggravation because of it.

Like one who seizes a dog by the ears is a passer-by who meddles in a quarrel not his own. Proverbs 26:17

If someone posts something you find reprehensible, are you really obligated to respond? I certainly hope not. Even now, somewhere, any number of someones are posting hateful things. Are we morally obligated to go find and refute them?

Its better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

Am I wimping out?

Andrew

Haven't we been down this road before, back before Bill created TMP+…..? I say let's move on and roll some dice!

Haven't we been down this road before, back before Bill created TMP+…..? I say let's move on and roll some dice!

Oh, I pay TMP rent, too.

I get a sense that TMP's new editorial policy WRT controversial topics is to delete with extreme predjudice.

So your argument is that if someone starts a political topic (contrary to the FAQ) and other people reply… I should leave it alone because they've spent time on it???

Somehow I think Obama would have just the right thing to say in a moment like this.

Somehow I think Jesus would have just the right thing to say in a moment like this.

Somehow I think Paris Hilton would have just the right thing to say in a moment like this.

if someone starts a political topic

What prompted this was the deletion of a topic yesterday that wasn't political per se but I recall the topic being right up to the border of being political. I think I even joked "Oh no politics on TMP" or somesuch. You also have a topic that is pushing the political boundary here TMP link

I think I'm talking about topics that are not directly political but merely a political like substance.

nycjadie,

But what would Buffy do?

It's not a "Bill's house" issue. It is an annoyance on every moderated forum. Obviously if you have graduated from Sesame Street you can figure out how to make a copy of you work and put it on your own blog in case of deletion…

NSN

I for one do not consider my one liners deserving of eternal preservation.
Nor any topics that I start.

I'm still trying to figure out what Paris Hilton might have to say on it…

"Are you going to light that thing?"

"I'm still trying to figure out what Paris Hilton might have to say on it…"

Paris: Why is the red light on that video recorder?

Elmo: So we can record this two minutes of our lives.

So what perks do Supporting Members get for their money?

Some topics are going to be deleted. That's going to happen if they overstep the boundaries Bill considers acceptable. If anyone feels that part of the topic should have remained on the board – if someone hijacks an otherwise innocuous thread, for example, and that results in its removal – it's easy enough to open the subject again with a new post.

An icon, the PM system, the ability to post on the marketplace board, and the handshake the the hidden boards… I've said too much already.

You also get the opportunity to support TMP. Pretty good deal I think.

Bill's house, bill's rules.

we do need some rules i was just glancing at frothers the other day and someone had posted a series of penis pics, we do not need anarchy but we also do not need a big brother ..

we do not need anarchy but we also do not need a big brother ..

From your example at Frothers, apparently we do.
We are not harmed by having one.

"we do need some rules i was just glancing at frothers the other day and someone had posted a series of penis pics, we do not need anarchy but we also do not need a big brother .."

Which were deleted.

Frothers Unite is moderated. It's just that it's otherwise allowed to run rampant with Brit good ole laddism, whose rules are hard for the rest of us to discern, and which not every Briton is all that keen on either. Most of it is two large folders – a completely uncategorized miniatures folder, and an off-topic dump. If the latter didn't serve as a convenient soapbox to hurl abuse at TMP, no one would pay it much attention.
NSN

"we do need some rules i was just glancing at frothers the other day and someone had posted a series of penis pics, we do not need anarchy but we also do not need a big brother .."

And Frothers was smart enough to IMMEDIATELY lock the threads on age of consent that Lordlovesadoug went and started there. Bill did not and look what happened. Frothers is a whole lot more "civilized" (and moderated) than a lot of TMPers would like to believe…

…ran on for quite a few pages before they were locked though… then Gwart buried them.

Still…

Mr Elmo 07 May 2008 7:10 a.m. PST

I'm beginning to find the prospect of losing my work tediuous, how about you?

when it was alive didnt current affairs posts get deleted automatically after a while? nobody complained about bill doing that did they? why should anybody devote work to someone else's website? this is supposed to be a happy occasion. let's not bicker and argue over who helped kill who.

nazrat 09 May 2008 6:23 a.m. PST

And Frothers was smart enough to IMMEDIATELY lock the threads on age of consent that Lordlovesadoug went and started there. Bill did not and look what happened. Frothers is a whole lot more "civilized" (and moderated) than a lot of TMPers would like to believe

ive visited frothers and it is not civilized and it is very strange to hear you say that it is moderated. it is controlled arbitrarily imo. ymmv of course.

Dowd Elwood P 10 May 2008 4:55 p.m. PST

when it was alive didnt current affairs posts get deleted automatically after a while? nobody complained about bill doing that did they?

We lost some very funny non-political threads and posts because of that. The CA board had it's very own Pub, the waitress was Linda and the cook/barkeep was her husband/boyfriend (it was never really determined which). The CA folk had a lot of fun in that Pub before it was torn down for another non-descript strip mall.

The CA Pub was much like the TMP Lounge, except it wasn't elitist and anyone was free to drop in for a drink.

let's not bicker and argue over who helped kill who.

LOL! I'm not sure that's a valid defense, but I bet some eager legal eagle will use it in a court room someday.

DJC, that's a quote from Holy Grail, sort of. I agree with dowd, Frothers is not civilized.

It depends what you mean by "civilized".

If you are in favour of the promoting of paedophilia and the banning of people who object, then TMP is civilised. If you find paedophilia abhorent then Frothers is more civilised.

Indeed.

Holy mackerel you guys, can't you ever stop?

Frothers is uncivil. It is a very rude place where people are free to spout untrue nonsense about anybody. That means uncivilized. Get it? This has nothing to do with topics discussed, banned or otherwise. It is a perception based only on how people behave.