@ HTH

I give in! I [i]didn't[/i] posit a 'majority'! Rather, you posited a minority. The burden of proof rests with you, not with me! The proof you attempt is feeble, resting as it does on the transparently faulty premise that all those who think that comments like Gambit's might require moderating will have spoken. You imply, further, that I would have had the thread locked, but I did not say that. (Nor, for the record, am I among those, if such there be, who would have Gambit banned.) Personally I was pleased to see it simply wither on the vine, so to say, but I broadly support Smyslov_Fan's general approach, for the reasons I gave.

I've told you why I personally didn't respond to Gambit's post. [i]Obviously[/i] I cannot prove syllogistically that Gambit was being untowardly provocative, but that he [i]was[/i] being so is, I contend, a perfectly reasonable, and even an obvious, extrapolation from some of his other posts. My intuition, if I'm to be permitted to use so unanalytic a human faculty, tells me that others very possibly thought the same, and had much the same motives for not responding to the "argument". I'm sorry if you don't like this -- to my way of thinking merely sensible -- reasoning, but I'm not going to waste everyone's time, including my own, by starting a poll in attempted justification of it!

A logical and reasonable case can be made for the view that strong moderation, including the prospect of censorship, should virtually never, or absolutely never, occur in any public forum. And an at least equally logical and reasonable case can be made to the effect that sometimes it should. The problem here appears to be that you seem to regard the second case as [i]not[/i] being reasonable, without however having produced any argument -- at least not any sound one -- for why this might be so. I note that a number of people have expressed (or at least wearily adumbrated!) a view in this area, and that the weight of opinion is overwhelmingly against you.

As much as I enjoy my sit-down comic acts in the Chit Chat section, I have to agree with Markovich.

Politics. Wrong place at the wrong time. A chess forum is all about the chess. 

@HTH

Just to let you know, I didn't ask for the thread to be locked. I hyperventilated, so I couldn't voice my opinion.

[quote author=3A393335540 link=1259687316/8#8 date=1274794350]You talk of only a "moral minority" being represented, but where is your evidence that those who think that threads like the one on the Middle East you mention require moderating are in a minority? [/quote]
And you can offer evidence that there is a majority? I don’t even dare to assume, claim or even try and predict what other people are thinking. As far as the thread concerned goes, the evidence of a moral minority is matter of deduction: take the number of the hand full of puritans who complained about the thread before it was locked and divided that number by the number of registered Chesspub members and multiply by 100. For this number to be large enough to be significant in support your supposition that a majority exists would have to mean that Chesspubs membership would have to only consist of those puritans mentioned. This I doubt.

[quote author=3A393335540 link=1259687316/8#8 date=1274794350]And has it occurred to you that the reason no one bothered to refute that rant [i]might[/i] just have been that to have done so would have been to have given a poster who on that occasion was being unpleasantly and stupidly inflammatory precisely what he was seeking? [/quote]
It should come has no real surprise that as you seem to think you know what the majority is thinking that you should also believe you know what Lev is thinking as well. I can not see how you can deal with anything rationally but simply saying it was “unpleasantly and stupidly inflammatory’ and locking it ? All you are doing is concentrating on how it was said and not what was said, meaning with the thread in question, how do you address it inaccuracies for instance?...or is it a matter of ignoring that too?

HTH
>:(

Hadron wrote on 05/25/10 at 13:11:41:

If you find it offensive it's your problem. You have a fair choice: take it or leave it. Nobody forces you to visit this forum. It's not that I want to chase you away (as if I could); point is that when visiting a forum you'll have to accept its restrictions.
The second part, about those masses that need to be protected, is plain nonsense. There are plenty fora and blogs around where you can discuss subjects like the Israeli/Palestine conflict from every angle you desire, include the most offensive and racist ones.
Chesspub does not have the means to "protect the masses" from whatever.

Smyslov_Fan wrote on 12/01/09 at 17:08:36:


Some many subjective considerations. Such hubris to say that one must represent the best interests of Chesspub when really all you are representing are the moral minority (who always get what they want by complaining the longest and the loudest) and yourself (with ones subjective censorship). Much as been said and made about a certain thread discussing the middle east where the original rant was meet by howls of derision and cries of racism by the moral puritans. The odd thing is though not one person made a substantial effort to try and refute the original rant…but the thread was duly locked anyway. Personally I don’t know what to find more offensive, the original rant or the puritans who hide away behind their monitors tapping away with false indignation proclaiming that the masses need to be protected from themselves. And perhaps what’s worse, the Chesspub moderator(s) fell for it.
HTH

Smyslov_Fan wrote on 03/12/10 at 15:43:17:



This means, then, that our tastes over here count as prurient. For my deleted thread-opening link was to a "Beauty of the Day" section of a local news-portal. (Each and every girl who is displayed there has asked to be displayed.)

Do girls with clothes on count as offensive?

The thread on the Jewish-Palestine conflict was quickly locked. If you apply the same standards, then the thread originated by the same author on glorifying a nation founded primarily to continue  the enslavement of one race should be treated likewise.