Forum Posts and Personal Attacks Plus Staying On-Topic

I've noticed over the last few days that there have been some personal attacks on forum members within disucssions. This is a clear violation of forum rules. Normally, I have let everyone have a free reign around here, but if these comments continue, I will either sensor posts, close threads, delete posts, delete entire threads, or warn or ban individual members for forum rules violations. Please be nicer to each other, and if you have written something that you think might be taken out of context, edit your posts.

I still read every post on this board, but if I'm busy, then sometimes I let things slide. However, I will be reading and watching more closely over the next few weeks. I am not afraid to edit posts, suspend members, or outright ban members if this behavior continues. Please be careful in what you say on this board.

I also have a request in all of this, please try to stay on-topic. I know it is sometimes hard to do. Sometimes a comment is made that is off the subject that should have a response, and I don't have any problem with that. However, please try to keep the discussion on-topic. If you want to start a disussion on a tangent subject or something that has been mentioned within a post, please start a new topic.

Also, please try to search for a topic to see if it has already been started, if you are looking to start new discussions. Some time is spent every week merging threads of the same subject. Many of you say that you search for those discussions, but you can't find anything. You might try enclosing the name you are searching for with quotation marks. On many occasions, this will lead to results when I'm looking for previous topics when my first search does not turn up anything.

I would like all my posts and my user name deleted from the history of this forum. I know the terms of use state that I do not own my posts but i do not wish any association with this site any longer. Please remove all history of my threads, posts, and username.

Your request can be honored, but I don't know what it would do to some of the threads. This could create some thread continuity problems and will delete every post in threads that you started. If you only had five or ten posts, I would quickly tell you that I would completely honor your request. However, since you have a little over 200 posts, I will have to review all of the threads that you started to see if they should be salvaged. Please give me a few days to see what I can do.

John, have you been assiduously editing tonight, or have posters moderated their own selves? The today posts seem pretty civil. Yay.
I'm the first to admit my posts can be pretty ditzy. I read the important stuff like public transport and city hall info, but I comment to the more personal local history and architectural opinion stuff. And I do it because browsing this site is, for me, recreational AND informatiive. Recreational: more fun than TV and sometimes more fun than NPR.

I 'm happy (and embarrassed) when folks point out mistakes in my posts. Snarky can be fun, funny and enlightening--when it's about an opinion. No one should be very harsh about a person-poster.

So sorry to lose Concretist.

John..

Re: the request to have previous posts removed...

I think it would be a bad idea and bad policy to even consider removing any posts that are not just spam. The FW Forum is history in the making and the contents should be considered as in a printed book. The author should not be able to go back and have any previous posts erased.

Researchers and historians are already using this Forum and other like it as reference just as they do the printed clips from old newspapapers or video taken from contemporary televison events.

We have all said things in public that we wish that didn't go public or which we felt were misinterpreted or assocated with ideas that we do not agree with. That is the danger of participating in a public forum.

Even if the posts could be deleted in some way that the other context was usable, it would be too late. Somewhere those posts have already been achived on paper or a hard disk or permanent storage. Those posts will exist forever.

The poster has already publically disassociated himself from the Forum posts and that too is permanent record and in the future those will be considered as part of the history as well.

That's plenty and enough..

Birdland, I have not done any post editing today. I guess some of our members took the hint and either edited their own posts, or they have decided to watch what they type.

Djold, I tend to agree with you. I really don't think the posts should be deleted. The main reason is that if Concretist started a thread, deleting his thread would delete all of the replies in that thread. I can easily remove the member and even change their screen name to something else. After the membership deletion their name would appear as a guest.

Well, I botched this whole thing up. Concretist asked me to delete his membership and then the posts would just read "Guest". I did that and his posts still read with concretist as the author and his membership level is "Guest". I may have to delete his posts to get this all corrected now.

John..

I would like to urge you again again to reconsider taking non-spam posts off this Forum. This is nothing personal to the member/ex-member in question.

You just can't "disappear" history..

A quote printed in a newspaper or magazine or recorded on video is permanent. The subject may retract or renounce or otherewise disclaim that comment but the fact is that it will exist somewhere forever as part of history. This is true of digital media as well.

If I say or write something publicly, I'm stuck with it forever whether I regret saying it or not or regret the company I was in when I said it.

We are now in the middle of a heated political season in the US. Every word that each candidiate has ever publicly spoken has been searched out and hashed over as content in relation to the campaign. Suppose our ex-member was a candidate at some future time. And suppose that something that he wrote to this Forum years before related to an issue in his campaign.

If you allowed that entry to be deleted from the Forum at his request right after it was written, then it might not exist anywhere. And yet that person did actually write that Forum posting. And those comments were history for a short period.

There is no short period in history.. There is no "delete" button... History is..

If it was publicly written or spoken it is history and must not be erased.

John:
I agree with djold1, preservation is important. As to the desire not to be associated with the forum any longer, did you get any reason for that?
Greg

As a long time member (since 1997!), I would have to agree with the comments above. Don't delete the posts.

Thanks again for the forum, John!

I have good news. Concretist has now become "Guest" in all of his posts. Now there shouldn't be any reference to him, except in this thread. I want to give out a big "THANK YOU" to Gdvanc for making all of the forum corrections after I deleted that account. I will admit that I am not well versed in database management. It's nice to have some great assistance from the other administrators of this forum.

I've noticed over the last few days that there have been some personal attacks on forum members within disucssions. This is a clear violation of forum rules. Normally, I have let everyone have a free reign around here, but if these comments continue, I will either sensor posts, close threads, delete posts, delete entire threads, or warn or ban individual members for forum rules violations. Please be nicer to each other, and if you have written something that you think might be taken out of context, edit your posts.

I still read every post on this board, but if I'm busy, then sometimes I let things slide. However, I will be reading and watching more closely over the next few weeks. I am not afraid to edit posts, suspend members, or outright ban members if this behavior continues. Please be careful in what you say on this board.

I also have a request in all of this, please try to stay on-topic. I know it is sometimes hard to do. Sometimes a comment is made that is off the subject that should have a response, and I don't have any problem with that. However, please try to keep the discussion on-topic. If you want to start a disussion on a tangent subject or something that has been mentioned within a post, please start a new topic.

Also, please try to search for a topic to see if it has already been started, if you are looking to start new discussions. Some time is spent every week merging threads of the same subject. Many of you say that you search for those discussions, but you can't find anything. You might try enclosing the name you are searching for with quotation marks. On many occasions, this will lead to results when I'm looking for previous topics when my first search does not turn up anything.

 

This seems like a good time to bump this post.

Thank you for bumping this up, Andy.  I have read all of the recent posts lately that seem to have leaned toward being personal.  I thought about asking those posters to refrain, but I decided that I would let these go for the time being.  Even though I may have slacked off on some of the policing here, I want the remind the forum members that I do read every post.  I also will not hesitate to ask some members to quiet down, not post, or to think about what they write.  I also will not hesitate to shut down threads, if they get out of hand.  I want to keep the discussion open, but there may come a time when I change the rules and guidelines.