I mean I am more trolling than being serious, but this whole conversation only goes one way: Mods run this private site so what they say goes..... no amount of drivel will change that. People will keep coming and keep playing and the site will see more growth which will feed a larger and larger forum even if a handful of players are frustrated with the very rare instances of censorship and leave..... so personally I think this is a wasted argument thread for sake of argument thread..... not really with any substance... actually interestingly enough the most substance has been from a mod... ATC who gave a detailed list of the recent locked threads.

I have been here for 2 years, ive been on both sides of the censorship discussion and can tell everyone who has forgotten that the trend is that when the mods decide to censor something it tends to be final and no serious change comes from these half dozen threads that sprout up over the course of the next week complaining about how dead the forum is (even though there is Mafia, a new simulation game, a peanut gallery game, and a gunboat peanut gallery game all happening right now among many other forum activities and discussions)

but much like how the modern media is people will feed on the headline event until it's boring... so enjoy the webdip version of the kardashians ; censorship

"the site will see more growth which will feed a larger and larger forum"

This is off-topic, but do you have stats to back up your assertion that the site is growing?

in other pointless meandering news Jay Z apparently cheated on Beyonce.. can anyone else not see how stupid he mustve been?

has anyone else seen the captain america civil war tv spot? the one in which spiderman catches winter soldiers arm... pretty cool am I right?

(no but i am going to go off on a limb and say we have grown enough for the mods to feel the need to add more moderators; and I am sure when ATC reads through he wont be able to control the urge to lay down some cold hard maths)

so CNN has one of its main stories about this 12 year old girl who accidentally ran a full marathon instead of the 5K she was meant to run because she ran down the wrong raceway.... pretty cool right?

I mean at first you think how could you be confused but then they explain and this young girls tenacity and drive to finish a race she didn't enter is mind boggling I mean seriously most kids her age are too busy watching keeping up with the kardashians and listening to Beyonces new lemonade album..... oh I looped that around didn't i?

aha, you demonstrably don't have a clue what I want. The mods have been incredibly transparent here and elsewhere; if you don't trust them at this point, that's no one's problem but yours. You've taken for granted an unsupported claim about inconsistent modding, which illustrates the problem with your claim that mods justifying their moderation will simply lead to constructive criticism and better modding: what will happen instead is more people pulling out-of-context comparisons to try to rules-lawyer the mods. This is an extension of what the mods have been saying about how limiting mod discretion leads to more misbehavior and more moderation; since you plainly don't trust the mods to begin with, waxing eloquent about the good of the forum and the need to trust the mods is so much bullshit. And your claim that leon didn't say anything disrespectful is political given the content of the posts to which you are referring, so don't try to claim the political neutrality card.

But sure, keep trying to vilify me by trying to guess at my wants and my motives. It's pathetic and baseless, and it doesn't make your proposal any less shit.

So i had the best enchilada today, really it was amazing. So well built and the sauce was spectacular.

@Leth can you comment on the recent headline that prince has died?

lets look at fox news....

"This is off-topic, but do you have stats to back up your assertion that the site is growing?"

I didn't make that assertion - but site traffic patterns have been fairly constant for the last 4 years. The number of games does change significantly (in particular, live games are way up since we introduced the live game tracker), but the amount of active sessions per day doesn't seem to change much. We have increased slightly in number of online users since I started tracking it, but I wouldn't want to make an assertion about it being significant.

We do have a clear yearly cycle - all time low at Christmas, big spike at the beginning of January, rising through to mid April, where it falls for the rest of the year. I'm not sure why. Northern hemisphere summer starting, maybe?

Interestingly, the weekends are our quietest days - meaning many people play during office hours. Slackers :)

Will farrel is set to play Ronald Reagan.... only on fox

The primary reason we needed more moderators is Jmo's retirement - that guy was a machine. He's worth at least 3 other mods, or 6 ghugs.

see maths.... again ATC with the only substance in this thread... aside from everyone now being stoked for will farrell as ronald reagan

@CB I think it would take pretty exceptional circumstances to produce purple rain. That's all I have to say on the matter.

so I am not wrong just spoke in hyperbole and for wrong reasons... although without the data more live games and being at the climax of the yearly cycle doesn;t warrant my feelings of site growth..... so back to the kardashians.

@Leth I feel his chances of creating purple rain have probably increased since his death... simply easier to create rain from his current position... hey maybe Beyonce can help him and it can become purple lemonade rain...

I should really get to bed.. be back tomorrow to give you all the juicy worthless news headlines that somehow are still more liekly to actually affect your lives that the censorship conversation.

I think we should let the broader community know how transphobic the webdip forums are, so that they can stay the fuck away.

Submissions welcome on how to make the webdip forums more welcoming. I think we've made improvements, but there's still a long way to go.

No lethologica from what you have said from this thread and the other you clearly have a political agenda. I dont claim to be neutral but i never posted in the transgender thread. I dont need to be thinking what you want because i dont care about your thoughts or rants as i will never meet you in real life. What i do know is that you think you are morally superior to me. (Otherwise you wouldnt have kept replying now would you?) So no matter what i say you think you are better, as such there no point me trying to talk to a brick wall. You will also do some mental gymnastics to convince yourself that you are right. However don't you dare infer to me that i am disrespecting to the mods. I have not done anything of the sort. That is something that could be seen as degrading and if i was a mod i would have you banned on that right there from the forums or at least a warning. (Justification, the case from the transgender one - which is why we are having this conversation to begin with)
The mods do this out of there own time, i assume unpaid and someone needs to pay for the maintainance of the site. All i tried to do was improve how the mods communicate with members when issues arise and i am inferred that i am being disrespectful. Isnt that pathetic?
Once again, I didnt say anything in the transgender thread. I was confused as to why it would be locked as it was the first time seeing it. I read the thread and they clearly didnt provide an answer i thought acceptable as a member. So i made this thread to find out way. I provided some methods of improvement to the mods as well as to see what other people thought of a thread being locked. What do i get, people who were triggered that i tried and find out what happen because the topic was about transgender. Completely unbelievable.
I beleive it was bo who stated that he didnt like the methods used by the mods for locking threads. I believe it was captainmeme who stated that this has happen before. If one of the mods doesn't like the methods then maybe there is ground for a look into how threads can operate in a better manner. If it has happened before then maybe another change is needed now as this had members confused as to why it happened.
All I do expect of the mods is that they let me play the games unhindered unless there is a problem with the game. I also expect that if there are standards set by the site they would enforce it and be consistent about it. I dont see how that is wrong even if i disagreed with the rules.
I also dont see how suggestions of improving communication is wrong. They havent said " this topic is banned because x" or "these words cant be use because y." Thats all i wanted to know. You say its rules-lawying the mods but it is not. All i want is there to be consistency with the rules. From this everyone gets an understanding of the correct manner to talk as common sense clearly isnt a good enough term. If they dont like the topic thats fine just let us know, if someone said something then let them point it out. But we didnt get that. Clarification was not provide. I didnt ask for transparency but clarity. What was wrong with the transgender thread? The rules are too vague. "I.e. common sense". If you need to, use this thread as a standard. I dont frankly care but be consistent if there are other things that people have said or topics that arent liked then lock them if they were/are worse then the transgender one. I could have sent a private message but then we dont have a public case where people can refer to for future cases.

Now lethologica do the right thing. Remain silent. We arent going to be friends or see eye to eye. I dont care about you and i will assume the same opinion of you to me. I will not agree with you on this and i can guess many other issues, so dont try and convert me that what you say is right because i am not going to bite. The only reason for your continued attack on me is to either prove a point or virtue signal. Whether the mods say we will look into it or justify our position at a later date or even the "rules state that you cant be insulting and "blah" was used and thus we have opted to lock or block the forum. Please keep this in mind for future post in forums." They like me want the site to be successful so that we can have the pleasure of playing diplomacy. The mods arent gods and thus they can make mistakes. Your opinion isnt what i want nor was it the topic for this thread.

Mods i do not intend to be mean but i am a firm believer in tough love. I am critical as i want the site to do well and where possible improve it. if you want to pm me to ask any further suggestions or send a notification of punishment for somehow disobeying the rules then do so.
I do beleive that this is a good place to end the thread and once the mods provide some sort of answer as to what the original problem was, i highly recommend that the mods lock the thread so that we can put this to bed.

"Mods i do not intend to be mean but i am a firm believer in tough love. I am critical as i want the site to do well and where possible improve it. if you want to pm me to ask any further suggestions or send a notification of punishment for somehow disobeying the rules then do so."

just mail them your suggestions?

Aha, the forum rules are already pretty explicit about topics like this. If you had bothered to read HR's post when he locked the thread, the rule specifically states:

"Do not make targeted threads that are abusive or degrading toward another member, group of members, or social group. This includes but is not limited to posts regarding SEXUALITY, race, and religion." (emphasis mine)

To which I will direct you to leon's original post:

"Transgender...... is the most stupid idea I have ever heard."

How much more specific do you need? Do the fucking maths instead of making an inane argument about a lack of "quotes".

@2ndwhiteline.

Can i be pedantic? Gender and Sexuality are different things. Though i agree with the mods discretion on including gender identity as part of the 'things which should not be discriminated against', i suspect te emphasis should be on 'is not limited to', rather than on sexuality.

"Do not make targeted threads that are abusive or degrading toward another member, group of members, or social group. This includes but is not limited to posts regarding sexuality, race, and religion."

Now I may not be a legal expert, but if we assume Leon had made the thread to target something, it would clearly be the concept of transgender, not any "member, group of members, or social group."

Personally, I think the rule is silly as it is written. After all, we have the mute thread feature for a reason. If someone sees a thread that triggers them, they can always mute the thread.

Unfortunately, attacking the concept of a group people is in fact identical to attacking said group of people. That thread was locked because of how transphobic the OP was - it called out and degraded a group of people. The fact leon put an "I think" there does not make it any more acceptable, either.

I agree the actual discussion thereafter was not breaking the rules; and at no point did I say it was. No other poster in that thread received a warning. However; threads with titles like that give a terrible first impression of a site for new users - and thus it was locked regardless. Is transgenderism an off-topic subject? Of course not. But creating threads which attack the concept of them, or any other social grouping... is. The rules are pretty clear there. Nor are they new.

PS. Bo was being sarcastic in that post about his methods; because you typo'd in the post before and accidentally called him out. I do recommend reading your own posts to check things like this.