AzHousePro said:
It got out of hand with some of the photoshop magic that was going on in there. It went way beyond discussion of the alleged incident and people involved.
Locking it was not going to bring it back into line.
Could you please give me an example of the "forum content ... constantly being censored by AzBilliards for reasons of favoritism, politics, or viewpoints that differ from their own."?
And no, I was not going to go through a 17 page thread picking and choosing the posts that were out of line and leaving the thread so that it could continue to spiral in the direction it was going.
Mike
I too do not want you to take this the wrong way, because my intentions are certainly not to stir the hornets nest. I am just offering my opinon since you asked. With all due respect, I think you could pick any deleted thread at random Mike, and chances are more likely than not that it meets that criteria. I don't think that the Corey/Charlie/Marissa thread in question, as a whole, crossed any lines. Granted, I probably did not see the last couple of posts (I last read it about 30-60 minutes before it was deleted), but there were only a couple of posts in the whole thing that were even questionable, and they could have easily been removed and you could have just simply made a post of your own saying what it was that you were not finding acceptable so that it would not be done again by someone else later in the thread. And if it was the last few posts that were the problem, it would be even easier to remove them.
It gives the appearance that you just didn't like that negative things were being said about someone that was "big in the industry," or that was a pro (in this case both). Nice sweet feel good things are not all there is in the pool world, or in real life. Some things are negative. And they deserve to be addressed and discussed just like all the flowery cotton candy stuff.
Another example would be the many threads that get locked or deleted about cuemakers that are either ripping people off, or conducting business in an unethical or dishonest manner. The primary purpose of forums is the exchange of information, and not all of it is going to be, or even should be, positive. People are smart enough to wade through things and
decide for themselves what is accusation, or what has been substantiated enough to be considered fact or proof. I never heard for example Marissa say that she had it on videotape but wasn't willing to prove it. We know that what she gave was one side of the story. Everybody is free to offer differing opinions, viewpoints and evidence, and everyone is also capable of formulating their own opinions without the need for a "big brother" to censor content.
As a side note, whatever rules or criteria you do go by should be enforced consistantly. This has been a huge problem for a while in many people's eyes, as evidenced by all the complaints. The rules need to apply and be enforced equally to everyone, whether you are a newbie poster, long time poster, unknown poster, well known poster, a well liked poster, a disliked poster, a pro, an industry insider, a nobody, or anybody else. What has been ok for one person to say or do, has been deemed unacceptable for the next person to say or do. What has been ok to say about one person, is not ok to say about a different person. This again would give the appearance of censorship based on favoritism, politics, or someone having viewpoints that differ from your's or a moderator's.
With all that being said I understand and absolutely respect your right to do as you see fit on a site that you own and control. I'm just offering another viewpoint for consideration at your request.
