Lets put things in perspective. In the past few days Ive seen a few members claim the sky is falling. Its even been suggested we should simply close the thunderdome now that 'nothing can be said'. There are only 2 strict rules in the dome, no ******, and no racism. That's it. If you think this forum is over censored, id suggest going to one of the other major car audio forums and see what censoring is really like. Most of them wont even let the members question the rules. Here, so long as you dont do it via breaking one of those two rules, you are free to question the rules, bad mouth the mods, or complain about the site. Someone asked why the OP wasn't banned for creating his first post. Its because 1) Im not bothered by someone taking lame pot shots at me for fulfilling my responsibilties here as a moderator, and 2) we allow the members enough freedom that they can express themselves, even at the expense of the rules or those with the responsibility to maintain those rules. So to be frank, I have no sympathy for people feeling their ability to post ****** or use racial slurs has overly limited their freedom here.
Nobody is forced to post here, and everyone agreed to the TOS when they signed up for this forum. Again to be frank, both of these rules, no ****** and no racial slurs, have been rules all along (again, read the TOS). The moderation staff here has simply tried to be as lenient as possible on enforcing those rules until it came to a point that (unfortunately) a relatively small portion of the community here took that leniency for granted and ruined it for everyone. So again, if following those two rules, and not being a troublemaker here, is too much to ask of you or anyone else, you are welcome to go over to CACO or SMD and see how much you get away with there. A lot less than here. The OP would have been permabanned for this thread if he'd made it over there. Point, game, match.
As for quackhead, yes I must add there is one exception to the notion we only have 2 rules here. The mods have made it clear all along that we do reserve the right to remove anyone we feel is causing trouble in order to hurt this site (again, specifically in the TOS). If we feel a member is posting info simply to try and force the mod staff to create more rules that ruin our leniency for the vast majority of the members who do not take advantage of that leniency, it is our responsibility to remove that member rather than impose all sorts of new rules. You can see that as the mods trying to abuse some sort of authority if you want, but I see it as us trying to do what's best for the majority of this community. Pretty straight forward logic if you ask me.
Most of the members here are great and understanding people, but some of you guys have no idea how good you have it here in terms of freedom of expression, and leniency by the moderation staff. We mods have no obligation to cater to that ignorance, it is up to those of you Im talking about to figure it out, or find yourselves removed if necessary. Hopefully it wont come to that, but I have no problem banning someone if I must, for the greater good. Not a threat, just an explanation of the position we mods are put in here.
