One thing that kinda bothered me...

[reg]

The other day in the general section of the Tibetan Buddhist forum, there was a multi-page thread about "Is this still a Buddhist Forum?" or something to that effect. Anyhow, I was reading it, went to take a nap, and when I had woken up from the nap and went back to look at the thread it apparently had completely disappeared!

Now, maybe this thread was super-objectionable by the standards of the ToS here, but disappearing it is a little creepy imo. Or at least a little spooky! Like vaporizing people in 1984 or in some Latin American brutal right-wing regime in past decades.

In future similar instances, Is it possible to at least leave a shell of the thread up in place, and to just have one post from a moderator with the briefest explanation of why the thread was so objectionable? Because otherwise it seems like censorship, and a disturbing variant of it as well. Simply cancelling threads wholesale from the forum without any explanation is, as the kids say these days, "not a good look". And I could be wrong on this, but it seems contrary to the spirit of the Buddhadharma as well. All this IMO, obviously.

Thanks for listening to my complaint.

[Tara]

Hi reg,

Please accept my apologies for the oversight of not informing everyone what happened to that thread. It has been removed from view, not deleted and it may at some point be restored but I cannot guarantee that right now.

I will try to ensure in future when threads are removed a message is left behind to explain what has happened.

Once again apologies to everyone for the inconvenience caused.

Regards,

[reg]

Hi,

No apologies necessary, but thanks!

It's not really a big deal, I was just kinda curious, and the mystery hadn't left my mind in the ensuing days so I dashed off that post inquiring as to what happened. Also, if I sound flippant up there, I apologize-- I'm just in kind of a weird mood today.

To chime in with what others have said many times here, I know you guys have a challenging task keeping up with all of the nonsense that befalls moderators in internetforumland. And I appreciate the energy and time y'all put into trying to keep this space respectful and readable. Civil spaces on the web that have a reasonable signal-to-noise ratio are not all that easy to come by!

Cheers,
reg

[Tilopa]

The other day in the general section of the Tibetan Buddhist forum, there was a multi-page thread about "Is this still a Buddhist Forum?" or something to that effect. Anyhow, I was reading it, went to take a nap, and when I had woken up from the nap and went back to look at the thread it apparently had completely disappeared!

As the person who started that thread I was also a little disappointed. I thought I raised a legitimate concern and tried to do so in a respectful way but like you I was offline for a few hours and when I checked in again it was gone.

[Dechen Norbu]

Dear Tilopa,

Usually you would have received a private message explaining what had happened to your topic and/or a public explanation would have been issued so that everyone could realize what happened. It's our standard procedure.
This time there was an unintentional minor slip by someone who wasn't involved in the thread at all and who realized it had became problematic in terms of behavior, thus removing it from sight for analysis. The members of the management team also have a life, sometimes busy, and these things can happen on occasion, so I trust you understand.
You can rest assure that there is no conspiracy to suppress anyone's questions and ideas, although there might be people very interested about convincing public opinion otherwise. Your concern is understandable and I'm sure there will be the opportunity to address it again, if you so wish.

All the best,

DN

[Tilopa]

Sincere thanks DN. I really appreciate what you guys do and how difficult it must be to moderate the forum and that without you it would quickly degnerate into an unmanageable fiasco. After so many years of dharma practice it would be nice if there was less ego and more humility but I guess that just shows we've all got a long way to go.

[dharmagoat]

Thanks, Dechen.

[Konchog1]

First Post

just have one post from a moderator with the briefest explanation of why the thread was so objectionable?

Well, this is a private website. The mods are well within their rights to ban everyone for fun. Your idea is a good one though, so people can better learn the rules. Explanation notices would be unnecessary for spam though.

[Tara]

This time there was an unintentional minor slip by someone who wasn't involved in the thread at all and who realized it had became problematic in terms of behavior, thus removing it from sight for analysis.

For clarification the thread was initially locked by Astus and shortly after it was removed from view by Mr. G which can be verified by the moderator logs where all actions of Moderators and Administrators are logged. Both Astus and Mr. G to a lesser or greater extent had contributed to the thread.

Regards,

[Dechen Norbu]

my bad. I thought Astus had done it all and that he hadn't been involved in the thread at all. Being terribly late for him, I assumed the usual protocol was missed.
So, sorry guys, as I said, we make mistakes.
Thanks for clarifying, Tara.