Speakeasy forum: Censorship--Moderation--NotebookReview.com

I'd say that what is fair and what is not in the way of forum moderation may well depend on each individuals perspective. Often it's not so much what is said but how it's said that determines whether or not a post is allowed to remain. The same goes for verbal debate. But in the case of face-to-face verbal conversations, such as tone of voice and body language is easily discernible. It's not that difficult to know when participants become agitated to a point where intervention is needed. In forum debate or discussion of this type, those signals aren't as "visible" and moderators must use their best judgments. I'd suspect a lot of that judgment is based on the past histories of the regular participants in how they conduct themselves more so than what opinions they hold. Moderators here have their opinions and should be free to express them but it's probably normal for the general crowd to want to hold them to a higher standard. Now...is that fair? IMO, the answer is "yes". One cannot demand the proper behavior of others without setting the example of that behavior themselves. But no one's perfect and devoid of hot buttons and pet peeves that they struggle with. My advice would be to learn to live with that. If you can spend your time in learning from other people...(whether you love 'em or hate 'em).... rather than searching for what you think are their flaws you'll be a wiser person for it.

About 8 months ago,a NotebookReview.com forum member posted a video which depicted some white folks dancing, and poked fun at it. It was indeed funny, and I took no offense to it, and I'm sure the person who posted it did not mean to offend anyone.
But I asked the question "Why is it OK to poke fun at the way white people dance? Isn't this a double standard? If I posted a video poking fun of the way African-Americans danced, I most certainly would be called a racist?"
The reply was, "Well white folks did not go through the degradation of slavery." I then replied, "And you mean to tell me the ovens at Auschwitz weren't degrading?" (which if you can't figure it out, was said not to belittle the horrors and immorality of slavery, but to point out that other races have endured extreme persecution also)
Then some brainiac moderator removed my post about Auschwitz, and allowed the post about slavery to remain.
That same genius then pointed out that my information was incorrect.
I then posted Wikipedia links which showed documentation and photographs of the ovens at Auschwitz, and told that moderator that he needs to re-check the historical records.
I then started a thread in the Everything Political section entitled "Ethics at NBR."
There was no arguing or name calling, and I just explained that I thought it was not politically correct to remove my post about Auschwitz, yet allow the posts about slavery to remain.
7 or 8 more posts were made in this thread, and believe it or not, there STILL was no name calling or flaming.
Despite this, a moderator stepped in and closed the thread "Ethics at NBR."
He then went back to the original thread and deleted all the dancing video posts, all the traces of discussions about slavery, Auschwitz, and all the potentially inflammatory comments.
This was fine by me, because it leveled the playing field.
But then the thread about "NBR Ethics" was ERASED.

If there is nothing wrong with the Ethics at NBR, and I'm not saying that there is, WHY WHIPE OUT A THREAD WHICH QUESTIONS IT?
NBR's actions reflect an attitude of "above" being questioned by it's own members.
This attitude is immoral, not my refference to the ovens at Auschwitz.