Site Rules Update

Status
Not open for further replies.

expanda

Site Founder
Staff member
Dec 22, 2009
3,892
1,961
113
43
Western, Sydney....
www.expandasdownunder.com
Important service announcement from the Expandasdownunder team.

It's come to our attention that some threads are getting of topic from the original post quite regularly.

This has also been noticed and reported by a few members over the last few months.

Whilst with a heavy heart I just wanted to set a precedence that posts will be removed without warning if it doesn't add value to the original posting or is going down the garden path of the intended discussion.

So if it detracts from the original thread the post will be deleted without warning.

Further and continuing interventions by the mod team could lead to other actions at an individual user level.

This is such a great forum with a great backing of people but lets keep the posts on topic and lets continue to benefit the original posters intentions through our vast knowledge bank and not our own agendas.

The mod team love the forum and want to see it to continue grow organically.

To help us and in turn help you; you can also report a thread or post to us directly if you feel it's in need of some attention.

Any questions please contact myself or any member of the mod team.

Cheers all!

@cruza driver @chartrock @relgate @Bushman @Moto Moto
 

Drover

Well-Known Member
Nov 7, 2013
12,723
19,450
113
QLD
I just go with the flow baby but am easily led astray, besides if we didn't where would the forum be and the Moderapters would get lazy..............damn Off Topic again............................:brick:
 

Meanderthals

Aka PhilD
Mar 16, 2012
837
1,356
93
Near Darwin
Because I'm a bit of a contrary bugger, and a lot of a grump, I will have to disagree with this change. Only a few times across a number of Forums have I seen people get upset at what is a quite normal happening of subjects wandering. In subsequent postings it is so common for other aspects or experiences to be given a mention that requiring people to start up a whole new posting could become unworkable as it all becomes disjointed. It would require links to and from other postings to be inserted and people would loose interest.

To me, censorship should remain with abusive, illegal, defamatory type issues that should be deleted and not with the many fun wanderings that happen, of which I am guilty of often. If my answering postings are to be removed for just those simple reasons then this Forum is no longer the friendly fun one it has been.

For me I think that there are 2 options.
  1. People to get over themselves and allow a natural flow of thoughts and discussion to continue.
  2. Those that don't wish to allow subject wandering to place an appropriate note in the Subject Line or @expanda to create an appropriate icon to designate particular new subjects as locked to subject only.
Personally I have no problem with anything I've started wandering as the thoughts and experiences are there to jog other peoples memories. In a way I'd prefer Option 2 as then I can ignore those postings and not bother to read or reply, regardless of any valuable input I may have.

As the issues that this is all about are only some personal preferences I would have thought that the first action would have been to just have a Poll about it.
 

expanda

Site Founder
Staff member
Dec 22, 2009
3,892
1,961
113
43
Western, Sydney....
www.expandasdownunder.com
Because I'm a bit of a contrary bugger, and a lot of a grump, I will have to disagree with this change. Only a few times across a number of Forums have I seen people get upset at what is a quite normal happening of subjects wandering. In subsequent postings it is so common for other aspects or experiences to be given a mention that requiring people to start up a whole new posting could become unworkable as it all becomes disjointed. It would require links to and from other postings to be inserted and people would loose interest.

To me, censorship should remain with abusive, illegal, defamatory type issues that should be deleted and not with the many fun wanderings that happen, of which I am guilty of often. If my answering postings are to be removed for just those simple reasons then this Forum is no longer the friendly fun one it has been.

For me I think that there are 2 options.
  1. People to get over themselves and allow a natural flow of thoughts and discussion to continue.
  2. Those that don't wish to allow subject wandering to place an appropriate note in the Subject Line or @expanda to create an appropriate icon to designate particular new subjects as locked to subject only.
Personally I have no problem with anything I've started wandering as the thoughts and experiences are there to jog other peoples memories. In a way I'd prefer Option 2 as then I can ignore those postings and not bother to read or reply, regardless of any valuable input I may have.

As the issues that this is all about are only some personal preferences I would have thought that the first action would have been to just have a Poll about it.

As mentioned banter stays no change there.

Crustys big lap, morning threads are a good example and the whole off topic section.

Main difference is the recent gas thread it was one page of relative and two pages of garden path.

The net result is its difficult to find what you are looking for and this detracts from what we all should want from this site but most importantly the OP doesn't get what they wanted.

With the gas thread we didn't just remove stuff thats last resort we moved it to a new thread such as this or in some cases we will even give it its own thread so cencosrship is not what we are talking.

http://www.expandasdownunder.com/threads/banter-me-this.8518/

So to be clear banter stays we are not trashing it all we will just intervene were the banter has detracted from the intent of thread to a point that is unfair to the op and censorship is a last resort as there are other avenues like moving posts.

To be honest this is something we have been lax on checking so the only real change is we will be a little more across this than before.

I did however delete a couple of posts from this thread already and that was simply put because it poked fun at the intent of this thread so they were removed as they didn't add value to the this thread and could have sent it down the garden path we also didn't move these post as it made no sense to do so.

It's a good idea to flag a thread but we can generally tell pretty easily if the OP had intended to go down the garden path or is happy to have it in there thread and we will leave this as is.

Totally agree one million percent humour and banter has its time and place but again sometimes we need to ensure a thread serves a purpose and i would hope we all want the same thing.

So if banter grows a thread, jogs memories or what ever we will not change that but we wil just ensure that this is balanced were we have been quite lax in the past.

All good feedback but just want to be clear as what we are doing is slightly different to what you are thinking.

I am and have always been pretty open about what we do on this forum with everything and this interaction is an example of this were we are explaining ourselves and discussing it.

To me censorship would be to delete every commemt here and lock the thread so no one can reply.
 
Last edited:

expanda

Site Founder
Staff member
Dec 22, 2009
3,892
1,961
113
43
Western, Sydney....
www.expandasdownunder.com
Agreed @Meanderthals and this is not an off topic comment....i don't agree with the rule change either. I would hope this post doesn't get deleted, we should be able to discuss these changes, and we should be able to disagree with something without it being deleted.
I had one of the posts deleted that expanda refers to!

so lets be clear to members on the process... as I have experienced this rule change recently, if your post gets deleted and you are deemed as off topic you will get a Message Warning labelled as:

"Inappropriate Content"

Then the standard form goes as per below.....

Your message (Site Rules Update) contains inappropriate content. Please do not discuss content of this nature on our site. This does not follow our rules. Your message may have been removed or altered.

Your account's access may be limited based on these actions. Please keep this in mind when posting or using our site.

Not all content gets this only in cases such as what we have discussed by PM and I will not be drawing that out in public.

Some stuff gets moved, some stuff gets deleted and sometimes we take further action as we see fit.

I started this forum over 7 years ago, I have invested both personally and financially fora long time to provide a free, enjoyable and safe environment and during all that time have always done the above but the key difference is a reminder of the rules and more of a close lense to ensure we mantain a balance.

I understand you disagree but really this is nothing new just that we are now keeping an eye on it.

As an FYI we had 60 posts reported to us by other members over the last 72 hours.

We only took action on about 3% of those reports but we did take a close look at each of them.

And that is all I, the mod team and every other member wants is a closer community.
 

expanda

Site Founder
Staff member
Dec 22, 2009
3,892
1,961
113
43
Western, Sydney....
www.expandasdownunder.com
As an FYI and further you mention this is a rule change. This is not a change just a reminder.

I refer you to this which is part of the signup process and agreement box you often tick but never read.

http://www.expandasdownunder.com/help/terms

______

All Content you submit or upload may be reviewed by staff members. All Content you submit or upload may be sent to third-party verification services (including, but not limited to, spam prevention services). Do not submit any Content that you consider to be private or confidential.

We reserve the rights to remove or modify any Content submitted for any reason without explanation. Requests for Content to be removed or modified will be undertaken only at our discretion. We reserve the right to take action against any account with the Service at any time.

________
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bluey and bigcol

Meanderthals

Aka PhilD
Mar 16, 2012
837
1,356
93
Near Darwin
Okay message received by all I think, views put forward, so lets just delete this thread and get back to the normal all round fun and information forum.

I don't agree with removing this Topic at all. Why do you want more censorship?

While @expanda has the right to run his Forum with the rules he wishes, and yes by signing up we agree to those conditions, I think that it 's going too far now. I'm not advocating wholesale openness as some legal limits must be there and therefore limited censoring, but removing postings just because some OP's don't like them interfering with their Topic is for control freaks.

There has been times where I've really had to bite my tongue, so to speak, and not express true feelings about some issues as this is supposed to be a friendly Forum. Unfortunately that can result in not advising someone of safety or legal possibilities but the alternative is a likely abusive discussion. I chose to sign up after looking for a while and saw a relatively forgiving set of discussions, unlike some other Forums, but I now have doubts about what I previously thought.

While we aren't all aware of what has been complained about and by who, there was one Thread that I think might have been amongst them. The OP did seem to be getting a little annoyed about it being off Topic, but the comments chosen were in my opinion wrong and there were far better ways to have worded it in a friendly manner and brought it back in to their satisfaction. Personally I could see no issue in it and often it naturally ends back there anyway.

I object to any unilateral decision to delete any postings that are not abusive, defamatory, liable to result in legal action or such like. They were there and are a part of the discussion and in between the time of the posting, the OP getting annoyed, Moderators getting involved and possible deletion then so many people could have read it and responded that removal results in a disjointed Thread. If I wanted to follow-up on a particular comment then confusion results. Some Forums do delete/moderate comments within a posting but the posing itself still exists in that space with no loss of context. If the response had been totally on another subject then it could be moved or merged in to another Thread, but with a note left in place advising so.

It's unfortunate that apparently some deletion or other changes have already been done purely for individuals desire to control their Thread. As I wrote before they could already do that with some kind of indication when they start their Thread's. Any discussion, live or online, naturally wanders and some people should just get over it. If @expanda really wants to confirm that this type of enforcing the rules is to continue then at the same time he is welcome to delete my account as I won't need it anymore.

We'll be gone touring in a few weeks to try to lower my blood pressure, unless I see @Crusty181, but that's going off topic so should be deleted yes?
 

cruza driver

Hercules
Staff member
Nov 9, 2010
6,550
4,447
113
Mighty Victoria
All comments are taken on board with regards to all feedback and thoughts about the forum. Sometimes it may not suit every forum member and contributor to the forum who I guess we also all regard as friends, I know I do.


@expanda and the rest of the mod team didn't think this was going to open a can of worms as seems to have happened in this instance. The purpose of this thread was as a reminder of the set out forum guidelines.

Trust me there has been a lot of discussion on how to approach this and it wasn't made hastily. Unfortunately, it is not the complaints of a couple of members that has brought this issue to hand, but a build up of multiple complaints over a number of months

This thread wasn't posted by a quick over reaction it was just a friendly reminder that has taken a different turn and reaction than we thought it was going to.

I hope this helps with why this thread was started by @expanda and the mod team.

Sorry if anyone took it personally but I can honestly say that was not the intention at all. As @expanda has already posted a couple of times there will always be room for banter its human nature when people with similar interests etc have discussions about there passions.
 

Crusty181

Well-Known Member
Feb 7, 2010
6,854
13,971
113
Mentone, VIC
60 reports in 72 hours is incredible, but action on 3% speaks volumes on the types of reports that are flowing in. I feel for you guys juggling the management of the forum. Clearly theres some behind the scenes issues the rest of us, thankfully, dont have to deal with.

There has to be rules, but I would have to agree with @Meanderthals, any tinkering with posts at any level is most certainly censorship. Phil's suggestion of a post header would solve all the issues.

Members seeing their posts deleted, modified or moved would, i suspect have a massive effect on the individual anf future contributions.

My perception is that the banter is a distance secondary response to most threads, especially to most of the serious "help me" threads. The quality responces generally come in pretty quick, and the meaningful info is generally near the top.

The membership are very courteous and well intentioned, and they love to help. Their only criticism would be keeping the forum active and humming with mindless fun whilst they wait patiently for someone else to genuinely help, and the next "help me" thread

Without taking away from what you guys see and get reported, my perception is different. I see very warm and inclusive forum where welcomes for new members, are lighthearted and inviting. And thats mostly from the members that enjoy the fun side of the forum

You guys see this forum from a completely different perspective than the rest of us and to be honest, i apologise for not ever giving that much thought.

You have certainly opened a can of worms and i genuinely wish you luck managing it now that the Genie is out of the bottle. I hope it doesnt make your jobs harder.
 

bigcol

Well-Known Member
Nov 22, 2012
6,814
10,164
113
Swan Valley Perth
Trust me there has been a lot of discussion on how to approach this and it wasn't made hastily. Unfortunately, it is not the complaints of a couple of members that has brought this issue to hand, but a build up of multiple complaints over a number of months

This thread wasn't posted by a quick over reaction it was just a friendly reminder that has taken a different turn and reaction than we thought it was going to.

I cannot agree with the sentiment of this being Censorship in any fashion (be it moving / modifying / deleting a post)
as has been stated by @expanda
All Content you submit or upload may be reviewed by staff members. All Content you submit or upload may be sent to third-party verification services (including, but not limited to, spam prevention services). Do not submit any Content that you consider to be private or confidential.

We reserve the rights to remove or modify any Content submitted for any reason without explanation. Requests for Content to be removed or modified will be undertaken only at our discretion. We reserve the right to take action against any account with the Service at any time.

its a bit like speeding in a car - nearly EVERYONE has done it at some stage - no-one has NEVER been over the speed limit
reminds me of that old joke

"A cop stops a man for running a stop sign and the subject gives the cop a lot of grief explaining that he did stop.
After several minutes, the cop explained to the gentleman that he didn't stop, he just slowed down a little.
The gentleman said 'Stop or slow down, what's the difference?'.
The cop pulled the guy out of the car and starts belting him in the head with his night stick for awhile and then said,
'Would you like for me to stop or just slow down?'


rules are rules people

get over it
you yourselves know the answer to "what should I do.....................??"
 

Dobbie

Well-Known Member
Jun 18, 2014
3,061
5,872
113
Just caught up with the latest replies.

As already stated, I'm guilty of digressing but that's half the fun of this forum.

I'd be interested in the specific grumbles which prompted the moderators to intervene. They do have every right to pull people up if they sin and rules are rules.

But....what is it we have done wrong to cause the problem?
Have we ignored some at the expense of others?
Have we been rude, boorish or made fun of some?

I hope this gets sorted out as it is the only forum to which I contribute and, if I feel I can't contribute honestly without being deleted, then I won't bother.

I've enjoyed the banter and have looked forward to the interaction with the many many sensible and helpful people who contribute.

If there are some sorry souls who have to complain then I feel sorry for them.

Get a life!

If this is to be deleted I'd appreciate being notified.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.