Last night, my thread entitled “Will the last railroader ot leave the forum please turn out the lights” was locked by the moderators, and then, sometime today, quietly deleted. That’s not right. A few bad apples (schlimn and bucyrus) were allowed to provoke everyone else. When it turned ugly, instead of dealing with the troublemakers, the thread was locked. Now, to have it quietly deleted- without so much as a whisper as to why- rankles my feathers.
The thread was a serious attempt to address a problem on our forum. It was civil, on point and topical. To allow 2 posters to knowingly sidetrack it was wrong. To lock it was wrong. To delete it was even more wrong. Shame on you! If I was breaking a forum policies, let me know which one. (I wasn’t. I’m familiar with the forum policies.)
To quote Cool Hands Luke- “What we have here, is failure to communicate”.
In light of what we have been told is the new interpretation of a forum policy, I respectfully ask that, as the thread starter, I be allowed to ask that the offending posts be deleted, and the thread be reinstated on the forum. That would be the right thing to do.
ps. If challenging arbitrary decisions and anonymouse actions means that I get put on the moderated poster list, I guess that’s the price to pay for asking that a wrong be made right.
That is certainly not an accurate account of what happened. As for calling names and attempting to place the blame on others, you should know better. In fact, I was rapped on the knuckles for calling this a tempest in a teapot, but that’s the way it goes.
Yeah, yeah.yeah. Did you also notice that your post was the point where the civil discussion turned into a hissing match, and proceeded to go over the edge? Don’t believe me. Ask bucyrus. He has copies of everything in Word format. I’m sorry about your knuckles. I hope they heal soon.
I would opine that the thread was an expression of the frustration many forum members feel over repetetive threads that seem to be little more than blogs. The posters aren’t looking for comments or validation, they are espousing their opinions, and far be it from anyone else to point out foibles and fallacies in those posts.
I’m reminded of an old denizen of this forum, Futuremodal, who, as I recall, was eventually run out of town on a rail.
For those who don’t remember, Futuremodal held to the doctrine that Roadrailers and open access were going to be the saviors of North American railroading. He also managed to denigrate and offend just about everybody, and I do mean everybody (myself included), who did not subscribe to his doctrine in its entirety or point out shortcomings in his conclusions.
And I see this thread as nothing more than a complaint by a poster whose previous complaint thread was locked then mercifully put out of it’s misery. And now for the surprise that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone this complaint thread is locked.[:)]
