Am I being censored?

The BBQ Pit
1

I tried to post in the Great Debates thread. A student was looking for arguments for an English class debate in support of negotiating with terrorists. The need was urgent. I posted, waited, re-typed, and posted again. I believe I had an excellent argument in favour of negotiation. It wasn’t my personal beliefs…it was just hypothetical discussion to help someone in a student debate.

I tried a test post in About This Message Board and it worked fine. What’s wrong? It’s too late now to help that student.

My basic argument was that a policy of non-negotiation with political terrorists is political policy interference in fundamental police policy of saving lives. Political policy does not intervene in other hostage takings and kidnappings, only in political terrorist hostage takings. Police should do whatever is necessary to save innocent lives and catch the terrorists another day. Does the political policy sacrifice innocent lives to avoid the expense and trouble of an international man-hunt?

Did I offend some editorial policy? Too politically sensitive? I know I’m on the SDMB “watch” list because of my postings in the money laundering thread.

I’m probably paranoid but it’s very strange that my two late night posts didn’t get into that thread. I think I have a pretty good idea what can and can’t be posted and if I’ve been censored for political reasons I’m going to disappear off this board so fast…

2

The thread was locked due to being a duplicate of another post in GQ, IIRC. The moderator felt that having two posts asking the same question would just confuse the issue, and directed everyone to the other thread. You probably tried to post right around the time that the thread was locked.

3

Sometimes the busier forums shut down spontaneously (it’s not a bug, it’s a random feature!). ATMB, the two Comments forums, and the Pit are not affected as often. I’m fairly sure that you weren’t being censored…as the moderator of GD was complaining (via email to all the mods) about his forum last night.

Lynn

Queen of the Pit

4

Correction, the other one was in GD.

Here: http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/001822.html

5

I don’t know if they were there earlier, but your posts are there now. If you still aren’t seeing them, try hitting “reload” while you’re viewing the thread.

…ebius sig. This is a moebius sig. This is a mo…
(sig line courtesy of WallyM7)

6

Thanks everybody. Right after I posted this I popped back to GD and there were my posts. I guess I am a little paranoid. I’m only sorry I was too late to help the kid with the English class debate…but, in the end, I guess we’re not here to do student’s work for them.

7

Actually, your posts probably showed up last night. Often, you need to hit reload to see new posts, as was mentioned.