So how come you deleted my “porn” post from the GQ section? Really Im interested to hear your justification.
The post had nothing to with the subject of pornography beyond the title. It was more of a social experiment. Are you frightened of a word?
Have we become so Stalinist that we are afraid of discussing things? Your first instinct is to delete when it comes to something that makes you feel slightly uncomfortable?
That post may have lead to an interesting discussion concerning human nature but instead you have turned it into a thread concerning freedom of speech.
I suppose I’ll explain, because everyone else is tired of seeing this thing over and over and over…
You can’t start a thread and make the subject something that will lead people to believe the thread will be about something that it isn’t. If you start a thread entitled “Hot Nasty Ass-Sex,” it better damn well be about ass-sex. No one wants to get all fired up for ass-sex only to find out someone is conducting a stupid experiment and there is no ass-sex after all. That is called trolling. Trolling = bad.
I’m sure there are many ways to find out how obsessed with sex our culture is. Faking out the Teeming Millions is not a good one. But to start a thread to see how many views it gets? Who cares, really. There is no prize for most views; I am willing to bet that most people don’t even notice how many views a particular thread gets.
Please don’t start anymore threads like your porn one. It pisses off the Admins, Mods, and Dopers, and won’t earn you a good reputation.
So, wait, Coldfire deleted your thread? Isn’t he the Stalinist mod? I get confused.
I didn’t see your thread, so I can’t comment on its appropriateness or lack thereof. I can only tell you what’s been said before. The SDMB is the Chicago Reader’s world…the rest of us just live in it, and moderators can delete whatever they want. If you have a problem with a specific moderator decision, take it to e-mail, and I’m sure that whoever deleted your thread would be glad to explain why.
In my limited experience, threads started like this usually don’t serve any constructive purpose and just lead to a screaming match and end up with Lynn or Tuba taking you out to the woodshed for a licking. While I realize with that last sentence I’ve probably turned on half the dopers, it really isn’t as much fun as it sounds.
Bullshit. You wanted attention. You wanted people to jump around and say, “Teehee, teehee, he said ‘boobies!’” Getting a little antsy about school starting again, are we?
Additionally, we once had another poster who delighted in “social experiments”. He’s since been banned. Repeatedly.
The problem there is that quite clearly people can, and do–f’r’instance, a couple post-parties lately in MPSIMS. Of course, that’s far more innocuous than doing so in GQ, and has thus far been done in a much less knob-intensive manner than the complaint here.
We do not allow people to “experiment” on the Straight Dope Message Board, other than some mild experimenting with vBulletin coding in the ATMB forum. This includes running scripts, hacks, etc. on the board or server itself. Do not run experiments on the Straight Dope Message Board, unless the Administration asks you to.
WARNING!**
If you try something like this again, your posting privileges will be in jeopardy. WARNING!**
And one more time, for those of you who were out burning ants behind school with a magnifying glass when the rest of us were learning about Civics.
Your speech is protected from suppression by the government. That means you can’t start screaming about your rights when your mommy tells you to stop saying “shut up” to your little sister. You can’t start whining about oppression when they throw you out of the video arcade for hollering “fuck” when you lose. And you can’t start squawking about freedom of speech when moderators at the Straight Dope Message Board close your goddamn thread.
One day, the world will be ruled by the SDMB moderators. Then, perhaps, governmental protections can be invoked. In the interim, shut the fuck up about free speech until you know what you’re talking about.
–Cranky, feeling very cranky about the b.s. “free speech” rants roaming the internet these days
P.S. In case you didn’t get it the first time, my telling you to put a cork in it is not a violation of your free speech protection. Cuz see, I’m a person, not a governmental entity. Get it?
To those people blindly hurling the “troll” word around I would say this:
That which you do not understand, you fear;
That which you fear, you label;
That which you label, you contain;
That which you contain, you control.
I agree that certain posts should be deleted for example those that contain personal insults (which incidentally would include a number of those posts in this very thread).
However posts which merely put forward new ideas for consideration should not be deleted, they should be encouraged. All the better if those posts do so in an unconventional or humorous way.
These terms must appear on Page 1 of Being an Internet Pariah for Dummies. Here’s an idea: get a goddamn dictionary and look up these terms. Learn something. You want to discuss human nature? Post a topic discussing it. Do you really need an experiment to reach the conclusion that sex gets peoples attention? Idea number two: go look up some existing studies. Learn something.