On topic?

**phillyd2** · August 16th, 2015, 03:59 PM

Oh, I've said the same many times too so no disagreement there. We can all see how somebody wishing a LEO harm, for example, should not be allowed. It's the not allowing that while allowing the exact same extreme comments about liberals or Obama or whatever is not popular here that has me scratching my head.

But that was not my original question anyways.

Major point was that the way things are now it opens everything up to abuse based on personal views and I think that harms us even more as it calls into question our integrity.

But since I'm obviously not the right vehicle to ask these questions since even my motives for asking are called into question I'll leave it to the rest of you figure it out. If you guys are truly interested. Maybe I'm just alone in my concerns.

**unclejumbo** · August 16th, 2015, 04:03 PM

Originally Posted by phillyd2

Major point was that the way things are now it opens everything up to abuse based on personal views and I think that harms us even more. But since I'm obviously not the right vehicle to ask these questions since even my motives for asking are called into question I'll leave it to the rest of you figure it out. If you guys are truly interested. Maybe I'm just alone in my concerns.

Since you want to make something out of nothing--here is the specific portion of the rules that I linked above that answers your question. This is not new.

This list only contains explicitly defined rules to standardize enforcement of common problems, however moderation by it's nature will require that moderators apply judgment calls to inappropriate behavior. Just because it is not explicitly listed does not mean moderators can not issue bans. We can and will enforce bans on people who engage in anti-social behavior that ruins the forum for everyone else.

This also applies in many instances:

Instigation (20 points, Expires in 1 month)
If your only purpose of posting in a thread is to rile people up and cause drama, we'd prefer you simply not post. This is very subjective, but our moderators have very good trolldars.

**esh21167** · August 16th, 2015, 04:05 PM

You think there's a lack of decorum here? Have you ever visited any other gun forums?

Some go waaayyyy past what gets shut down here. As you said, there's very little inflammatory activity here, and you're right, we're guests of the owner. That owner can do what he/she pleases. Multiple offenses could/should result in a permaban to maintain whatever atmosphere the owner wants. I think anyone with half a brain knows that this forum will be a microcosm of society, with mostly good, and a few out of hand posters.

Originally Posted by jw34

I think I already added my two cents, but let's make it four. If you reference the attached pic. You'll see that there are 135 members online, and 465 guests. So there are far more guests viewing this forum than users who post.
Now if we look at the total number of members, looks like about 67,000.
I typically see less than a dozen members who post inflammatory rhetoric in an extreme manner. Over and over again. Creating a larger quantity of inflammatory posts than most of the more objective members. The members who do this, represent less than one half of one percent of PAFOA membership. Yet they attract the most attention. (Sounds much like the few bad apples analogy). So these few PAFOA "bad apple" gather most of the spotlight, which we see is viewed by so many spectators who are not members. So now we have to think, with so many non-member lurkers, how do they view PAFOA? Is this an extreme right wing, LEO hating, paranoid militia promoting type site? Or are we an objective, Constitution loving, rights protecting bunch trying to have reasonable discussions? Who do we represent?

What image does the site owner wish to portray? We are guests in his house.

**GunLawyer001** · August 16th, 2015, 04:37 PM

Two quick points:

1 - Motives: On a forum where members routinely infer malicious motives to the mod staff, it seems questionable to become indignant when that favor is returned, and mods infer motives to members.

2 - England spent some time sending all their riffraff off to Australia, and it didn't just reduce crime, it turned England into a nation of anemic wussies. It's certainly possible to enforce so much control that the energy of the forum is killed off. That would be bad. At the same time, you can't let people with their own agenda take over a site, or even a thread. If the thread title is "question about gluing PVC pipe" and someone who hates the Pope manages to go off on a rant about the Pope in that thread, that would be something to take a look at.

If we don't stay sorta on topic in a thread, then we can just dispense with thread titles, and be like a library where every book is just titled "BOOK" and users have to look at each one to see what it's about, if anything.