Home › Forums › Archives › Community Center › Forum Support › What is a discussion forum?
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April 3, 2001 at 4:33 pm #8126Jeff HesterKeymaster
A discussion forum or bulletin board system such as this allows you to communicate with other people with similar interests. In some ways, it is similar to email, except instead of sending a message to a specific person or list of people, you send (or “post”) your message to the forum.
Other people who are also interested in the topic can read your message, and if they choose, they can reply. Everyone interested in the topic can read the messages and replies. For some people, that’s all they’ll ever do…just read the messages. But the people who get the most out of a discussion forum are those who participate. So don’t just sit there reading… join the dialogue!
May 23, 2001 at 11:59 am #69691rustedtightMemberthanx Jeff.
Now please explain the purpose of a moderator in this forum. Are you for census? are you for political correct comment? will you exercise your right to remove comment that does not match your belief/understanding/desires for direction of the forum?.May 23, 2001 at 4:02 pm #69690Jeff HesterKeymasterI don’t believe in censorship as a rule. I prefer to let people “own their own words.” My personal rule-of-thumb when posting a message here or anywhere else is simple: Don’t post anything that I’d be embarrassed about if my mom read it! 🙂
That being said, we do reserve the right to edit messages containing illegal or unethical content, as stated in our Terms & Conditions.
To quote the T&Cs: “We have no control over the content and can not ensure it will not be offensive or objectionable…You also agree that you will not post any copyrighted material that is not owned by yourself or the owners of these forums. In your use of these forums, you agree that you will not post any information which is vulgar, harassing, hateful, threatening, invading of others privacy, sexually oriented, or violates any laws.”
All that being said, I still don’t believe in censorship. But there are cases when it’s necessary from a legal standpoint to edit a message.
Here’s a real-world example from a discussion forum at another web site:
A user registered and “claimed” to be the CEO of a dot-com company. They then posted a message that was inflammatory and offensive. While most people realized that no self-respecting CEO would be so stupid as to make such comments in a public forum, there were many people (judging by the responses) that were fooled into thinking that this person was the real CEO.
The forum moderator was contacted and added a “disclaimer” that simply stated that the message was satire and NOT actually written by the real CEO. Had they not, I suppose the CEO could have gone after the web site with a claim of slander or defamation.
Sorry for the long-winded explanation. Simply stated, don’t do anything illegal, or try to screw anyone over!
Jeff Hester
BigBlueBall.com ModeratorEdited by – Jeff on 05/23/2001 11:04:21 AM
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