Discussing The Forum Rules

[sts60]

Look, it's not OK for us to chastise Neil for bad behavior and then come out with "foaming degenerate" and "you should be called commitdd", etc.  It is inconsistent with the TOS we insist he must follow, adds nothing of value to the Apollo discussion, and in general allows conspiracists to drag he conversation through he underbrush.   It makes this board look bad.  It's rude, and while I am fully aware of what the poster in question has been doing, we don't need to do that.  Please ignore the "off-topics", which should be easier now that Mr. Baker is being moderated.

[Count Zero]

Point taken.

[bknight]

Look, it's not OK for us to chastise Neil for bad behavior and then come out with "foaming degenerate" and "you should be called commitdd", etc.  It is inconsistent with the TOS we insist he must follow, adds nothing of value to the Apollo discussion, and in general allows conspiracists to drag he conversation through he underbrush.   It makes this board look bad.  It's rude, and while I am fully aware of what the poster in question has been doing, we don't need to do that.  Please ignore the "off-topics", which should be easier now that Mr. Baker is being moderated.

Assuming he does come back.  He might feel that moderation doesn't allow him to voice the "truth".

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

So it shouldn't be a big deal to put it in the list of rules to clarify like I requested to begin with.

In other words "If I ran the world....". The problem is, you don't run the world. So you don't get to make the rules.

That's not a problem, that's a blessing.

[Echnaton]

THe best thing to do with Baker and people like Baker is ban them.  His anti-semitism has nothing to do with the purpose of the board and we should disassociate him from the board immediately.  Any delay or opportunity to let him reform will just give him more opportunity to push his shameful bigotry.  That said, I support LO in how he wants to handle it as he has a good record of managing these kinds of posters.

[Neil Baker]

I think Christopher Hitchens said it about as well as anyone. Please take the time to listen.

[LunarOrbit]

Christopher Hitchens was talking about protecting speech from government censorship. The last time I checked, I'm not the government and you haven't been imprisoned for your beliefs.

Your right to free speech only means you can't be restricted from expressing your beliefs by the government. It does not mean I am required to give you a platform to do so. I pay for this forum, and I have the same right to kick you out of my forum that I have to kick you out of my home. All you have to do is give me a reason to not like you.

As I've said before, you're free to start your own forum if you don't like how I run this one.

[bknight]

Christopher Hitchens was talking about protecting speech from government censorship. The last time I checked, I'm not the government and you haven't been imprisoned for your beliefs.

Your right to free speech only means you can't be restricted from expressing your beliefs by the government. It does not mean I am required to give you a platform to do so. I pay for this forum, and I have the same right to kick you out of my forum that I have to kick you out of my home. All you have to do is give me a reason to not like you.

As I've said before, you're free to start your own forum if you don't like how I run this one.

I think Mr. Baker does not have the capacity to equate the government censorship with personal beliefs.  You have stated the obvious as to his course of actions many times and he still doesn't get it. 

[Zakalwe]

Christopher Hitchens was talking about protecting speech from government censorship. The last time I checked, I'm not the government and you haven't been imprisoned for your beliefs.

Its more than likely that Baker considers you to be a paid shill for NASA, therefore on the gubernmint's payroll. So he will equate his moderated status with being denied his right to free speech. 

xkcd, as usual, hits the nail squarely on the head....

[Abaddon]

I think Christopher Hitchens said it about as well as anyone. Please take the time to listen.

This is a privately owned and run website. The owner is perfectly entitled to lay down whatever rules they prefer.

Your issue is not a freedom of speech issue.

Your issue is that you want to dictate which rules apply in a private venue just to suit whatever your agenda is.

It doesn't work that way. Nor can you force it to work that way.

[sts60]

I think Christopher Hitchens said it about as well as anyone. Please take the time to listen.

Other people have pointed out your fundamental mistake here.  I just have one thing to add: 

Quit whining.

And since you first came on here claiming you had evidence Apollo was faked, and trying to argue from some sort of engineering authority, only to reveal your ignorance of and incompetence in the topic - a violation of guidelines you brought up - let me also add:

Don't be such a hypocrite.

[Jason Thompson]

Oh, how predictable.

'Wah, my free speech is being oppressed, waaahhh'

Neil, go and learn what 'free speech' actually means before you spout of crap about censorship.

[JayUtah]

Most of the people who whine about censorship don't know the difference between censorship and editorship.  Censorship, which is what Hitchens described, is when the government (i.e. Austria) uses its force to compel you not to say a certain thing anytime, anywhere.  It effectively says, "This alternative idea is not permitted anywhere within the country," under penalty of loss of liberty and property.

Editorship is simply the management of one single organ of communication, for purposes that may include (but are not limited to) disapprobation of an idea.  An editor is not a censor anymore than a being ejected from a restaurant by its manager is equivalent to forcing you to starve.  Your use of someone else's edited resource to facilitate your speech is a tacit agreement to the terms by which that facilitation is offered.  If you do not agree to the terms, then you are quite free to find some other means of expression, or to create your own.  An editor who disallows discussion of the Holocaust on her gardening blog is not running afoul of the First Amendment in the least bit, nor in any way standing upon morally shaky ground.

[Luke Pemberton]

Please take the time to listen.

Really? Why should I listen to you? You refused to answer a multitude of questions here, sticking your fingers in your ears and ignoring anything that was posited to demonstrate your technical expertise.

[Kiwi]

Please, people, keep discussions on topic -- don't derail threads, and do start new threads for new topics.  LunarOrbit doesn't particularly like asking adults to behave like adults, so read Rule Number 2.
http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?topic=18.msg120#msg120

2. Posting New Topics

Ensure a topic doesn't already exist before starting a new one. Multiple threads about the same topic can create confusion.

Try not to spread discussions from one thread into another, and don't take a thread off topic...

One particularly good thing about this forum is that discussions have so often stayed on topic and people have started new threads as soon as someone changes the topic. Unfortunately some of our newer members are not doing this. Recently a thread was derailed into a discussion of Daleks, which had nothing to do with the topic, and even some of our longer-term members contributed to that. Another thread about high-resolution Apollo photos has wandered into a discussion about Jack Schmitt and Jack White.

In the past, it has mostly been hoax-believers who derail their own threads.