It was clearly labelled that is what is what would happen. Nothing fishy.

That's not very fair. In particular when several responses were honest and not distasteful in any way. For the record, I have nothing against the man at all. But if posts are deleted because you aren't sucking up to his letter. Yeah, I have a problem with that ! The letter written by PB is all business. End of story.

Bistchen said:

No hate speech in any of that thread.

Carry on

Indeed. Wasn't passing judgment on any comments in the PB thread - I think I saw your comment and it was fine - just mildly critical, but as Brett said, it was clearly spelled out at the top by Chris that the thread would be heavily moderated. It's important to remember that while this board has a clubhouse feel, the front office do read what's here. waves

It's just a pet peeve of mine that people assume Canada has "freedom of speech," which is caused by our import of American pop culture. Even if speech is "free" you end up paying for it somehow... Just look at the birthers, tea party, KKK and climate change deniers and other such organizations in our friendly neighbours to the south. We here in Canada are rapidly losing the tone of our public discourse to similar elements in our own back yard, and I think it is incumbent on all of us to resist it.

This is probably not the appropriate place for this particular soap box rant, however, so I'll leave well enough alone.

Is this a troll?

I say delete this thread just to be hilarious.

There are other more appropriate threads to slag Barber.

There are already enough other threads dedicated to the bashing of TS, PB and others. I felt the letter was sincere and that it was a nice parting gesture. Mods closed the thread. Sorry you feel violated.

The thread was about his letter and not about him. Comments should've been about the letter the man wrote and not about the man who wrote the letter.

Here is OldFan's take......

This letter from Barber was intended to mend fences and leave his post on a positive note. I think in that specific instance, it is not the right thread to rip him a new asshole. I made one post to that effect which did stay there. When someone extends their hand to shake yours, sometimes it is better to just shake it instead of spitting on it. In my case, I railed on him for months and months. No benefit to ripping him in a thread where he was trying to leave the club with some positive energy.

I posted one reply to Morbital's post, which did get removed. I see no problem with it in this instance.

Bingo

I didn't have to share and post Pauls' email as it was sent to myself & piltdownman. But I decided to as a courtesy to the group.

I didn't see the negative comments, but I am glad a moderator did, as I clearly stated that in that one thread I didn't want to see bashing. Paul was holding out an olive branch and I took it, much like extending a handshake.

Had I ignored the email and not posted it, what good would that have done us as a group?

Our aim is to grow and continue to be the biggest Supporters Club in Canada, and at the same time to have fun.

That's what I signed up for.

Chris,

I think what you wanted to achieve could have been done by simply posting the letter, and not allowing ANY comments. Anyone who wanted to comment on it one way or the other could have sent Paul an email. Any time you only permit one side of a discussion to happen you're gonna piss off the other side.

Thanks again to you and all the moderators for your thankless and unpaid work on the forums.

BG

I find the best way to test out a football forum for quality of moderation -or excess thereof- is to start a thread about Scunthorpe.

EDIT: See? ^ We've got a good one.

Subhedgehog said:

Bistchen said:

No hate speech in any of that thread.

Carry on

Indeed. Wasn't passing judgment on any comments in the PB thread - I think I saw your comment and it was fine - just mildly critical, but as Brett said, it was clearly spelled out at the top by Chris that the thread would be heavily moderated. It's important to remember that while this board has a clubhouse feel, the front office do read what's here. waves

It's just a pet peeve of mine that people assume Canada has "freedom of speech," which is caused by our import of American pop culture. Even if speech is "free" you end up paying for it somehow... Just look at the birthers, tea party, KKK and climate change deniers and other such organizations in our friendly neighbours to the south. We here in Canada are rapidly losing the tone of our public discourse to similar elements in our own back yard, and I think it is incumbent on all of us to resist it.

This is probably not the appropriate place for this particular soap box rant, however, so I'll leave well enough alone.

First, Bistchen has plenty of other threads in which to post criticism of Paul Barber. It didn't need to be done in a thank you thread. So, no issue there.

But, Subhedgehog's broader point ... see Sect. 2(b) of the Charter, "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression ..." That's actually a broader statement of freedom than what's in the US Bill of Rights, although it gets tempered by the "reasonable limits" clause in Sect. 1. To claim "freedom of speech" is an import of American pop culture simply doesn't wash.

Most people who cry "free speech" are usually ignorant about what this actually means. All societies limit speech and other human interactions in a thousand different ways, because that's one of the prices we have to pay to get along with each other. I can't sacrifice a goat in the middle of a street intersection, you can't let your kid take your porn collection to kindergarten for show-and-tell, etc. Nobody has limitless "freedom" because such a thing inevitably collides with the "freedoms" that other people also want to enjoy.

Ok, this is getting frustrating.

I have nothing against Barber. This is more a matter of getting posts deleted. And this has happened to me several times in the past.

And for the umpteeth time. This is about non-negative comments being deleted.

Someone explained this situation to me this way:

Does a newspaper publish every "letter to the editor"?

Lord_Bob said:

SAFC_Yank said:

Subhedgehog said:

Bistchen said:

No hate speech in any of that thread.

Carry on

Indeed. Wasn't passing judgment on any comments in the PB thread - I think I saw your comment and it was fine - just mildly critical, but as Brett said, it was clearly spelled out at the top by Chris that the thread would be heavily moderated. It's important to remember that while this board has a clubhouse feel, the front office do read what's here. waves

It's just a pet peeve of mine that people assume Canada has "freedom of speech," which is caused by our import of American pop culture. Even if speech is "free" you end up paying for it somehow... Just look at the birthers, tea party, KKK and climate change deniers and other such organizations in our friendly neighbours to the south. We here in Canada are rapidly losing the tone of our public discourse to similar elements in our own back yard, and I think it is incumbent on all of us to resist it.

This is probably not the appropriate place for this particular soap box rant, however, so I'll leave well enough alone.

First, Bistchen has plenty of other threads in which to post criticism of Paul Barber. It didn't need to be done in a thank you thread. So, no issue there.

But, Subhedgehog's broader point ... see Sect. 2(b) of the Charter, "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression ..." That's actually a broader statement of freedom than what's in the US Bill of Rights, although it gets tempered by the "reasonable limits" clause in Sect. 1. To claim "freedom of speech" is an import of American pop culture simply doesn't wash.

Remember that Canada's Constitution is both written and unwritten, and like the United States we have a massive amount of jurisprudence which affects how every law ought to be read.

In practical terms, the governments have been found able to place relatively heavy restrictions on speech and expression; there are limits but it's far more frequent for laws attempting to limit speech to be upheld than to be overthrown.

True, using the "reasonable limits" in Sect. 1, the Court has put tighter restrictions on speech than the US, the Keegstra and Zundel cases being a good example of that. But even if subject to "reasonable limits", it is still "freedom of speech (or expression)" and is a fundamental freedom in any free and democratic society (and yes, I intentionally use Charter phrasing there). To pass it off as an artifact of American pop culture is false.

By the way, even using principles of US law, Bistchen's freedom of speech isn't unduly violated by having the post deleted - the US courts have recognized "time, place and manner" restrictions as acceptable. Given he could post the same comment in a different thread, or on another board, that would apply, if in fact this were a government restricting his speech rather than a private organization.

Subhedgehog said:

SAFC_Yank said:

But, Subhedgehog's broader point ... see Sect. 2(b) of the Charter, "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression ..." That's actually a broader statement of freedom than what's in the US Bill of Rights, although it gets tempered by the "reasonable limits" clause in Sect. 1. To claim "freedom of speech" is an import of American pop culture simply doesn't wash.

As you say, it's a broader statement that is tempered specifically by any law that fits the loose definition of "reasonable limits". There is also a mention of a "free and democratic society", concepts which are nebulous at the best of times. This is a broad definition that can be subjected to such a semantic contortion as to allow a government to disallow through law more or less anything. Specifically, there are rules as to what you can say and do in public (or publish, or broadcast, or anything that can be covered by the term 'expression'), governed by local, provincial and federal laws that explicitly override that granted freedom. Things that encroach on religion are probably the thorniest topics to approach with the intention of creating law, but there are innumerable (actually, probably pretty numerable if you have the desire to digest all legal codes in Canada) ways in which 'expression' is curtailed.

For example: having to obtain a permit in order to stage a protest within Vancouver city limits. As we saw with the Occupy Vancouver protest, the will to enforce these laws immediately and ruthlessly might not be there, but it is very important to note that the OV protest was illegal as soon as they built a structure of any sort, due to local city bylaw.

The key to this discussion is actually that for the most part, "freedom of speech" is an expression that stands in for a very poor understanding of a set of rights, assumed inalienable, granted to citizens in the USA. This expression is even more poorly understood elsewhere (particularly in places where US popular culture dominates, such as Canada). Once you actually start looking into the specifics (like we are starting to), you find that inalienable rights are few and far between, and you are "entitled" to very little.

There are parts of this I could nitpik, but fair enough, I have a better sense of what you meant.

OldFan said: This has turned into quite the thread!

Time to close it... :P

Canadianspur said:

OldFan said: This has turned into quite the thread!

Time to close it... :P

I second that motion L-)

So, no need to personally email (although please do if you want to), since we are airing this grievance publically, I'll weigh in here.

This is absolutely not a forum where anything goes. It's a moderated forum, and posting here runs the risk that your thoughts will be moderated. That said, if you feel that you are being unfairly, or maliciously censored, please let me know, and I will be happy to get to the bottom of it.

In regards to the thread at hand, I did not see all of the posts that were culled, but I did see the huge warning at the top stating that it would be heavily moderated, and there was to be no pot stirring. If people felt the need to stir the pot, there are many other threads on this board where that was appropriate, and there is not much else to be said about it.