Censorship on motion 4

[Andrew McHarg]

Andrew (McHarg), whilst i may agree with your sentiments, your actions smack of censorship. Not only do you deny everyone freedom of speech and right of reply on that thread; you also did not allow anyone to comment on your actions. I believe that you genuinely feel that you are doing the right thing but it is leaving you personally open to claims of abuse of power.

Censorship to some degree is always going to happen in situations where moderation is required (moderation is - to a degree - censorship). I tend to leave the topics to take their own paths but that previous one got completely out of hand. It makes a complete mockery of Chess Scotland if outsiders come and view our forum and find everyone launching scathing insults at each other. People had plenty of opportunities to post on that topic, and I did state in it that the personal insults need to stop - which they didn't. I also do not believe that I denied anyone their right to comment on my actions, you're commenting on them right now are you not?

I also fail to see how anyone could claim my actions to be an abuse of power. It comes to the point where someone needs to put the foot down and decide when enough is enough. I'm not preventing anyone from discussing motion 4, and indeed if you want to start another topic to discuss it then feel free. I wasn't about to go through the previous topic and start editing out all the nonsense. It became more like a text vesion of the Jerry Springer Show than anything else. Instead of singling people out and probably creating further animosity, the obvious answer was to bin the topic and start again afresh.