Capn Chuck wrote:
...If this is the moderation "needed" perhaps that is why many I have been in contact with have left T&T, and these are also very experienced and knowledgeable boaters. Chuck
It all depends on what you want in a forum, regarldless of how experienced or knowledgeable a boater you are.* If T&T was totally unmoderated, it would quickly become the equivelant of a newsgroup.* In other words, picture an e-mail version of the OTDE section of this forum.*
Most of the people I am aware of who have been filtered off T&T tended to post very off-topic posts or comments that quickly steered an on-topic post in a direction totally unrelated to boating.* The classic example is guns.* A "legitimate" query to T&T about regulations applying to taking a firearm into Canada on a boat-- and these come up periodically on T&T--- almost immediately turns into a discussion on gun rights in general and then into politics with the same heated, personal posts we get here on OTDE.* Only instead of a relatively few number of posters you get hundreds.* Would you want to be receiving hundreds of post every day concerning gun rights and the politics involved?* In addition to all the other posts you'd be getting on all the other topics discussed on T&T?* If a person feels strongly about gun rights one way or the other, perhaps he or she would.* But most people aren't that interested.
Given their chosen venue, I don't blame the hosts and adminstrators of T&T for being as strict as they are.* And from the comments I see from time to time, most of the regulars on that list seem to appreciate the effort to keep the list on track.
Obviously people who want to take discussions off in different directions or use the T&T list as a soapbox for their own political, religious, social, or whatever views don't like it when they get censored or perhaps banned.* But that's not why the list was created and because of the e-mail format they chose the only way to prevent it from becoming a free-for-all on every topic under the sun is to strictly moderate it.
Our yacht club has monthly meetings and there is an agenda for that meeting.* When a discussion about some agenda item starts straying too far abroad or getting personal, the people running the meeting step in and and haul the meeting back on track.* T&T is no different.
The good news is that people don't have to subscribe to it.* If you like a free-flowing forum where participants can move a discussion any direction they want, even completely off the topic, and get as personal as they want in their criticisms and comments, then T&T is probably not something they would want to participate in.
This forum is pretty wide open but even here John has moved in on occasion and shut down a discussion he felt was straying too far afield.
*
