For years Steve and I have been very tolerant regarding moderation of this forum. There have been rules but we have treated them more as guidelines and given a lot of latitude to messages that violated the rules. I've prefered not to delete content and avoid what some might consider censorship. I've preferred this "hands off" approach since I've had faith that everyone, left to their own criteria, would behave appropriately.

Recently, there has been an increase in posts lacking merit and, more recently, some very immature posts with a total lack of criteria. In all honesty, this lack of maturity and criteria bother me more than flagrant violations of the forum rules. And I've had enough. This is a technical forum not a political forum so complaints about "censorship" don't even make sense.

The following will be strictly enforced:

1. Moderation is at the moderator's discretion. Let the moderators do our jobs. Yes, sometimes there will be a topic that is not strictly on-topic and we will not close it. A recent example of that was regarding the space shuttle tragedy which, while not an 8052 topic, is so noteworthy that any group of friends is likely to comment on it. As Steve said (before the thread had to be completely deleted due to abuse): "When you have been here for as long as the regulars here, who are essentially now a great group of friends, we allow ourselves the odd digression, particularly at weekends, and for major events." This is correct. This is an 8052 forum, but it also is a community. While we don't want daily off-topic posts, an occasional thread straying from the 8052 topic may be allowed. And this is at the MODERATOR'S discretion.
   
   
2. Moderation is NOT a topic. This means that all complaints regarding the way this forum are moderated are off-topic and WILL be deleted. Likewise, messages complaining that a given message or thread is off-topic is *itself* off-topic and WILL be deleted. Messages complaining about a message being deleted will themselves be deleted. Leave moderation to the moderators. If something is inappropriate or off-topic, we'll deal with it accordingly. If no action has been taken you may assume the moderators have decided that no action is necessary. If you have any comments or complaints about the moderation, please feel free to contact me via email and I will answer. Such messages in the forum, however, will be deleted.
   
   
3. Abuse and immature posts no longer tolerated. Abuse and immature posting will no longer be tolerated. A prime example of this is the recent shuttle thread where someone from Hong Kong posted messages saying that it was good that Americans died. They have the right to their opinion and may express it in a political forum of their choice. This is not a political forum. The entire Hong Kong ISP in question has now been marked as "moderated" so all posts from that ISP must be approved by the moderators before they are visible to the public. The immaturity of one person in Hong Kong has unfortunately impacted his neighbors.
   
   
4. Real email address required. As I marked the Hong Kong ISP as "moderated" I discovered that invalid email addresses were being used. This is unacceptable. Messages that are posted using an invalid email address will be deleted. No, we aren't going to email the person in each post to see if the address is real. But if we discover an invalid email address or it is completely obvious the email address is invalid, we will delete it regardless of whether or not the message content itself was useful.
   
   
5. We aren't perfect. I'll be the first to admit that we aren't perfect at moderating. I personally try to be as fair and consistent in moderating as possible and I am sure Steve makes the same effort. But we are human and it is possible that you may perceive inconsistencies or feel unfairly treated. If this is the case, I apologize and want to be completely clear that it is not intentional. That said, any complaints about what you perceive as unfair moderating should be addressed to Steve or me via email, not in the forum.

Those of you who know me can probably tell by this post that I am upset. I am upset that I have to be more heavy-handed because of a few bad apples. I am upset that such people waste my time, Steve's time, and in fact everyone's time. But I have grown tired of being patient and tolerating these bad apples so that they don't feel discriminated against at the expense of everyone's time and a reduction of quality and usefulness of the forum itself.

The good news is that this change in attitude will not effect 99.5% of the users and, in fact, will probably benefit us all as there will be less "noise" and more signal.

Mature comments regarding this change in attitude, including those critical of this change, are welcome in THIS thread only. Immature comments, however, will be deleted.

Thanks again for your continued interest in 8052.com. I hope this forum becomes more useful and more valuable to all of us in the future.

Best regards,
Craig Steiner
8052.com Webmaster