I agree with the proposed statement by the judge. Moderate by choice is sanction, and this is not free mobility on the net, but costing to drive on the information superhighway, by one opinion to either allow you, access or not. The internet should serve the purpose of the community and anyone who chose to engage. Free enterprising system without so many checks and balances.

Hi my dear Pauline,
I hope I am not too late!

As an operator of a non-moderated forum, I have got to contain with a lot of unwanted and embarrasing posts. However, these cannot be overruled when it comes to community forum. The important thing is to cut out a niche for your forum and try to stick to your own rules and regulations. This will add some air of respect to your forum such that the spammer or unwanted poster will think twice before posting in your forum.

The other point is keeping a constant watch on your forum. Without making your forum a moderated one, you can still from time to time weed out those spamming and unwanted posts, but you have to be there always and make sure you have the right people as your forum members.

I'll say it's just a matter of choice whether Moderated or Unmoderated, but it is worth noting here that from experience, most community members would rather love to see the display of their posts immediately instead of having to wait for hours or even days before such posts are checked by the moderator and found acceptable before posting.

Thanks for your great job & take care!

Greetings Pauline and Friends

     I don't recall getting a notification to this forum but, I may have accidently deleted it. I try to at least look at notifications before I delete them but I must admitt, sometimes I just delete a page or two without looking. Especially if I have already spent a lot of time sorting the spam from the valid messages.

    With regard to moderating forums, I despise the pratice. I have seen the delete button used for many purposes other than to eliminate spam or abusive comments. So, I won't bother to comment any further on this.

    However, I would like to say this. We have had discussions like this many times before. It is always nice to hear everyones opinions but the problems never seem to diminish. In fact, the problem of spam continues to get worse here on a daily basis. What I see happening is that when we use the delete button to either eliminate an abusive post or to eliminate spam, we actually compound the problem. We drove the abusers out of a forum and into the other areas of the community where they are welcomed even less. Places like the friend invitations, other forums and even the beloved photo galleries. Also, deleting someones post seems to encourage them to go to your profile page and retaliate with a poor rating and more ugly comments.

    At one time we had such a problem here that we created a committee to help us solve these problems. Unfortunately though, there was so little understanding of the true purpose and authority of the committee that it too was preceived as a problem. Committee members were being accused of making decisions based on personal agendas and bias. It never really became well known that the committee actually had no authority to make any decisions at all. The committee only researched complaints and presented their findings to Bogdan. Bogdan was solely responsible for all decisions regarding what action to take in each and every case.

     Anyhow, here we are. Several months later. No more committee. Several more discussion forums on the topic and thousands of deleted posts and notifications and the problem has only gotten bigger.

    I no longer delete right away. I never moderate my forums. I started a new forum where I copy and paste the objectionable messages I receive along with the name of the sender. This way I can help people get their message across. If someone chooses to promote themselves as a spammer, I now let everyone know who they are. If someone chooses to be abusive and disrespectful, I let people know. I believe in equal rights and freedom of speech. If someone has a valuable message I will help them get that message out. If someone wants to be a jerk, I will help them be the best jerk they can be.

I Miss Adlandpro, Don't You?

http://community.adlandpro.com/forums/thread/1019221.aspx

May a smile follow you to sleep each night

    and be there waiting,,,,,,when you awaken.

Sincerely, Billdaddy

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Hi Lorraine,

thanks for sharing your thoughts, I think spammers are clever most of the time, but play dumb LOL  they look for the most active forums to spam, and it can be very irritating, look whats happening at our photo gallery !!

Oh well, as I've said earlier this is the www, and  we've got to deal with this all the best way we can.

Thanks again. n have a great day

Pauline R

Thanks Jim, Georgios,

I think we've just educated a spammer here !!!  LOL

take care n God bless

Pauline R