Censorship
Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2015 9:31 am
So yesterday cprince suggested that if people were passionate about subjects not pertaining to the thread being posted in, to start a new one. So that's exactly what I'll do.
Let me preface this by saying that I've been a member of FH for less than a year, and in that short period of time this has become my most visited web page in my browser. Im consistently blown away by the quality of the discussion here, the exchange of different viewpoints, and great reports that so many contribute. From what I've seen in this short time from RJ, it's obvious that he's a true ambassador for the sport. With that in mind, I don't want to contribute to the "BS" that he has to deal with on FH, but I truly feel that this is an important topic.
This is where yesterday's exchange comes in. I'll do my best to quickly describe it, as most of the comments have since been deleted. On a report showcasing a monster of an Ottawa river musky, the question of release and stressed fish (red tail) was brought up, with the OP responding that the fish was indeed released and swam away. At this point, our moderator responded with what I thought was a pretty heavy-handed comment asking why we're even talking about release, and defending OP's right to do whatever he wants within legal bounds with his fish, including having a musky and sturgeon bbq in QC. He accused the commenter of crapping on the report. Another user responded with, again in my opinion, a pretty reasonable response saying that talking about fish mortality is a good thing for the sport, and that there's plenty of room for people who eat most of their catches, those who practice full C & R, and everyone in between.
This is where things went south. Our moderator's response to that comment was something along the lines of "Thanks for your input, but NO." He went on to say that we have NO RIGHT to comment on someone's report asking about fish mortality or whether they kept their fish. He also went on to say that this type of commenting dissuades people from posting reports. I wish I had the full text of the comments, because this doesn't even being to describe the aggressive posting of the moderator, which has since been deleted along with other comments in the post. Including mine in response to being told we have NO RIGHT to comment on fish mortality. I asked the simple question, "this is a public forum, no?". That comment was deleted, so I sent cprince a very simple PM asking why it was deleted, and if I had violated site rules. That PM has since been deleted from my outbox and sent messages!
The reason I'm taking the time to post this, besides being a little miffed about perfectly reasonable comments being deleted, is because it's highly reminiscent of a site not so dissimilar to FH that I was involved with a few years back. It wasn't fishing related, but it was a forum for an up and coming sport that was quickly gaining readership and tons of members. There was a competitor's site as well, and the two were very different in how they were run. One site had very open rules about commenting, and promoted free speech provided it didn't cross the line in to outright disrespect and name-calling. The other site had very strict mods and would delete comments and ban users pretty regularly. Can you guess which site had the best discussion, open debate and the most active user base? It wasn't even a question.
I completely agree that FH should be a family friendly place, and that there's no room for disrespecting people here. 99% of the discussion I see on FH seems to fall within these bounds. If the other 1% warrants deleting comments or banning users, I'm fine with that. But what happened yesterday was a mod simply didn't agree with the opinions being expressed in a thread, and he used his position to censor those views. That's the type of behaviour that dissuades me from posting a report here, not the behaviour of the users.
Let me preface this by saying that I've been a member of FH for less than a year, and in that short period of time this has become my most visited web page in my browser. Im consistently blown away by the quality of the discussion here, the exchange of different viewpoints, and great reports that so many contribute. From what I've seen in this short time from RJ, it's obvious that he's a true ambassador for the sport. With that in mind, I don't want to contribute to the "BS" that he has to deal with on FH, but I truly feel that this is an important topic.
This is where yesterday's exchange comes in. I'll do my best to quickly describe it, as most of the comments have since been deleted. On a report showcasing a monster of an Ottawa river musky, the question of release and stressed fish (red tail) was brought up, with the OP responding that the fish was indeed released and swam away. At this point, our moderator responded with what I thought was a pretty heavy-handed comment asking why we're even talking about release, and defending OP's right to do whatever he wants within legal bounds with his fish, including having a musky and sturgeon bbq in QC. He accused the commenter of crapping on the report. Another user responded with, again in my opinion, a pretty reasonable response saying that talking about fish mortality is a good thing for the sport, and that there's plenty of room for people who eat most of their catches, those who practice full C & R, and everyone in between.
This is where things went south. Our moderator's response to that comment was something along the lines of "Thanks for your input, but NO." He went on to say that we have NO RIGHT to comment on someone's report asking about fish mortality or whether they kept their fish. He also went on to say that this type of commenting dissuades people from posting reports. I wish I had the full text of the comments, because this doesn't even being to describe the aggressive posting of the moderator, which has since been deleted along with other comments in the post. Including mine in response to being told we have NO RIGHT to comment on fish mortality. I asked the simple question, "this is a public forum, no?". That comment was deleted, so I sent cprince a very simple PM asking why it was deleted, and if I had violated site rules. That PM has since been deleted from my outbox and sent messages!
The reason I'm taking the time to post this, besides being a little miffed about perfectly reasonable comments being deleted, is because it's highly reminiscent of a site not so dissimilar to FH that I was involved with a few years back. It wasn't fishing related, but it was a forum for an up and coming sport that was quickly gaining readership and tons of members. There was a competitor's site as well, and the two were very different in how they were run. One site had very open rules about commenting, and promoted free speech provided it didn't cross the line in to outright disrespect and name-calling. The other site had very strict mods and would delete comments and ban users pretty regularly. Can you guess which site had the best discussion, open debate and the most active user base? It wasn't even a question.
I completely agree that FH should be a family friendly place, and that there's no room for disrespecting people here. 99% of the discussion I see on FH seems to fall within these bounds. If the other 1% warrants deleting comments or banning users, I'm fine with that. But what happened yesterday was a mod simply didn't agree with the opinions being expressed in a thread, and he used his position to censor those views. That's the type of behaviour that dissuades me from posting a report here, not the behaviour of the users.