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Eric Rechlin · 05-09-2018, 06:54 PM

I am the primary moderator of a very popular discussion forum, not related to HP calculators, with over 75,000 members. I am fully aware that moderating is an unpaid, thankless task that subjects one to a lot of abuse from horrible people.

I know what it's like to be called a "Nazi" or "censor" or "Hitler" for deleting things that don't belong -- those are all words I have been called on multiple occasions, plus words I won't reproduce here. I know what it's like to have people stalk me and harass me, sometimes even for YEARS (!!!), because they don't like the "censorship" I'm doing as a moderator. So I am not at all "whining" just because some threads are being deleted. I fully understand the need to remove certain things.

Being a moderator is really not a fun endeavor, but it's a necessary service to the community, so somebody does have to volunteer for the job and be willing to put up with the consequences.

But the two threads in question did not justify deletion. One, which had a valuable implementation of a programming language, was removed, as best as I can tell because some moderator didn't like a particular combination of four letters in the programming language name (I can think of no other explanation, even though that in itself is a very poor explanation, because anyone who is so fragile to be offended by that has serious issues). The other had a select few people who were going on and on about things that were already resolved, but there was still a lot of great, thought-provoking discussion in there that is useful for future reference.

Sure, there are plenty of things that deserve removal. Even on comp.sys.hp48, which is officially totally unmoderated (and has survived for nearly three decades in that form!), there are control posts to delete spam, and I am 100% OK with that. But it's the complete removal of valuable threads that I am offended by.

For years I have resisted creating a "competing" forum for HP calculators on my own site, because I don't want to fragment the community, which was already fragmented too much between comp.sys.hp48 and this forum. But when those in charge of the remaining forum (since comp.sys.hp48 is nearly dead) stray away from being mostly hands-off, just handling things like spam and harassment, and start removing entire threads that are mostly good, and banning otherwise contributory users who are being a little annoying, I start to question whether I made the right decision.