Well Simulord, I've gotten nailed on Gamefaqs for talking about how politics have influanced games, and once for posting an obvious satirization of the Resident Evil 5 racism contreversy (at a time when it seemed people were calling EVERY game racist, and not just that one, just to get attention). Never in serious trouble though.
Simply saying that you planned to vote Conservative however does seem rather off topic.
Speaking theoretically however, I do not think that moderators should have any authority to do anything to a post that is on topic for the board at hand, no matter what it says, how it says it, or whom it may offend. I see this as part of free speech. If they create a forum dedicated to a subject that can be viewed publically (totally sealed forums being something else IMO) they should have to allow totally free discussion as long as it stays on that subject or flows a discussion on it.
I say this not because I've been banned a lot (only two places have ever banned me, neither of which had a good or fair reason, but that is other stories), or even suspended all that often (Gamefaqs is the only site that has ever suspended me, once for no fair reason, and once when I was admittedly pushing the envelope to make what I saw as a nessicary point).
My concern overall is free speech in general, and internet forums are actually only a tiny portion of it. See the idea in our country was to limit the abillity of anyone to control what anyone else wants to say (within certain VERY loose guidelines). The laws as written assumed that only the goverment would have the motivation, and abillity to actually censor the people.
However nowadays in "the information age" most communication platforms are privatly owned. The people running them have the abillity to very tightly control who gets to speak, and what they are allowed to say. This can range from someone loading a political discussion by only allowing morons to speak on the side the platform doesn't agree with, to just not allowing certain people or group the abillity to speak at all.
I have a certain issue with guys like Ted Turner, or some random forum mod, being able to control what I'm allowed to say to others due to their "private" stauts, when elected officials cannot do the same thing. I believe someone should be able to create a private platform, and keep things on subject, but should not be allowed to control the content.
I know to many his makes me a jerk, and I admit it's an extreme position (and one I haven't always held) but over the years I've come to the conclusion that private owenership rights of communication platforms have lead to incredible amounts of censorship, political bias, discrimination, and even negative effects on free expression in our culture when it comes to groups like the ESRB being able to "label" games and thus determine when and where they are sold and to whom. Makers of movies and TV shows being afraid to do what they want for fear of not being able to find a platform if they "do it right" or don't wind up retroactively inserting unneeded elements or characters to make it "politically correct" or whatever.
Truthfully, I see internet forums as being very minor in this equasion (I'm mostly concerned about larger networks and such), mostly included on theory. However when you see posts like this it simply reminds me of the greater issues.
In the end the bottom line is that if you annoy the people running a private platform they can kick you off, no matter what it was for. No court of recourse, no appeal. The goverment can't practically force a website to give you access. Guidelines are just that, not laws.
I understand why things are like that, but morally I find it wrong, and I find it mildly disturbing to even have a conversation like this.
>>>----Therumancer--->