ORIGINAL: choppersrule
Attention: RCKen of RCU,
As you can see, many of the followers of the WEEEEEEEE...CP thread are very concerned with the harrasment that you are giving member, "Crashcrash". Telling him that you will remove him from RCU. We've all known Crashcrash for a long time and his knowledge base of helicopters is outstanding. All that he is doing, is helping other members, in love with this hobby.
It's ironic that all of a sudden many of our post have disappeard, with your monitoring of this site. There is alot of very good information that has been deleted. One member, has spent several weeks, reading this forum from page one.
Please re-instate ASAP.
I know it can't be because of the size of the thread. The Falcon thread is far larger.
Please take this in to your decision making,
Dave / Choppersrule
PS If you remove Crashcrash from RCU, delete me too. (Choppersrule)
I'll be more than happy to comment here on this issue.
First of all. No posts were removed from ANY thread on RCU. The server software for RCU was recently changed from displaying 25 posts per page to 30 posts page. Therefore any existing thread is going to show as having less pages than it did prior to the change. All posts from that thread are still there, but are being displayed in less pages than before because there are now more post per page.
Now the second item.
Crashcrash was never threatened with being removed from RCU, nor was he ever solicited to contribute any monies to RCU in any form or fashion. RCU has a long standing rule that any person that is involved in any form of commercial operation must identify themselves and disclose their affiliation with the commercial entity
USERNAMES & DISCLOSURE:
Only one username or account is necessary at RCU, all others will be removed. If you create a second username to act as a shill or in attempt to bypass a management ban, you will be at risk of permanent removal from RCU. A shill is defined by but not limited to the act of promoting products for vendors, products or the like, and the act of hiding behind anonymity to abuse normal membership policies and etiquette.
If you are a manufacturer, vendor, sponsored representative, retailer or the like for an r/c related company or product you must specifically identify yourself and the particular affiliation in your signature. Any member affiliated with a company not identifying themselves as such is at risk of revocation from RCU. This is identified, but not limited to a member who gains anything financially whether in cash, product, discount or the like.
Web addresses may not be used as usernames.
When contacted the only thing that we asked of crashcrash was that he comply with this rule and identify himself in his signature line. Whether he was making a profit from his product or not, he was conducting the business of selling them in the forums of RCU. This places him in the category of being a commercial entity in the eyes of RCU and he was asked to identify himself as such. When he refused to comply the administration of RCU placed him on Moderated Status until he complied with the rules of RCU. He has refused to comply with this rule. He was never required or asked to purchase advertising here on RCU. This rule is in place because there are many vendors out there that participate in the forums of RCU and RCU wants the members to know when they are talking to a vendor or commercial entity. This rules has been in place from the start of RCU.
If he were to add his affiliation to his signature line this would end. He doesn't have to purchase any advertising. He doesn't have to pay dues. He doesn't have to give one red cent to RCU. All he has to do is identify himself in his signature line.
And lastly, on the topic of Free Speech. This is from Marc Vigod who owns RCU.
ORIGINAL: RCAdmin (a.k.a. Owner of RC Universe)
Also RCU is not "free speech". It is a moderated discussion forum and we have rules everywhere to try and make this fact clear. If it was a free speech anything goes platform we would not have rules, policies or moderators and then we wouldn't need sites like rcu because we could use newsgroups. We all know how well those things turned out right? Other forums have tried the "free speech" approach and they are no longer with us while RCU's approach has survived them all and thrived so while "censorship" can be evil it is by far the lesser of the two evils when you are dealing with anonymity online it turns out. The unfortunate part about anonymity is that it removed accountability.
How about this...maybe we allow those who post their real name (verified to be accurate in some way) then we allow them to say whatever they want. If a company or person deems it to be libelous well then they can go directly after those people knowing good well who they are. Are you ready to disclose your full identity here online in exchange for a "free speech" card? Let me know.
Ken