Posted on 06/25/2009 12:41:23 AM PDT by ThePythonicCow
Good-bye.
A few months ago, I posted some information on bank financial strength. The post was a complex table and it took me sometime to make the post. Not long after, I forget but perhaps 10 or 20 minutes, the post disappeared. Figuring I made a mistake, I posted it again. This time I was pretty sure I posted it correctly. It disappeared within a few minutes. To verify that this was what was happening, I posted a third time. It again disappeared immediately.
I never received any feedback from FreeRepublic on this matter.
It annoyed me, but since I have always trusted FR, and since I have so far as I know maintained a sterling reputation here as a well behaved citizen for the eight or ten years I've been here, I shook my head in confusion and forgot that incident.
Just tonight I posted a more controversial post involving 9/11. It disappeared within minutes (after I had verified that the post succeeded).
Again, no notice public or private, before or after the fact. Just poof.
Good-bye.
I will cancel future monthly FR donations and leave. I cannot support a political discussion and news site which makes seriously intended posts by long standing contributors of good standing just disappear without notice, public or private, before or after.
The SanityIsland.us site, with some Daily Dose images, will remain around likely for one year, then go away without further notice. I may be reached via email at pj@usa.net (yes, I have excellent spam filters.)
Sites have a right to do as they please, but also a responsibility to stand up for the actions they take, at least involving participants acting in good faith. FR apparently is failing to honor this responsibility.
I would ask that in the future removals of posts made in good faith by members in good standing at least be recognized in private messages to the poster after the fact, stating the approximate cause for removal. Even a 'boilerplate' explanation would be better than nothing.
I wish this fine community and the good people here well. This nation is in dire need of honest reporting and discussion.

Where was the article from? Maybe it was from a URL that was not allowed.
2:41AM
Not exactly a high traffic time for FR.
I, for one, am not happy to see you go. There seem to be fewer and fewer readily-recognized handles left these days.
This is all news to me. Anyone know anything?
If that is a URL that is not allowed, that is understandable. It is not a conservative web site by any stretch. Indeed, my post itself was one I realized might not be acceptable at FR, and I warned in the body of my post that readers should be skeptical.
I do not have any particular beef with the removal itself.
The complete lack of feedback as to the removal of the post, after it had been successfully posted is not something I condone. I believe my post was actually replied to once, as I saw my New posts to you indicator light up a few minutes after posting, but then that new post, and my post, were gone.
If it was a "bad" URL, FR should say so.
If you want to see for yourself google: 9/11 FEMA videographer at Ground Zero goes public
poof might be the problem...
Hmmm ... guess I'd better remove my FreeRepublic.com bumper sticker as well. Yes, I have one.
Agreed.
Your posting problems are probably just a bug.
But you shoulda told me. You can be blunt, you can do so after the fact, without further discussion or recourse. Just a private message saying "pulled - garbage" would have been sufficient.
I am not a mod. I happened to click on it and it was already pulled with the reason stated. I was curious so I googled the title. You have been here long enough that you should know that that kind of crap is not allowed.
If that were the case, a message would have appeared just after he hit the "post" button, saying that this website does not permit it's contents to be disseminated on FR or any place without previous permission from them. At other times, FR will refuse to post articles from certain websites they deem unreliable.
Hello—I must be going....
You’ve not had any threads pulled this eve that I can find.
Please advise as to what the thread title was, then I will find any record of it being pulled, who pulled it and why.
And my views on 9/11 have diverged from FR. Which may be another good reason why it is time the FR and I went our separate ways. That I no longer instinctively found the article to be garbage is a good clue that I have diverged from the direction of this forum.
Can you give the URL to the article that was not permitted to be posted on FR?
Did you FReeper-mail the mods to ask why?
Sleep on it. Come back fighting liberals after you’ve gotten some rest.
And so it begins.
The title (thanks MARTIAL MONK for capturing it) was "9/11 FEMA videographer at Ground Zero goes public". The site was silviacattori.net.
But my request stands. The mods should at a minimum send out a canned private message when a member in good standing has a thread pulled, so that the user knows it was a deliberate pull, not a computer glitch or even a failure to even complete the post correctly.
It would have been right around midnight (mountain) because it was first in my IE history for today.
It does seem like an odd circumstance. Perhaps the Mod was being cranky?
One of the best things about FR is the willingness to allow discussion of various viewpoints. Those who want to enforce orthodoxy beyond the unalterable conservative values are actually the problem with conservatism, not the solution.
As John Locke - one of the core conservative philosophers - was clear to point out, ideas both good and bad should be debated. If an idea is truly bad, the debate will expose it. If it is surpressed it will be impossible to rebut in a manner that will be convincing. It is a basic first amendmant tenant.
Those who wish to stifle debate are America’s Taliban on the left and right with the same tactics and same goals.
I really wish you would stay.
cowhide may not be tough enough but you dont really have to go. After all, if you have fun here, maybe it has something to do with the editing (which is the very reason why you want to go)
I kinda like it, it adds to the drama.
Dat’s it. Dat’s what I saw.
Sounds reasonable, but I don't know how much additional work that would entail for the mods.
This reminds me of the Bill Cosby joke about how parents are not interested in justice, they just want quiet. Sounds like that is the philosophy of some mods, too.
I hope you change your mind.
Well said.
But even given that, any veteran here will tell you there are certain subjects/opinions that do not get a good welcome here.
I know for a fact that not all FReepers agree with the official conclusions about 9/11. There are some questions that need asking.
But it is totally up to Jim and the staff whether this is the place to ask them. I can definitely understand not wanting to turn this place in to a 9/11 debating site.
But forum admins should take responsibility for their actions. They don't have to debate them or put them up for votes or even engage in public discussion of particular details.
But silently nuking a message from a user who has over 7000 prior posts over almost nine years, all taken without such problems, is unhealthy for a forum.
Hopefully everyone can clear this up. Don’t need to lose a long time member like yourself.
Keep posting, many will keep reading.
not even good hogwash, and I am usually amused by good hogwash and slick conspiracy theories, but this one is pretty weak
As MARTIAL MONK reported above, if you managed to find an old link to the now dead post and clicked on that link, you get a message stating it was pulled, and (usually) a word or two stating why.
If that message had also been automatically privately messaged to me, as the thread poster, I would have been a happier camper.
And those are?
I read it a few days ago. A few interesting tidbits but no real smoking gun.
I have been away from FreeRepublic more this last year, and had drifted away from the FR position on 9/11 further than I realized. A "post pulled - garbage" message would have been sufficient reminder to me that I was outside what FR chooses to accept.
See ya . . . er . . .
no yitbos
So the Moderator did give a reason on that page (which will remain on the web forever).
The reason a thread is pulled is usually posted at the top of the thread when the the thread is reopened.
The decision of the moderator was agreed to by several others who looked at the content at the time.
Sorry that you are considering leaving. I'd say that you owe yourself the opportunity to communicate with the mods... it is easy you know - and learn why users and mods here have little tolerance for those that spin lies about what happened on 9/11.
NOTE - I personally did not review the post, but I have implicit trust in the people who did.
Good read. We don’t need to be the taliban on this site.
So by my counting, this post tonight is my first and only strike in 7000 turns at bat, not to mention other forms of substantial contribution to FR fund drives and the Daily Dose column. If that had gotten an immediate ZOT, then that's not good in my view at all.
Speak for yourself.
Please post it again.
Me too. Pure BS.
The guy is fighting extradition from Argentina for killing his wife. He is using his photo work for FEMA at the 9-11 site to say the government is out to get him.
The other problem may have been the article title stated “9/11 FEMA videographer at Ground Zero goes public”.
He did not just go public....he was spouting this exact nonsense 2 years ago according to this article:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5555425,00.html
1/7,000?
You’re batting nearly 1,000%.
You must be using a corked bat.
What about that earlier bank-info table you put up? Was it sourced? Linked? Explained?
If it were put up during a time when people were understandably nervous about bank runs, and there were no sourcing, then perhaps a mod got antsy about it, since in later discussion it would always be attributed to "Free Republic".
Get with the Mod about that earlier table and see if he can run down what happened to that, too, since it was obviously a real issue for you, both the subject matter (since you did some work on it) and the handling of it by the mods.
Stick around a bit, Cow, and let the Mods run down the story on your two pulled posts.
Good to see you again, hope you can stick around.
Read 24 lil hitler.
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