Usually I don't discuss moderation publicly, but after a heavily brand-opinionated thread sprouts up I think it's relevant to explain why we remove messages.
In the case of "brand bashing," we remove messages and threads to maintain a standard of quality in the forums, as well as to protect members from potential legal exposure. We don't have to do this, but what some people may not realize or think of when posting something online is that if a company or person chooses to pursue legal action over comments posted online (that may be read by thousands of people in a very short period of time), the poster (author) will be liable for those words (libelous or slanderous). TBN and a poster's ISP could be subpoenaed for records that would trace specific posts to the true identities of posters, thus removing any veil of online anonymity.
While it hasn't happened on TBN, there are countless cases of internet discussion posters being sued by parties (both companies and individuals) who felt that the content posted was libelous.
So, while it may seem like "censorship" we're actually doing people a favor by taking an unbiased look at content and removing it when we feel it could be problematic or expose our members to legal action. That's something we don't want to see, for us or for any of our members.
Legal issues aside, there are two sides to every story and when brand, product or dealer bashing comes up I don't think it's particularly fair; discussions typically look at just one side of the story, and people jump to conclusions, opinions and statements based on what ultimately is merely one person's version of a story. While level-headed members may speculate that there could be more to the story, that doesn't stop potentially damaging messages from being posted. And it's my decision that those will be removed. That's been the law of the land here since 1998, and it's a rule that is enforced consistently. Doesn't matter which brand or which company (or dealer).
I think you would be hard pressed to find any website online with the amount of members and traffic that TBN has that allows completely unmoderated discussion and company bashing. And if that's what you want to do, I'd recommend you find somewhere else to do it.
As for the moderation frequency ... I have answered this question before as well. There are 1.8 million posts here, the vast majority being on-topic tractor discussions. Over the years, I have kept track of how many posts are moderated and the average has always been about 5 messages out of every 1,000. In 2009, that number was once again 5 per 1,000, or 1/2 of 1%.
In an ideal world, we would never remove any messages at all... and perhaps the day the "notify moderator" messages stop coming in, we won't have to.
