Without getting too far into the weeds of this discussion, I noticed this and thought it justified a response. Mods don't receive any specific training. Dave chooses mods, some of whom are recruited, others nominate themselves. But the admin approves those he is familiar with, who he thinks have an appropriate understanding of the forum, and can have the proper judgment to be a mod on a forum like this. There is a mod code of conduct that is not publicly available, outlining what job duties entail and what behaviors are expected. But as with most rules/policies there is interpretation and leeway. Mods can chat with each other in circumstances where the rules aren't clear, and there is some self-policing that happens.
But mods are human beings like anyone else. We all have biases and preferences that inhibit purely rational behavior. Folks we like and know from years of interaction are probably less likely to get an infraction than a member who joined yesterday, all other things being constant. But I hope that all of us at least try to be fair in most of our interactions.
I respect that, and indeed, this is a privately owned forum, so Dave has all the rights there.
... That said, those threads disappearing are a nuisance to the board I think, and they are useless.
I've decided not to renew my premium membership this year just because of that!
... And I believe many members there are also members of other boards like, say, OSW, where the forbidden items are discussed too, so I don't get the point of deleting something when the conversation goes on somewhere else, but hey, that's just my two cent.
Let's take the Picard fig for example. Some people are vocal that they hate it. I don't have it in hand yet but I'm already in love with it. Nothing that the naysayers will say is gonna change my pov, and I suspect it is the same way the other way around. So as long as a conversation remains civil (and yeah, that's what a lot of peeps are unable to do, I'll concede), why erase it? What is said on just one board, be it about companies Dave is involved with, won't change the sales when the pros and cons are being discussed as virulently elsewhere on many other such boards.
SFF isn't the whole world. What happens doesn't have that much of an impact.
I'm more concerned about collectors getting a sub par figure. If this is an issue with uniform rub and dye transfer this could be pretty widespread.
There's some serious crazy out there.
