Thread Disappeared?

[Ralph Grothe]

Hello,

yesterday I dared to post the thread
"What you would rather be, if you were not in the IT?"
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=263010

This morning I was keen on reading your replies but I cannot find the thread anymore.
Looks as though webserver admins decided to remove this thread.

Maybe I have violated some etiquette unawarely by asking such personal things?

Anyway, though I couldn't read your replies I would like to thank you for your participation.
Sorry that I cannot reward your efforts with some points.

Regards
Ralph

[Madhu Sudhan_1]

Ralph,
I don't see that thread now. The thread was good with many views and it was good to know people having multiple degrees and alternatives if not IT.

Not sure why this thread has been removed.

-Madhu

[Ralph Grothe]

A funny aside,
when I click the above link I get a blank page serviced that on the left shows a frame where the member status icons are displayed.
These have changed to new icons like lamp bulbs, lighthouse, and suns with slightly changed point limits.
Maybe I was linked to a site under development and we will soon see a new rating system introduced?

[Graham Cameron_1]

Ralph

Had you tried to sneak in some rude words, like in your previous thread, now curtailed ?

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=254406
-- Graham

[H.Merijn Brand (procura]

The forum `board' has been a bit more keen on posts being ON-TOPIC for the last few month (esp since the forum conversion).

On the one hand, this is GOOD, OTOH, I would miss personal touches like these.

The forum is more than just technical chat, and the bounds are vague. I could just as well imagine removing FAQ's, which proves that posters do not use the search functions, just to keep the noise ratio low, and the point hunters behind their fences.

Remember that part of this forum success is about FUN!

Enjoy, have FUN! H.Merijn

[Ralph Grothe]

Graham,

not at all, honest.

But I feared that the spelling of such words in the other thread would blacklist me somehow.
So this would be a good meassure for us Non-
English spekers of the effect of various four letter words ;-)

[Umapathy S]

Ralph,
That seems to business support forums. Wondering when it gets deleted why should it move there?

cheers
Umapathy

[Ralph Grothe]

Merijn,

yes, I appreciate the forum maintainers' underlying concerns to cut down the noise ratio.
And I do admit that most of my postings must be considered noise.
For my exculpation for not referring to FAQs I can only assert that the latency between request and response of the ITRC webservers is too high most times of the day, and I'm too impatient.

If you consider my questions to answers ratio you cannot really say that I'm a point hunter.
Obviously someone with so many questions shouldn't wear a hat at all.

[Ralph Grothe]

While cleaning up my mailbox I noticed the following mail has escaped my notice.
I could imagine either reason 4. or 6. were applied here.
Sorry, for bothering you.



Dear Ralph Grothe,

We appreciate that you are a registered user of the HP Support Forums, and see you have recently utilized the Support Forums service. However, your message 'What you would rather be, if you were not in the IT?' had to be removed due to one or more of the following reasons.

1. You had requested the removal of your message.
2. The message was a duplicate posting.
3. The message contained advertising of goods or services.
4. The question was off-topic and did not align with the charter of the HP Support Forums.
5. Language, personal rants, or material deemed abusive, defamatory or obscene.
6. The posting contained private information on other users and/or HP employees.
7. Other reasons deemed necessary by the HP Support Forums staff.

We encourage you to share your technical knowledge and tap into the vast experience of other community members. All members will learn more when reading messages of technical value, whether they are new questions or replies.

Thank you for your understanding.

Best regards,
HP Support Forums Team

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Ralph,

Sure seems to me they went overboard on this one somewhat.

What might they do next censor..err..moderate any posts that might be critical of HP?

That post was an interesting post. We are *not* all mindless IT robots that have no other interests than IT.

I intend to ask Dan just exactly why they thought that post needed to be pulled.

Rgds,
Jeff

[T G Manikandan]

It has happened,it is happening!

Looks like it is the first time for you!!

This is the HP way!!!

[Pete Randall]

Ralph/Jeff,

Last week I had posted a thread ("A Noteworthy Event") that was simply a link to a congrats thread for SEP over in the Linux area. The gestapo . . . . er, censors . . . . sorry, I meant moderators . . . . anyway, that thread got yanked, too. I received the same nice eamil notification that Ralph got. I was unable to figure out which criteria caused the thread to be deemed unworthy! Things seem to have gone a bit overboard hereabouts!


Pete

[Chris Wilshaw]

I'm surprised that they've not got round to deleting this one (yet......)

[H.Merijn Brand (procura]

Ralph, yoou *know* I was not refereing to you with point hunters.

I just agree with Pete and Jeff, that the moderators are sometimes too eager to pull the plug on some threads.

There are enough problems to be solved first that could use their capacity and attention. (referring to Pete's list here)

Enjoy, have FUN! H.Merijn

[John Collier]

So the rabid censors are out of the cage again, huh? I thought they got vaccinated and were no longer a big threat to the health of the forum. Guess I was wrong.

I wish I could say that this was the first time I have seen this happen on these wonderful forums, but unfortunately it is not. I remember going through issues and discussions very similar to this not long ago (seems like earlier this year if I remember correctly) and it got many of the forum veterans hot under the collar. Seems as if they would have learned their lessons then.

Yes, this is a professional forum.
Yes, this is a technical forum.
Yes, this is a place where people come for technical issues.
Yes, this is a place where in the IT industry gather.
Yes, the people here have interests beyond IT as well
Yes, we all need a break from the technical at times.
Yes, we want to share these breaks with our forum friends.

NO, the participants of this forum are NOT machines nor are they children.
NO, they should not be treated as if they are in a daycare.
NO, censorship just for the sake of censorship should never be accepted.
NO, abusive or vulgar language should not be used in this setting.
NO, a thread should not be removed unless it is abusive or vulgar.

Remember, one of the things this wonderful country was built on was the freedom of speech and expression. While this site may not belong to the US government and doesn't necessarily HAVE to follow that thought, I shudder to think what kind of message allowing censorship in any public venue such as this could possibly convey in the long run.

What will be censored next?

I'm sure that this post is a likely candidate, aren't you?

John

[Pete Randall]

Here's *THE* classic example of an off-topic thread:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=39854

Note that when it came time to rein in the merriment, it was done so in a very nice, very professional manner - with a *personal* message from Dan himself. It didn't just disappear to be followed up by some generic form letter email from an anonymous censor who may have deleted it just because *he* was having a bad day!


Pete


Pete

[John Poff]

Ralph,

I'm sorry to see that your thread 'disappeared'. I spent a bit of time writing my response to it, and my time is hard to get right now as I'm quite busy. I didn't feel that your topic was way out of line at all. You were asking people to highlight the various skills that the bring to this forum, which makes it stronger.

I understand that HP wants to keep this forum as professional as possible, but perhaps they should consider making a posting to a thread by one of the forum minders to ask us to keep things on topic, rather than just yanking an entire thread.

Incidents like this just curb my enthusiasm for this forum. A couple more like this and my forum days may be over.

JP

[Ralph Grothe]

To all who have reassured me that my thread wasn't that way off topic, and who expressed their frustration about the uncommented purging of unwanted threads in this forum I would like to ask you not to get put off by this.
Rather inexperienced people like myself urgently require hints and opinions of experts like you, who are willing to share their wisdom, and are not avoiding the strain and time to write a reply.
I cannot tell you how much I regret that there is not such a similarily wonderful forum for other OSes like Solaris or AIX which I also have to administer but feel much less comfortable with for the lack of support.

[Mehdi_1]

Hi

The same thing happens to me about three weeks ago. I got the email that was telling me my posting was off topic!!. In my view my posting was n't off topic at all, I send an email back and ask for more reason, But I am still waiting for the reply since.

Mehdi

[John Collier]

Mehdi,

Just so you won't sit there with your hopes up, I am willing to bet a rather large amount of money that you will never get a response to your question.

I fully expect that the person that deleted the message or thread won't even remember doing it. They most likely looked at it, decided they didn't like it (for reasons only they will ever know) at the time, deleted it, and then clicked on some little icon that sent out the form e-mail. They probably didn't even know who they sent the e-mail to.

Of course, I could be wrong. But for some reason I don't think I am.

Do me a favor. If you ever DO get that response, let me know. It would be nice to have my faith restored in the faceless corporation.

You know, I was always able to view the forums here a little bit differently due to the personal touch that Dan always seemed to provide. Now it seems as if he has been backing off recently.

I can't help but wonder if these fine forums are doomed to become just as faceless as most everything run by global corporations.

For everybody's sake, I sure hope not...

[doug mielke]

I'm curious, why is there no official post from an HP rep. on this thread?

[Vijaya Kumar_3]

This is the first time i am seeing this...i have never seen a thread removed before....

i especially liked the thread by Ralph, because i want to know what other people were from...i like it. i read the thread when someone posted abt them...


-Vijay

[Todd McDaniel_1]

I have had 2 threads removed... as I am sure this one will be soon as well...

One was regarding "Why folks don't assign points?"

The other was regarding "What is the state of your company?"


This site is intended for business use and casual threads are not usu allowed.

[Todd McDaniel_1]

Ralph,

One other thing, sometimes your original post can be fine, but responses can be in violation...

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Folks,

I think what we may be witnessing here is a reflection or an echo of a management change for the ITRC Forums section or the ITRC as a whole. And I don't mean Dan - I mean Dan's management & higher.

I've heard through the grapevine that this occurred recently & I'll bet you doughnuts to dollars that this is a direct result of it. I really liked the old team - super people & easy to work with. I'm already reshaping my opinion & it's not for the better.

If I'm right you can probably expect this thread to now "disappear" shortly.

My $0.02,
Jeff