As you know I disagree with your decision not to discuss the other manufacturers in the 04-current F150 forums. Posting in the general section will work, but it's not as intuitive as having a separate forum relating to the competition.

I just don't understand you're decision to begin with. This is the only Ford board I've been to where you can't talk about the competition. Check out ford-trucks.com. They have a separate section for discussing the competition. You can discuss other manufacturers at titantalk.com and tundrasolutions.com freely as well.

I'm a member of all of those boards, and visit them quite often. I like knowing the good and bad points of all of the full size trucks out there.

 

Completely incorrect. You are welcome to talk about all makes and models of vehicles on F150online.com, always have been, always will be.
As do we, and we have asked that the section be our General Discussion forum.

If you would like to post some accurate information to support your claims, you are welcome to. However, you have already accused us of censorship, you have told us that you are not allowed to discuss a topic that you are welcome to discuss and you are telling us the place that we ask you to discuss the topics you claim we do not allow you to discuss is not intuitive for the discussion of the topics that you want to discuss that we don't allow you to discuss that we allow you to discuss.

Makes perfect sense to me. Accuse us of censorship, but then publicly acknowledge that we do not censor, that you just don't like where we are asking you to discuss those topics.

I have a headache now.

 

Way to dazzle him with wordiness Steve!

This is beating a dead horse, it has been said over and over. You can discuss anything you like about the competition, just do it in GD. Why is that so difficult to understand?

 

Lets say some new guy comes in and wants to post information about what the other manufactorers have to offer. How is he supposed to know to post in the general section of this website? If you had a section devoted to "THE COMPETITION" then it would make sense. Now this was before you put that nice disclaimer above the 04-07 F150 board.

I just don't like the way you went about this. You're free to do what you want, but there are people who disagree with the decision.

 

If someone is new to these forums then it's forgivable if they post in the wrong section. Once you've been around awhile and know how things work then there's no excuse.

 

This ain't no democracy.

 

I dont see what the problem is. Why would you discuss other manufacturers in the '04-current F-150 section? Its called the, "04-current F-150" section because thats what the section is intended for discussion on.
I guess I dont see what the problem is. The powers that be arent saying you cant discuss other brands, just that you do so in the proper area.

 

I was about to buy a Nissan Titan before I bought my F150. I wanted to know what the F150 owners had to say about why I should choose the F150 over the Titan. Well, I ended up with the F150 due to some of the posts on this board that concerned other manufacturers. The logical place to ask that question would be the 04-Current F150 threads, because you're comparing like model vehicles or just create a new section pertaining to the competition. If you post it in the general section and you have to sort through many different post to find an answer.

 

I would venture to guess that the reason there isn't a Comp. forum is because webmaster Steve doesn't feel it's necessary when we have GD to discuss anything that doesn't fit in the other forums. Your main complaint is having to search through GD to find the thread and check new posts. There are a couple options to make it easier, save the thread to favorites, or subscribe to it so you will know when there have been new posts. It's really not as difficult as you make it seem.

 

Hi memsu...

I see both sides of this coin. Let me try to explain the side of the coin that I frequently sit on as a moderator of the site.

While I disagree with your commentation on accusing us of 'censorship' (quite the contrary), let me explain...

When the Titan came out, there was more bickering than you can imagine. We had an influx of 'trolls' from other sites (mainly Nissan Titan forums) that jumped in, joined, smacked the hornet's nest over and over and over, and then left only to return again to stir up more of a mess.

As you know, we have some 'die hard' F-series guys here who bring a wealth of information to our site and, because of those trolls (who were subsequently dismissed from the site) other F-series guys who got caught up in the hornet's nest were also dismissed due to loosing their cool and flying off the proverbial handle.

The same thing happened with the Tundra was released. Everyone got their panties in a wad and started the infamous "my daddy is better than your daddy' crap that lead absolutely no where. Trolls appeared and the same things happened.

So, here we are today. I set a precedent with a decision to not allow any additional 'Tundra-Driven' threads. A blanket decision? Yes. Fair for all? Maybe not. Simplistic and easy to understand from a rules standpoint? Absolutely.

See where I'm going with this? It's workload.

I don't have time to babysit those who can't keep their cool when it comes to the pros and cons of this truck versus that truck. There have, however, been a couple of threads that have remained civil and made it the distance from the standpoint of lots of good information being shared and no hornet's nests were disturbed. While I watched them the best I could, I still ended up deleting several posts within them that were causing the thread to wobble but, they ended up pulling through.

Consider this, at the high point of Tundra and Titan, I was killing 2 or 3 threads per day and banning maybe one or two people per day because of absolute stupidity within those threads. Is it fair that everyone be punished because of a few -- probably not but, I don't know another way to deal with it so that I don't have to deal with it.

You likely just thought 'this guy is a moderator, it's his job to deal with it'. Well, I agree, it is my job. It's also my job to potentially head it off at the pass and, by setting this precedence, I feel that I'm able to accomplish that. If I was able to give more time to this site, I might even take a little different approach to this but, for now, this is my choice of direction until I'm told differently by the webmaster.

Maybe it's a tad unfair to pull every Tundra thread out of the mix but, with the recent past fresh in my memory as a moderator, I can tell you that I will continue to go down this path. It's not up for debate but, I understand the point of looking at the pros and cons of this versus that. There's a lot to be accomplished there but, for now, that will only be accomplished within the General Discussions forum.

Sorry. It's a damned if you do and damned if you don't. Either way, I'm hosed by taking a stance.

One side doesn't like it because they can't compare head to head whereas the other side hates it because this is a F-Series based board and, as such, they feel that Ford truck stuff should be the only thing discussed....

Again, I understand your thoughts and your stance but, it's a damned if you do... damned if you don't.

I appreciate you bringing this up in the manner in which you did here. Your posts within the other thread dealing with this similar manner were a bit off the scale on the correct way to approach something like this (that's still fresh in several people's memories) but, this was a better way to cross the bridge. If you'll note, all the posts have been generally civil and have lacked attacking. Further, you didn't go after any one individual and personally call them out here within this thread. Again, thanks for that.

 

I definitely better understand your reasoning now. Thanks for clearing up a few things. I'm just a strong advocate of free speech in this country. You should be allowed to discuss various issues regarding other manufacturers, but a few bad apples won't allow you to do that in a reasonable manner. Therefore, you exercised your right to pull the threads, but in doing that you might have upset a few people. All just the consequences of freedom of speech.

 

Thanks for continuing to be civil. I appreciate that. It's easier to communicate when everyone is on the same page and able to speak.

I understand that our decisions to limit 'other truck' threads within the 04+ forum has trickled down beyond the few people who have posted and have verbalized their feelings about keeping it from happening but, like you said, they are casualties of the rule.

I have never gone out and pondered ways to tick people off on the forum nor have I ever thought to myself "I'm a moderator, screw those guys, I can do whatever I want to do...". I'm just not that type of guy. Plus, I'm held in check by the owner of the site who I do have to answer to on decisions and actions that I take while exercising moderator 'stuff'. I think that the majority of members understand that and accept that as the 'norm' but, sometimes the norm brushes up against something that some don't feel should be the norm. Hence, the abrasion that we've had here today (or yesterday now).

We'll all move forward. We'll all rise tomorrow. We'll all continue to consume oxygen in chemical factories that have been inspected by firefighters . The unfortunate truth is that when private assets are involved, the entire freedom of speech idea can be limited to a certain extent for the better good. This is simply what has happened here - nothing more, nothing less. Frankly, we're all casualties of this.