Tim

I have been using the forum for 6 months now, and I must admit, I still do not have its behavior figured out. I replied to a post yesterday, and now there is no trace of even the original thread. I started a thread once and within 2 days it was deleted, yet some seem to live forever. There was no profanity or off color comments. <BR> <BR>Whats the deal? <BR> <BR>Tim

fodorssux

Fodors is screwy, thats the deal. They censor all over the place, sometimes for no reason. I say, if a post or reply is related at ALL to travel, unless there is profanity, LEAVE IT ALONE. I've never in my life seen any internet forum where posts are deleted.

Mme. Figuier

To answer your question: <BR> <BR>Poorly trained, poorly supervised employees, exercising discretion under ill-defined standards that they do not understand, under circumstances without accountability for either their zealous unnecessary deletions or their uncaring failure to delete where they should

Matson

Often because they deserve to be. <BR> <BR>In some other thread, an editor explained that the issue is sometimes copyright infringement (someone cut and paste a whole article), sometimes seriously offensive language (when it's too hard just to delete a single post, they delete the whole thread), sometimes utter irrelevancy to travel issues. <BR> <BR>I suspect overloding of the site is sometimes a problem too. <BR> <BR>I've occasionally had a thread I contributed to disappear-- ultimately, I don't mind. I either re-post or move on. There are more serious worries. <BR>

Mme. Figuier

Yet other vicious threads that should be deleted are not, in spite of requests from several people.

al

There was a thread deleted yesterday that should have been and I was quite happy to see that happen..There are some people with nothing to contribute but they keep making inflammatory comments that completely change the thread from a good natured, helpful commentary to something really ugly.When that happens , the thread is finished, no one wants to read it, but the ones who are calling names and trying to sound smart,or whatever keep going..so start a new thread and hope they don't find it so fast..I think the one about the girl that was mugged in Amsterdam was helpful until the ugliness took it over, and that is gone..keep things about travel and they may continue.

ldsant

Hmm. . .this is interesting - I was the one that was mugged and just came back to read the thread only to find that it was gone. Never saw what was said. I wondered what had happened to that thread. Thanks AL for mentioning that it was deleted. I think it would have been nicer if FODORS had at least had the courtesy to email me the thread and let me know that it was deleted. It also saddens me to think that something about my experience caused people to post something "ugly." Why would someone do something like that? I guess as the poster I would have appreciated the courtesy to at least have seen the post.

lisa

hiya all... <BR> i've been using this forum for about 3 years now and for the most part enjoy it and contribute when i can. <BR> when i first started reading this forum threads were rarely if ever deleted, there were some that got VERY nasty and mean spirited... and it progressively got worse. instead of people just skipping over the hateful ones, they started complaining directly to fodors editors. censorship and user registration were the topics of request....the registration never seemed to get off the ground but the censoring did... in a big way....so there you have it. <BR> i truly think we did ourselves a big diservice with the complaints and are now paying the price.

al

LDS-a lot of the posters were very happy that you were unharmed,as I was and said so, and many were ladies who traveled alone and were thankful for the info.But then one guy said something negative about traveling alone,what was the ethnicity of the muggers, and it took off from there,better you didn't see it!None of it was in the spirit of the original posting..so I will say now-we are happy that you were unhurt..sorry that they night guard didn't do anything to help you, wondering if the hotel did anything to make it up to you besides being nice about it, and we hope you will never have such an experience again.A

too

lisa, you hit the nail on the head. All of the crybabies who whined to Fodor's whenever they read something they didn't like, or heaven forbid, with which they DISAGREED, have now created this atmosphere of indiscrimate and random censorship. They got what they asked for, and now they don't like it.

Christina

Sometimes I think threads do disappear for no reason whatsoever, though. If this happens, it happens within a few days of them starting, it appears. For example, just within about the last week, some guy (described as senior, going with several others he called "party animals") asked about nightspots for NY eve in Paris. I suggested a few places with jazz/dancing, and when I searched for this post yesterday on several words I knew were in it that were not that common (eg, Montparnasse) in order to read other suggestions, it has literally disappeared. I can't believe anything objectionable could have appeared in that innocuous thread (although you never know, I suppose, but I really doubt it) and I've seen that kind of thing happen a few other times, also. It's possible the search tool just doesn't work at all (although it did come back with limited posts on those words, none the one I was looking for), although I think I also scrolled down by date and it's gone. This is not the issue of removal for copyright/censorship reasons, but it's a mystery. Other posts are on here for years, I don't know why.

getalife

Why don't some of you get a real life. There are some of you that are down right nasty, asking very personal questions and making a thread something that should be censored and deleted. This is a forum not a place to get interrogated. <BR> <BR>

ldsant

Al: <BR> <BR>Thank you VERY much for your kind post and reply here; I sincerely appreciate it. I guess it's much better I didn't see the post. I was really trying to provide information. Again, thank you for your kindness.

Christina

huh, I did finally find that post I was looking for accidentally although it would not turn up with a search. I still think they sometimes disappear for no reason. Now for the opposite question, although I don't suppose anyone much will read this thread anymore -- unless I'm hallucinating, it seems to me some posts are being brought up from prior years and the dates are being changed to the current date. At first I thought it was my imagination, but I know I've read some of these posts before which are rather unique, but the dates on them are current. For example, the current threat on dancing Mickeys in Italy or something I believe is an old thread with the dates altered. Has anyone else noticed this or is it my imagination?

xxx

No Chris, it's not your imagination. At least one of the habitual residents here on Fodor's engages in creative recutting and repasting all the time. He Who Shall Not Be Named usually repastes in order to self-censor his own posts, but someone who will stoop to posting as Fodor's editors will do just about anything here.

Ashamed

Just to irritate you, personally. Is it working? <BR> <BR>Funny how some folks keep saying "things will get back to normal" on this forum & it's been almost two months since 9/11 could be blamed for rude, boorish, stupid behavior & things are still uncivilized.