Maritime Security Directive

[GordMay]

From Wikipedia:
To "call a spade a spade" is to speak honestly and directly about a topic, specifically topics that others may avoid speaking about due to their sensitivity or embarrassing nature.
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1913) defines it as
“ To be outspoken, blunt, even to the point of rudeness; to call things by their proper names without any “beating about the bush”.

"Niceness" is NOT necessarily incompatible with "honesty".

By “nice”; I don't mean "sweet", or "complimentary", or anything more than the absence of abuse and/or rudeness.

Honesty requires not contradicting things you know to be true. It requires advancing viewpoints that you believe. It says nothing about the linguistic tactics employed, and is not an excuse for offensive rudeness.

As a registered member* of the CF, I DON’T have to deal tactfully with ********. In fact, except as I choose, I don’t have to engage them at all (I can ignore them).

The word "*******" is an abusive adjective, because it attacks the person, not the topic/idea/statement/whatever under discussion. This doesn't mean I wouldn't call someone that ... but if I do, I cannot claim that I'm actually interested in having a probative and civil discussion (what we do at CF). Thus, on the CruisersForum, I DON’T call an ******* an *******, whether true or not.

On the other hand, I don’t understand “spade” to be an abusive term for a particular type “digging implement”; hence would feel quite comfortable “calling a spade a spade” on this Forum.

Rude and abusive comments, even if laced with truthful facts, do NOT represent “brutal honesty” or bluntness. They are merely “brutal”, uncivil, rude, and (as I understand it) not tolerated here.

* Having been a CF administrator, almost since the Forum’s inception, I retired from moderation early this year. Accordingly, I speak only for myself, and NOT for the CruisersForum, nor it’s excellent management team.

[hellosailor]

"Since we do not do our moderation in public here on CF, you wouldn't know what goes on behind the scenes. "
Hud, you should know better. That's invalid logic, your "conclusion" has nothing to do with your premise. I may not be privy to everything behind the scenes but I do have some first hand knowledge of some of it, including the express statements (plural) from mods that truth is no defense when something offends the moderators, and similar statements about what may or may not be said nations.

Of course, I should (pardon the subjective and judgemental word) have no need to be concerned with any of that, the forum's RULES button covers it all.

I mistook Gord for a moderator because he used to be a moderator/administrator (wasn't he?) and I hadn't realized he'd stepped down from that role. That's why I questioned him about policies, not realizing he was no longer a part of them.

My apologies for the confusion.

I'm unclear, and I suspect that everyone outside of your staff may be unclear, why it is proper to discuss and publicize a US government proclamation about the dangers of Somalia and the Horn, while discussion of similar US statements about similar danger in other nations is not proper.

[Talbot]

Originally Posted by Hud3

Since we do not do our moderation in public here on CF

Perhaps you should give consideration to doing so, and then people will understand better why threads have been banned, instead of the present system, which appears to be both heavy handed and particularly uneven.