Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
Steve St.Laurent
Staff Alumni
Regarding the amount of moderating and "censorship" that takes place on the site you might find this interesting. In the past 100 days there have been 7350 threads posted on the site. There are an average of 8. 97 replies to each thread (based on the history of the site) which means there have been approximately 65,930 posts in that time. We have been keeping track of all of the moderating done since December 14th of last year (~ 112 days). Here's all the cases of moderating that have taken place in that time period (moderating being defined as closing a thread, removing a post or thread, blanking out words, strikes, temporarily suspending a users priveleges, banning a user, etc):
5 violations of vendor guidelines
13 for profanity
2 for personal attacks
2 threads out of control (Amsoil)
1 copyright infringement (Carfax.com)
3 people in that time period have gotten their posting priveleges temporarily revoked and none have been booted from the site.
In the history of the TDR site there have been fewer than 10 people booted from the site (I can actually only come up with 6 but I may have forgotten a couple) and fewer than 10 that were temporarily suspended and then came back on the site and are still here.
With 11,400 people on the site I don't think that's excessive. We let a LOT of things go through the cracks and usually only crack down and enforce the guidelines when someones broken the guidelines over and over. You REALLY have to go way over the line and many times before you attract any moderator attention.
BTW, as far as I can recall this is the first and only time a vendor has gotten a temporary suspension of posting priveleges. Every other vendor that has ever been contacted regarding violating the guidelines has been apologetic and corrected it - and not one other vendor has ever even gotten a strike one. We have been accused in the past of vendor bias towards TDR advertisers - I might mention that DTT is a TDR advertiser. We try very hard to enforce the guidelines evenly and fairly and try to let things go as much as possible. In this particular case, I took over an hour out of my day to speak with Bill over the phone a little over a month ago when a strike one was issued (this after having had to get involved in many threads in the past) and made it clear what the guidelines were and what the consequences would be for continued violations. The guideline that was broken here was the exact same one and done in the same manner as that done a month ago. During that phone call I also pointed out that the absolute last thing anyone at the TDR wanted to do was to have to either temporarily suspend or ban Bill from the site. We appreciate his input here on the forums and he does a great service for the users. But that does not give him the right to ignore the guidelines that all of the other vendors are expected to abide by. If we allowed that then we would be guilty of the bias towards TDR advertisers that we are sometimes accused of.
If you wish to have Bill's continued input on the forums here (as I honestly hope) then you should be contacting Bill and asking him to abide by the guidelines - the choice is his to make. It's truly not that hard to abide by the guidelines, the vast majority of the members and vendors on the site are doing so (as can be seen by the . 035% of posts that have been moderated and the less than . 09% of users that have been booted).
-Steve St. Laurent
Lead Moderator
5 violations of vendor guidelines
13 for profanity
2 for personal attacks
2 threads out of control (Amsoil)
1 copyright infringement (Carfax.com)
3 people in that time period have gotten their posting priveleges temporarily revoked and none have been booted from the site.
In the history of the TDR site there have been fewer than 10 people booted from the site (I can actually only come up with 6 but I may have forgotten a couple) and fewer than 10 that were temporarily suspended and then came back on the site and are still here.
With 11,400 people on the site I don't think that's excessive. We let a LOT of things go through the cracks and usually only crack down and enforce the guidelines when someones broken the guidelines over and over. You REALLY have to go way over the line and many times before you attract any moderator attention.
BTW, as far as I can recall this is the first and only time a vendor has gotten a temporary suspension of posting priveleges. Every other vendor that has ever been contacted regarding violating the guidelines has been apologetic and corrected it - and not one other vendor has ever even gotten a strike one. We have been accused in the past of vendor bias towards TDR advertisers - I might mention that DTT is a TDR advertiser. We try very hard to enforce the guidelines evenly and fairly and try to let things go as much as possible. In this particular case, I took over an hour out of my day to speak with Bill over the phone a little over a month ago when a strike one was issued (this after having had to get involved in many threads in the past) and made it clear what the guidelines were and what the consequences would be for continued violations. The guideline that was broken here was the exact same one and done in the same manner as that done a month ago. During that phone call I also pointed out that the absolute last thing anyone at the TDR wanted to do was to have to either temporarily suspend or ban Bill from the site. We appreciate his input here on the forums and he does a great service for the users. But that does not give him the right to ignore the guidelines that all of the other vendors are expected to abide by. If we allowed that then we would be guilty of the bias towards TDR advertisers that we are sometimes accused of.
If you wish to have Bill's continued input on the forums here (as I honestly hope) then you should be contacting Bill and asking him to abide by the guidelines - the choice is his to make. It's truly not that hard to abide by the guidelines, the vast majority of the members and vendors on the site are doing so (as can be seen by the . 035% of posts that have been moderated and the less than . 09% of users that have been booted).
-Steve St. Laurent
Lead Moderator
