Moderators role

deednets wrote:

Well, I originally read a thread regarding a particular camera. Somebody compared this camera to another camera. The first poster replied and the second poster replied again giving some more details about the second camera.

Since this forum in general is perceived as a gear forum I followed this with some mild interest (cannot point anywhere near the original thread of course!) but then it came, a moderator said that he might lock this thread because the second poster had been talking about another camera .. and therefore was off topic. A tad bedazzled it seemed the second poster replied that he was merely comparing his camera to the first one, the mod then said that there was a chance that the thread was being hijacked and therefore would be locked if he carried on.

I felt this was a tad too heavy handed for my personal taste, but the mod cut & paste a part of the rules which said that if there is a chance that the thread was no longer taking about the original topic it might be locked (or some words to that effect), I will let my lawyer look at this later of course ...

It was then that I remembered those times where people would compare Canon 20D to Nikon D70/D100 ... those rules might have been in place for more than 10 years, but there was no "watch it guys ... no more talking about Canon here, off topic you know ..."

You see I then no longer followed the thread and thought: Things have changed around here ... and it is perceivable!

It was then that I paid a tad more attention to the general feel about how this would change the openness of any free discussion, I for one am paying a lot more attention to what I am writing right now, put the example of the 20D vs the D70 into the rather historical corner so this wouldn't be seen as critisizing anything current ...

... which is a good thing, right?? Like saying I never liked Ronald Reagan, but can't give you any details sorry, more like in a general sense ...

So all in all, all is well then here on dpreview, no changes in more than 10 years?? It just didn't work the way it was, I guess ...

It just didn't ... *nudge, nudge...* ... so something just had to change!

Cheers

Deed