Break the rules, pay the price. Establish CLEAR guidelines for the priviledge of sharing your thoughts, such as...........NO swearing, no DEMEANING comments, NO passive aggressive statements, etc..........this should be an exercise in intelligent, thoughtful, and considerate dialogue, something which Sean Hannity, Bill O'Riley, Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh could NEVER possess. The internet allows persons to present their thoughts in a forum in which noone ever knows anyones race, ethnicity, etc, unless conveying such characteristics are voluntarily provided by any one of us.

From start to finish, this (BTM) has the power to control it's own destiny by setting a truly representative example for members of our society of ALL ages of how to compare and contrast the best and worst ideas and as a result, consentually arrive at the solution (whatever it may be) that leaves everyone satisfied. Oops! Did I just Constitutionally define Democracy?

Did you notice that the person you speak of was formerly abrevechontario.

now that we have come to the conclusion that we will not allow posts/contect with profanity, how about someones username as in this thread?

Please go to Market Watch--a service of the Wall Street Journal--They have instituted thumbs up thumbs down system. It controls the content of remarks by bumping them if they get a preset number of thumbs down--everyone gets to vote if they want--their votes are logged and can be reviewed. Thumbs up and a thumbs down cancel out each other. If a comment is irrelevant or nonsensical then it is soon dumped to the recycle area where it can still be read but is out of the thread—four letter w**ds are edited with stars –you can read them but they are noted as four letter words—

The rating system should be the tool used to decide what is approved content. Why not make it so that when the comment/post/article reaches a set number of negative points, it's "buried". (Still readable, but collapsed) That way unhelpful/racist/etc posts and comments could be somewhat labeled as a "not widely accepted thought".

It's not censoring, but rather a verdict as to whether or not the majority of people on the site agree with what is being said.

As a private entity, BTM has every right to control the content that is posted on its website. However, given the purpose of BTM (to break the matrix, right?), I think that it would be best if members are allowed to freely exchange ideas/information.

I think Ken had some good ideas--either have a trash bin to which offensive threads can be moved to or have a forum specific for potentially inflammatory material. May I suggest that if you decide to implement the trash bin idea, to move the entire thread to the trash bin, and don't close the thread (i.e., allow people to continue to post comments so they can continue to argue). I understand that certain threads sometimes degenerate to personal attacks and arguments that go nowhere and that these threads can be kind of annoying to read. But that would be why the thread was moved out of the general forum into a designated containment (for lack of a better word) area.

I have seen the site admins on other websites make executive decisions to close certain forum discussions, sometimes only to try to stop a few members from engaging in counterproductive and endless arguments. I don't think that strategy works very well because the fights, thus suppressed, almost always break out at a later time in a different thread. It is best to let people argue until they are tired of doing it, or until they feel like they've made their point.

Also, I think that it is important to distinguish between offensive material (explicitly racist comments, name-calling, etc.), potentially inflammatory material (U.S.-Israel relations, AIPAC, etc.), and dubious or annoying material (conspiracy theories, Inforwars articles, etc.).

Posts that are outright offensive often have little to contribute to the general discussion, and whereas I still do not think that they should be censored, they can be moved into a pre-designated area like a trash bin.

Potentially inflammatory material--well, I think what happens to those posts greatly depends on the author. There can be legitimate discussions of issues that concern AIPAC and its influence over certain politicians, but things can get touchy. I'm not sure what the best thing to do is, but it certainly doesn't make sense to censor these types of discussions. I just wish that people could be more open-minded and less quick to point fingers and make accusations.

Finally, there is material that many might not agree with and material from sources that may be deemed not all that credible. In an earlier comment, someone mentioned a reason for some amount of censorship and provided a link to an article on Infowars titled "Iran busts CIA terror networks." I think that is a terrible reason for censorship. Just because the content may not be accurate or because some of us might not like the source of the content does not mean that it should be censored. I think that it is important to create an atmosphere that encourages the free exchange of ideas, and this means that information/ideas that some may not like/would rather not see will also be exchanged.

Going back to the Iran-CIA article--many might think that it is not backed up by sufficient evidence. But it is still legitimate content in an open forum. I'm sure that everyone here is capable of thinking and judging for themselves and that no one believes everything they read without question.

As far as Alex Jones is concerned, many people, myself included, might find him to be kind of annoying and often overly dramatic. But not everything he says is false or wrong. Not everything on Infowars is garbage.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't like Alex Jones's style very much. But, in his defense, he has brought a lot of people into the movement. You have no idea how many people in the Ron Paul movement in the Philadelphia-South Jersey area found out about Ron Paul through Alex Jones. These people are not Alex Jones clones--they are intelligent individuals who have contributed a great deal to our movement. (Okay, I am only talking about what I have seen in my area; I don't pretend to know what is going on in the rest of the country.)

I guess my point is that I understand the feelings of antagonism towards Alex Jones types, but I hope that you can all keep an open mind and...I don't know, don't get too bogged down by negative feelings?

I know I'm starting to sound preachy...Sorry!

In mho is to have seperate forum categories for hot button/politically incorrect discussions, with a warning posted before entering. This way people will know before they even click that there will be possibly inflamatory content found within. If one proceeds to this area and begins to deride the authors for their statements then they are openly creating adversarial interactions.

as stated previously many few here are advocating no "censorship" at all, many including myself are in favor of a user interactive interface to solve this issue...

Calling it censorship is a mistake. Private organizations have codes of conduct and must enforce them lest they become useless.

I started a touch football league in the 90s, a very official gathering of 60 players every week. Two of the goals were create a game with very limited chance of injury and a place where our families could come and watch. We had a rules committee, we listened, but we enforced the heck out of the rules. Swearing was penalized, etc, not easy, but we did it. Families came every week. 13 years later, I retired. They start their 16th season in September.

Conversely, Daily Paul, my homepage for 11 months, has become a cesspool, devoid of serious discussion, taken over by the smallest minds with the biggest egos.

NO CENSORSHIP...DONT WE UNDERSTAND BLOW BACK!?!?!?

I don't see anything good coming from censorship, but there is a big difference between censorship and moderation. Management's role here is to manage, shape, mold and focus not only these forums, but this entire site into something that represents what they envision as conducive to their goals. Management, absolutely, has a critical role to play here.

I know exactly what I would do if they were my forums, but they're not and I don't have the luxury of having the perspective of the management anyway. I might have a totally different idea of what I would do if I had their perspective.

That said, I'll offer my two cents anyway. The best solution, in my humble opinion, is to provide a new category for "Controversial Issues" with forums for things like "Religious/Morality Topics", "Conspiracy Topics", "Social Topics" and whatever else people might feel like they need. If people don't want to get swept up in passionate and/or otherwise disagreeable anti-this or anti-that rants, grandstanding and group bashing, they can simply stay away from the controversial issues category.

With more than 5,000 members, there are bound to be people who will disregard any attempts to confine their screeds to a particular area and that's where moderators need to step in and move those posts to a relatively appropriate topic area.

Other than that, the very nature of the freedom this site is trying to advance presents a sort of catch-22 situation.

I dunno <*shrugs*>
Good luck

The thing about censorship is that we are all out there seeking the truth. In the past, I have just kind of pulled the line of the mainstream evangelical Christian -- now I am realizing that things aren't as they seem and the answers aren't always right just because they come from the organized christian church. While I do happen to believe that Jesus is the hope of the world, I also now see that many of the agendas of the neo cons have come into the organized church. So thankfully there are people out there who are telling the truth even when it felt offensive to me and made me angry at times.

So to make this point: just because it feels offensive for me to hear something, doesn't mean that it isn't true. Those who are truly using hate speech will inevitably be voted down, but we need to be open to be offended because sometimes people who offend us actually are in the right -- 'Faithful are the wounds of a friend.'

I am in agreement with no censorship.

Let me first say that I'm absolutely opposed to government censorship of any kind. However, Break the Matrix is a privately-owned entity. The owners have the right to set the rules for behavior that's acceptable in their "house". If any of us don't like the rules, we are free to leave.

I personally find racist comments extremely obnoxious. And I'd rather read comments that are packed with great ideas rather than expletives. However, my sensibilities aren't so delicate that I'll faint at the drop of a racist sentiment or the sight of a few curse words. Break the Matrix is heavily weighted on the side of intelligent, civil discourse, so I'll be staying whatever decision the owners make.

only... Also, anyone who has hurt my feelings or may do so in the future, Swarelis should be censored half the time

Albrecht -- relax brother

you're scaring away the ladies!