The problem with post deletion in my opinion is that even if youre just removing a number of racial slurs going back and forth, people don't know what exactly was related and some will use that to say that devs deleted legit opinions they didnt like and all that.
The argument that is often made on forums by its staff is that they dont want their own forum, which they feel responsible for and identify with, to be insulted by bad language being present. I guess it's partly about taking things personally, as well as being afraid that the general quality of the forum is going to degrade.
As far as I am concerned though, every poster on here is responsible for his own posts. The fonline/aop community is how it is and if this is the way they want to handle themselves then it's ok. Every time a moderator uses his powers to intervene on the forums, he shapes the community according to his own subjective views and to me, that is the same as censorship.
So generally, in my opinion, moderators should only delete posts that are directly targetted at the forum as a platform, like spambots, off topic posts and multiposts that are specifically made to flood an annoy people trying to read the forum but we never really had any of that happen yet.
Like...really? I sneak better in a bulky ninja-turle suit...than in my pyjammas?
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