Uncensored forum

Brave, generous or foolish?

[Just Guessing]

I just came across a forum that promises never to censor any posts.

Links are allowed.

Seems remarkably generous...

[Rosalind]

Foolish, and very open to libel problems, link spamming, obscene posts, and out-of-control flaming.

[rogerd]

Noble in principle, perhaps, but guaranteed to head straight downhill. The flaming and trolling will be bad, but the spam dumps will be the killer.

[maximillianos]

Depends on their intention. If you do not care about organic search traffic, making money, or credibility, then who cares... why not make it an open spam fest. There is hundreds of sites out there already that allow the same, but maybe they just don't know it... ;-)

[howardam]

Good point Maximillianos! There are definitely a ton of forums that unintentionally open themselves up to spam.

[trillianjedi]

Seems remarkably generous...

I would look at this from another direction and suggest that it's actually remarkably un-generous.

If you don't offer your community any form of support then you're not actually giving them anything. What most forum creators and owners give by way of their personal generosity is their time and knowledge. That's the value-add that builds community.

Allowing that knowledge to get buried in noise devalues it for the audience.

[Receptional Andy]

trillianjedi makes a key point that highlights the deciding factor in most useful forums.

That said, a truly uncensored forum simply shifts the responsibility to the audience to filter out noise. A different audience, and a different approach.

[matth]

Interesting. Sounds like trouble... but it would be interesting. At least until it gets out of hand.