Should a discussion in violation be put up to vote?

Discussions are deleted by MyLot and ONLY by MyLot. They are NOT deleted simply because they have been reported. MyLot staff must manually check the discussion and agree (or disagree) with the report, according to the published Guidelines. Discussions may, of course, also be deleted without being reported, if Admin spot the discussion and see fit to delete it. Whether a discussion stays or not has nothing to do with it's popularity or whether other users vote for it. The sole and final decision rests with MyLot staff. That is clearly stated in the Terms and I see no evidence whatsoever that MyLot will change their position on that. I am not usually one to automatically accept (and obey) rules without question but, where MyLot is concerned, the Terms and Guidelines are clearly stated and we are expected to have read them. MyLot have also made it quite clear in the past that they intend to stand by whatever conditions they have made and so there is very little to be gained by questioning their basic policies. One may as well just accept the way the site works and save one's breath!

You mention politics as an example, I would think a vote would turn in to a popularity contest! It would only reflect the Red and the Blue. So the population of the site would always be the same vote, until the political climate changes! It would create more separation and stifle responses! tdemex

This is a great discussion idea,and I am sure everyone has thought discussions that violate the mylot guidelines,and I am sure there are discussions that get deleted with very few reports which does not seem completely fair if you ask me,and if they put discussions that violate guidelines u

I don't think this concept will work, as no one would want to delete a discussion. What happens is that whenever a discussion or post is deleted, all the responders and discussion creator loses points and sometimes also earnings. And if there comes a situation when people have to vote, most of them would get scared of responding to discussions and thus may result in the loss of myLot as well as its members. So its best if we let myLot administrator decide which discussions to delete and to keep.

A political discussio wouldn't get deleted for just a difference of opinion. If certain responses were abusive, then they may be deleted, or if the discussion topic was inflammatory or derogatory to certain people because of race, gender or religion, then it would be deleted. However, as Mylot stress that we shouldn't negatively rate a post just because of differing opinions, I don't see that they would delete for that reason. Voting on deletion could set a dangerous precedent, particularly in the 'money' sections. Many of the people who post in there see nothing wrong in posting referral links, although this is a definite violation, and if they were able to vote on deletion, we could well find some boards were merely spam. I think we have to leave the final decision with admin, although I understand the reasoning behind your discussion.

If we are staying within the rules of the site, I see no reason why they would delete these discussions. Where is our freedom of speech in that act?

Unfortunately, there is never "majority rule" in a privately owned forum and that's what myLot is. As owlwings mentioned already, all moderation decisions belong the the owners of the site. Moderation, whether people think so or not, is an objective process. A discussion is not deleted because someone doesn't like or agree with someone else's opinion - it's deleted because somewhere in its content, the owner's stated guidelines have been broken. Abuse reports and the like only highlight to the owner or moderation team what someone feels is objectionable content. To act on the report or not is a choice based on a verifiable violation. Having said that, though, I don't think a voting process would work. I think it would be subject to both harassment and favoritism. While moderators on websites are contracted to be objective, members would be free to vote however they chose. That would open the door to vote against people or ideas they don't like or always support a member they do like without necessarily taking into account the discussion matter at all (you can *tell* people they have to read an entire discussion but there's no guarantee that they would). Differences of opinion should never be the reason for a discussion to be deleted. Debate and discussion are the meat and potatoes of a forum. Many people perceive that moderators remove discussions "because people are arguing" or "because they don't agree with the position being taken." More often than not, heated debates get deleted because people stop debating the issue and start debating the individual. This results in either personal attacks, harassment (of an individual or group) or inciting others to take a stand against a specific identified member and all of those will generally break any website's guidelines. People forget, at times, that there's no grey area in moderation either. It's not ok to bend a guideline some of the time (i.e., "because I didn't mean it that way") and not ok another time. Murky never works.