Please allow me to play the Devil's Advocate.
This discussion has moved from "Can an owner of a Journal of a Market thread, or Journal be allowed to request an Admin/Mod to remove a post that they prefer not to have" to the slightly seperate topic of "freedom of speech".
Freedom of speech is an interesting subject on forums and online discussion locations.
In theory, freedom of speech is fine - no one is afraid to ask 'dumb' questions.
But free speech, mixed with people in general, and "expected behaviors" is no longer true free speech. The rules we already have in place already limit free speech somewhat, to accomadate expected behaviors.
This forum was originaly designed as a place where people could freely ask, learn, and share.
In most forums, people expect that they will not be responded to in a rude or a highly condescending fashion. Those same people in return understand that they are expected to not reply in such a fashion either.
Let's face it - this forum, and almost all online discussion platforms - are handicapped. We rely solely on words and phrases. I can not tell if someone is sitting calmly in a recliner sipping tea, or if they are ranting, waving their fist in the air while trying to pound out a message on the keyboard. How someone means to come across when they type something, is possibly not going to be received in the same fashion simply because we cannot hear a person's tone of voice, see their facial expression, or see their body language.
For example, there is a world of difference between the phrases, "No, no, what on earth were you thinking?" and the phrase, "I think I see the problem, would you mind trying this...". Both observe freedom of speech and both convey that a mistake was made. One is a bit more suited to a friendly forum.
How do we hope that people using this forum will behave? How does that apply to free speech? I will let you think that over.
Back to original topic:
Can an owner of a Journal of a Market thread, or Journal be allowed to request an Admin/Mod to remove a post that they prefer not to have?
Oddly enough, the current rules already cover several instances of where we can remove threads. Sorry, Drew, I know you were after an actual simple rule so you wouldn't have to decide in each case. Most people tend to ignore things until it hits their "limit", a person's tolerance limit varies with every person. Which means each case will be slightly different. I don't see any way to create a simple rule that can address a wide variety of possible situations.
Currently, if such a request comes in, and none of the current rules cover it, then the admin and mods tend to discuss the request in relation with the situation and it usually ends up falling under rule #1. We do tend to move those requested posts to a new topic so people can still discuss it to their heart's content.
Anyone else have any comments or thoughts on our current system?
Rules are often like tetter totters. People are usually on both sides and often the only way to come to a compromise is to try to "balance" the tetter totter. How one balances it to keep the most people happy, is never an easy task.