I have just noticed these threads have disappeared - WHY?

I feel I must come to Cyclone's defence in the case of these threads. I fail to see how a thread that seeks to gauge the ethnicity of the Forum's users is, in anyway, a reason for Moderators / Users to become "nervous". My advice to those who don't agree with or want to take part in the survey: don't vote. Cyclone has posted an interesting poll and I for one want to see the results!

Furthermore, I fail to see how simply asking a question about ethnicity can cause someone to feel "nervous". (as was posted by Mod. JoeP If we seek to create a society where everybody feels valued regardless of their ethnicity then we can't continue to see it as some sort of "taboo". I don't think this is an issue about moderation either; there will no doubt be people who have a genuine interest in this and from what I've seen of the rules it does not break them.

As for anonymity - this really isn't an issue. Lots of us (myself and JoeP included) post under our full names so we can't be that concerned about our privacy. If we can't discuss our age, sex, sexual orientation, shoe-size, ethnicity, beliefs or even the area we live what can we then discuss? The weather??

Can we please have a viable explanation for the deletion of these polls?

I didnt realise that they had been deleted.
I know that my original post has been moved to ask an expert but I was interested in the results also of the polls

Me too.

I thought Cyclone was merely trying to ascertain some ideas to back up questions raised in an earlier thread.

The results would have course not have been any use as they weren't really representative ;) but it was interesting, fun, and was generating some lively debate.

(The debate hadn't even become political, that must be worthy of credit on it's own).

Ah well. Just wondered.

:confused:

I have only just logged back on, and whilst I didn't feel it appropriate to vote, I think there are far worse things being posted without being censored.

However there may have been something we missed that caused it to be taken away. Mods ? :confused: over to you!

Don't look at me.
The fact that 60 people had voted on them must have meant that they were interesting enough to get people to open them.
And it's easy enough to ignore a thread you're not interested in...

Agreed with above. I took part in those polls as I was interested in the results...

I haven't mentioned any of my thoughts about this forum before but I noticed sometimes it certainly errs on side of over PC and gets over moderated... :suspect:

Maybe someone didn't want people to know that we are mostly white-bred, 20 to 30 year old, males?

....and as this is supposed to be an online community I'd like to know who my neighbours are!

I'd just started to fill in the threads, reached the ethnicity one and found that I didn't have permission. I found the results to be fascinating and not in the least bit threatening. This is the sort of stuff that people who are trying to get funding to run projects use. Restore the threads!!!!:rant:

Originally posted by Cyclone
Don't look at me.
The fact that 60 people had voted on them must have meant that they were interesting enough to get people to open them.
And it's easy enough to ignore a thread you're not interested in...

I wasn't having a dig at you Cyclone, I am just mystified as to why that of yours and the "how famous is the forum" thread have dissapeared. I am sure one of our friendly Mods will soon pick up on our interest.

Originally posted by owdlad
I wasn't having a dig at you Cyclone, I am just mystified as to why that of yours and the "how famous is the forum" thread have dissapeared. I am sure one of our friendly Mods will soon pick up on our interest.
The thread has been moved to Ask an Expert but unsure as to where the poll has gone to

I wish people would check before assuming the worst. The polls have been removed temporarily - cyclone and myself have already exchanged e-mails about this. I really like his idea, so much so that I'm working with him on a more comprehensive/feature rich system.

Watch this space.

PS. As ever, feel free to contact us through the proper channels for the quickest/most accurate response. That would be the 'contact us' page btw. Also, in general it's best to give us a few hours to provide further information - I only took the polls away about 5 minutes ago and although I appreciate they are important - so is a lot of other things that happen in a working day!