A professional body (incorporated association) I pay quite a lot of money to belong to, sent out invitations to members to join a new Discord.com forum, and I responded by using my existing Discord login to join the private members only forum.
As I explored the 6 or 7 permanent topics, one called "ask the MPD committee" caught my attention as there was no explanation anywhere as to the meaning of MPD. While wondering what MPD stood for, I noticed others had posed this exact question half a dozen times in as many months (apparently) without any response from the admin (in fact it was answered just once).
Each time the question was put it was followed up by a handful of whimsical replies suggesting possible comic meanings. As is my want, I put MPD into google and it turns out that the #1 most frequent use of the term MPD is Multiple Personality Disorder. As I am a past long term member of an association advocating for the rights of people with psychiatric disability, including MPD, I thought nothing of demonstrating my own comic genius by providing an answer along the lines of :
However I very quickly got a message from one of the admins saying "I might have to delete your post - there have been complaints.". The post had already been deleted by the time I read this.
I naturally complained strongly about this denial of natural justice (ie. what were the complaints? ), and pointed out that censorship of my comment was a stigmatising act of discrimination against a comment associating myself with people having a particular psychiatric disability. (I absolutely saw this failure of the admins to explain their use of "MPD" as an opportunity for me to engage in destigmatising positive public inclusion of such people with my own whimsical poke at the admin's oversight. I also just happen to be a long term associate and advocate of the rights of such people - I appeared on SBS News in relation to the Australian Human Rights Commission National Inquiry into the Human Rights of People With Mental Illness circa 1992). Noteworthy of the willful negligence of the forum administrator is that I have never been informed of the nature of the complaints so that I might not repeat the same (alleged) mistake.
What I want to know is : What "complaints" could possibly and legitimately be made about my comment to warrant its censorship?
BTW, a secondary issue is that after complaining about this in the forum I was given a maximum 7 day ban for breaking the local forum rules , and permanently banned from the forum after that because I promptly complained in the forum of being "royally bullied" by the admin. The admin rules however contradict the association rules which require member disputes to follow a prescribed process of natural justice. In other words, an association run Discord.com forum rule cannot be used to permanently deny a member access to that forum without following the dispute processes of the incorporated association.
As I explored the 6 or 7 permanent topics, one called "ask the MPD committee" caught my attention as there was no explanation anywhere as to the meaning of MPD. While wondering what MPD stood for, I noticed others had posed this exact question half a dozen times in as many months (apparently) without any response from the admin (in fact it was answered just once).
Each time the question was put it was followed up by a handful of whimsical replies suggesting possible comic meanings. As is my want, I put MPD into google and it turns out that the #1 most frequent use of the term MPD is Multiple Personality Disorder. As I am a past long term member of an association advocating for the rights of people with psychiatric disability, including MPD, I thought nothing of demonstrating my own comic genius by providing an answer along the lines of :
"MPD stands for Multiple Personality Disorder. The MPD committee does not actually do very much. It just acts as a placebo to help the multiple personalities think they are being well organised so that they can all get alone together."
I thought this positively cast statement of inclusivity contrasted brilliantly against the generally belligerent forums "Discord.com" was created to host (it started as a forum for computer games enthusiasts. The appropriateness of a professional association using Discord is another question entirely.)However I very quickly got a message from one of the admins saying "I might have to delete your post - there have been complaints.". The post had already been deleted by the time I read this.
I naturally complained strongly about this denial of natural justice (ie. what were the complaints? ), and pointed out that censorship of my comment was a stigmatising act of discrimination against a comment associating myself with people having a particular psychiatric disability. (I absolutely saw this failure of the admins to explain their use of "MPD" as an opportunity for me to engage in destigmatising positive public inclusion of such people with my own whimsical poke at the admin's oversight. I also just happen to be a long term associate and advocate of the rights of such people - I appeared on SBS News in relation to the Australian Human Rights Commission National Inquiry into the Human Rights of People With Mental Illness circa 1992). Noteworthy of the willful negligence of the forum administrator is that I have never been informed of the nature of the complaints so that I might not repeat the same (alleged) mistake.
What I want to know is : What "complaints" could possibly and legitimately be made about my comment to warrant its censorship?
BTW, a secondary issue is that after complaining about this in the forum I was given a maximum 7 day ban for breaking the local forum rules , and permanently banned from the forum after that because I promptly complained in the forum of being "royally bullied" by the admin. The admin rules however contradict the association rules which require member disputes to follow a prescribed process of natural justice. In other words, an association run Discord.com forum rule cannot be used to permanently deny a member access to that forum without following the dispute processes of the incorporated association.
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