Closure of the Pop Inn

It has not gone without notice that the closure of the Pop Inn has caused some upset so it seems suitable to explain some issues here.

First, whilst the Muppets was initially created to permit some 'near the knuckle' jokes and posts, the Pop Inn seems to have been taking this latitude too far and as a result the thread has been generated far too many reports and some of most unseemly nature.

Secondly, it was considered that the nature of the thread was giving new members and guests a bad impression of GC overall, especially when it was often appearing in the New Posts listing.

Thirdly it was considered that the whole essence of the thread as within the Muppets seemed that some members thought this gave them licence to go to extremes and they therefore were immune to the general rules of the forum.

Since we moved to the vBulletin format, the tools to be more proactive about enforcing the rules has been made available and this accompanied the issuing of more detailed rules and a protocol of actions for breaking them. These can be found here.

Amongst these rules are the following

5. NO BYPASSING THE PROFANITY FILTER OR USING PROFANE LANGUAGE. Despite the modern tendency to make normal use of certain ‘cuss’ or swear words or other insulting or potentially insulting words or terminology, their use on this forum will be closely scrutinized and moderated according to staff consensus. Posts may be edited or even temporarily deleted until a decision is made.

10. NO DISCUSSION OF MOD ACTIONS: Mod actions may not be discussed within topics threads.

11. NO PORNOGRAPHY: includes any and all pornographic, sexually offensive, sexually explicit, or objectifying material or language. Simple rule. Any sexually suggestive images will immediately be deleted and the member banned.

All of these rules have been violated in the afformentioned thread and as a consequence of it closure. Please be assured that this new style of moderation, being more strict as we should have been in the past, will continue.

This post is for information only so is not being left open for discussion. If anyone has any serious issues they may pm me or Nathan (Webmaster) with their input.