A few thoughts:
Peter, I think you and I have been posting to CADO about the same amount of time (8 years), or possibly you have been doing so longer than I. I don't ever remember a single insult to anyone coming from your illustrious pen. I can't imagine why you would be afraid to post here. Mike, the good natured humor in most of your posts comes through as kidding rather than insult. There are those exceptions, however. Let's just say you have a foul ball or two. Mark, I haven't always agreed with your posts, but I can't remember them being offensive or rude.
And...a thought regarding the nature and definition of censorship. This is the United States and everyone has a right to say what he or she wants to say. But no one has the right to be heard or to be published. If I wrote a book and sent it to Doubleday, and they decided not to publish it, that would not be censorship. Doubleday has the right not to publish it. I could not sue Doubleday saying I was censored by them. Roy, as the owner of this site, has the right to allow what he wishes to be published on this site. He has decided there have been enough insults, threats of lawsuits, sniping, and other embarrassing types of behavior on the site and has clearly spelled out what these are.
I weighed carefully the decision to help with moderation of the site for a couple reasons. The main reason is that I want to work and make as much money as I can in the field of catadjusting. I love the job. I love the lifestyle. I love the adventure of it all. CADO is one of the places where we can show those who may hire us what we know and ask questions, the answers to which make us more knowledgeable and, therefore, employable. CADO is where I got my very first independent gig and learned how to contact other potential employers. Consequently, it is a rare year I do not work 40 weeks or more out of the year. And, it gives me as many weeks off every year as I choose to take, so my avocations do not suffer. I care about how our profession looks to the rest of the insurance industry and to the world as a whole. I've never thought of CADO as my personal playground and never wanted to be a bully in that playground.
I knew, however, that I would draw some heat if I took this moderator gig. Very few of us are Teflon, but I've been pretty close. I got called a name for the first time this week - in eight years of posting. So, Donnie G., to you goes that dubious honor. At least the name wasn't "scumbag" or "idiot". (And there was that one poison private email about seven years ago). When I post to CADO I don't want to be called a name, or be belittled, or be insulted. I have a reputation in the industry and I want to keep it. I deal with contractors or other adjusters or insurance executives who ask, "Are you the Steve Ebner who posts to catadjuster.org?" And when I say, "Yes, that's me." I say it with a modicum of pride because I know that almost all my posts have some level of thought behind them. Even the Hoober Goober poetry was designed to teach something about the potential pitfalls and life of a catadjuster. I don't know as much as some; but I know more than others.
Last year I talked to two heads of the cat departments of two major employers in the field. One said, "I used to live and die by what was written in the CADO forums. But there is so much chatter, that I don't pay a lot of attention any more.&uot; Roy knows the person who said that. He works with him regularly. The head of the cat department for the company for which I usually work threatened (tongue in cheek) to cut me off when I wore my catadjuster.org shirt in to the office. Some thoughtless comments on the CADO board a few years back led to a sour taste that is still lingering among the entire cat staff there. They were actually accused of racketeering by someone who couldn't even spell the word "lawsuit". I appreciate the humor found in many posts, even a modicum of kidding around. I don't appreciate insults and generally juvenile behavior in those of us who are professionals, in the business for the long haul.
Roy has posted a few simple terms of usage. That is his right. I'll even admit to not having read all of them until this past weekend. It turns out I had violated one of them a couple of times. I won't be cutting and pasting any more emails into my posts, but I'm not going to remove the ones I already put in because it's important that people know how one of our comrades is doing after falling off a roof, and the other contains valuable information. Roy can remove them if he must, but I won't.
This has been sort of a rambling post, and it has taken up enough of my claim writing time. So back to work for me. My nose is getting raw from the grindstone.