mjpb, re your post of Monday, 14 February 2011, at 12:10:36 PM, and the points on which you seek confirmation:

1. "So the original [Muehlenberg] article immediately
resulted in financial pressure/withdrawal of advertising
from ANZ (although the action was taken on their behalf)
as originally believed[?]"

So GrahamY has appeared to say here on 12 December 2010: http://www.ambitgambit.com/2010/12/12/human-rights-awards-chris-sidoti-pauline-hanson-and-on-line-opinion/ from his text link 'an initial blog piece' in paragraph 13 of his article. Graham's words were: "... we are currently under attack from a number of gay activists because we dared to publish [on 25 November 2010] this piece by Bill Muehlenberg ... And by attack I mean attempting to intimidate me, sponsors or advertisers." I read 'intimidate' as meaning 'we'll dry up your advertising if you don't ...'.

As to what the demand being made of OLO may have been, my speculation is that it was 'sign up to the IASH Australia code of conduct or else ...'.

2. "... supporters of the action against the original
article such as Bolger relied upon Shintaro's post to
demonstrate that the original article was vilificatory ..."

Essentially yes, except that I am not alleging that Bolger was one of the activists. I am taking it that as news editor for the SX site he was simply reporting what a source had told him.

3. "They believed that the action was triggered by
Shintaro's post."

I am taking your word 'They' to mean ANZ. My answer is, "no, not quite". Rather I see it as being that when questioned (by Pearson) as to the reason for the withdrawal of advertising, that that was the reason given to ANZ by its 'automatic' advertising placement service for a decision in reality made, or threatened, at an earlier time by that service without ANZ's knowledge.

The deception of ANZ of which I speculated earlier being one by its placement service as to a decision being taken that was in the interests of an agenda perhaps separate to that of the best interests of its advertising client.

Thanks for the clarification. There is an interesting story behind the story.

mjpb,

There may well yet be an even more "interesting story behind the story".

You are to be congratulated for what now stands as a partial witness to the circumstances in which the opening poster to this topic, Shintaro, was seemingly suspended from posting to OLO.

Shintaro's deleted post of Monday, 14 February 2011 at 10:50:06 AM was an haiku to the effect of 'My account has been suspended: so much for freedom of speech on OLO', however that could have been expressed in three lines of five, seven, and five syllables respectively.

There earlier had been another post of Shintaro's, posted after Cornflower's post of Monday, 14 February 2011 at 1:26:20 AM, removed without any moderation notation, and it did look, on the face of it, as if Shintaro's profile had been deleted from OLO. It appears Shintaro, too, jumped to the conclusion that his profile had been deleted, and posted a test(?) parting shot seemingly revelatory as to his real purpose in starting the discussion.

Shintaro's haiku format may well have been "simply a way to force [himself] to be economical with text, and ... stick to the point", but it is equally possible that it may have been adopted as one of the few means of disguising a literary style that might otherwise show through in any fuller engagement with discussion upon the Forum. Cornflower's concern expressed in her post of Monday, 14 February 2011, at 1:26:20 AM, as to "anonymous free site[s] such as hotmail, gmail and so on" providing a cloak as to the originating IP address of any post or poster is, I suggest, not fully founded. Moderators can trace the origins of posts, it is just that it takes resources to do this, and therefore has to be worthwhile.

What has every appearance of being a sustained attack on the moderation, and indeed the very survival, of the Forum, may have well recently made such effort in the case of suspected sock-puppets worthwhile, Shintaro being one to pay the price.

I'm not going to get into any "conspiracy theories" or - politics,
(way over my head) - instead I'd like to simply comment on what
Freedom of Speech should possibly mean... I found these few quotes
from some of my old assignments, and on the web. I thought they may be appropriate.

A few thoughts by Milton Meltzer, "Four Who Locked Horns with the
Censor."

"Somebody in France wanted to put Voltaire in jail. Somebody in Franco's Spain sent Lorca, their greatest poet to death before a firing squad. Somebody in Germany under Hitler burned the books, drove Thomas Mann into exile, and led their Jewish scholars to the gas chamber. Somebody in Greece long ago gave Socrates the hemlock to drink. Somebody in the USSR banned Solzhenitsyn and Pasternak. Somebody at Golgotha erected a cross and somebody drove nails into the hands of Christ. Somebody spat on his garments. No one remembers their names."

Or to put it another way:

Pier Tyler wrote this poem, January 08, 2007:

"Now is not the time to be silent
Exercise your right to speak freely
For that dependent, latchkey, smart,
But a baby having a baby child or teen
For that single mum, whose work is never done
Educated, yet been through domestic violence
For that disabled worker, who can't give 110 per cent
But when he could, he did. And still has vivid dreams
For that Veteran POW, whose braved wars and rumours of wars
Those who came home and those who didn't
For that elderly man or woman who still has
something vital
To give, through work or to volunteer, who are often overlooked
For those endangered species whose purpose may not be understood
But are just as important as our earthly purpose
For all others who cannot speak up for themselves
Your voice, your freedom of speech is needed
Not because the Constitution says so
But because it's good common sense."

Anyway, people, have a great two weeks - I'm going on leave (tomorrow) and won't be back until the 25th Feb.

The attacks on moderation happen on all sites but an open site like OLO could expect to have more risks to manage.

Maybe you or others can suggest more efficient and effective controls? My experience is limited, the few sites I subscribe to apart from OLO are very narrow and specialist in focus.

Cornflower:

There are controls already in place that most people find quite adequate. The "X" button is there for all to use - (if someone finds a particular post really objectionable). Which is not all that common. Otherwise - one can always simply scroll past and not read any given post. As for asking for explanations concerning moderation decisions - of course all posters are entitled to ask - however in my opinion - this should be done privately and with discretion, preferably via a private email and not on a public forum.