Due to a mass of trolling, only established posters are able to post in non-newbie sections.
Spam is irrelevant, trolls are inflammatory. This was not an issue of deleting Viagra adds. By the Mods own admission this was an issue of removing unwanted, but on-topic discussion.
As far as I can tell, trolling is not "on topic." The topic here is Bitcoin, not teh lulz at the expense of people striving for a new economy.
Bitcoin.org forum discussion by it's very nature has a considerable effect on Bitcoin prices. It's not like anything clever was done or that journalists are not going to pick up on it- Bitcoin is hot and and they will jump on anything. Why give them something that juicy AND so negative to report on?
You mean like someone advertising "Beatings for Bitcoins?" Doesn't sound negative to me if you're into that, but what do you think Schumer would say? Or Weiner, once he's been through his therapy.
Temporary is a meaningless statement without a timeline, everything is temporary. The Patriot Act was temporary. The moderation team is seemingly quite happy with the current arrangement and is showing no particular sense of urgency to transition to a more open solution.
I've said it elsewhere and I'll say it again here now: Internet fora are not "Free Speech Zones", they are private clubs... not unlike dungeons. If you want to have a successful club then you have to have entrance requirements and standards of behavior.
The mods wanted to silence (rather than waste time converting, persuading or simply ignoring) Bitcoin detractors. One of these detractors main arguments was that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme that rewarded early adopters at the expense of newcommers. So the Mods solution to this argument was to effectively filter out the critical questions of newcomers and limit substantive forum dialog to early adopters.
Some questions come up so often it's clear the poster either 1) hasn't bothered learning the first thing about Bitcoin before spouting off accusations from ignorance, or 2) is actively trying to subvert the project. This is not a forum for subverting Bitcoin. I'm sure there's a space on 4chan or somethingawful that would be happy to hold those conversations.