Seems it disappeared. Found a link to redirect me but then I get an access denied message.

I have the same issue.

From what I learned last night on IRC Syn and a few others decided to remove it for their own reasons. So its gone, nothing to be done about it.

Seems good to me. It was nothing but troll (read Hellion) ego space. I am a little sad I can't read over and laugh at them anymore though.

edit:
Decided to be less mean.

As much as I agree with Bauren (that was the less mean version?!), it provided a useful outlet for IC ranting that really doesn't belong anywhere else. I expect one of the difficulties was the amount of time Erek and others had to spend refereeing the forum, and explaining what's IC and what's not.

On the plus side, I won't have to edit my last post. (:8,)

EDIT:
Since my post wasn't really a question, I'll ask this: Shouldn't an event that required the removal of an entire forum be cause for a Sim news report?

Now I'm in compliance.

now who is trolling who there Bauren

The area had its merits and gave insight to galactic politics. Despite the misgivings of the ability of the previous moderator, that moderator was determined to enforce the rules to the letter, which is something you need to do in that open environment.

While it was up, I enjoyed it. I'm sad to see it go and I'm sure it won't be back.

What were the exact reasons it was taken down for? (answer here or in SIMNews thank you!) Perhaps the design can be improved upon.

Beause a Admin, a Dev and a Mod didnt liked it, and thus by default. Nobody likes it.

SWC will never be run by democracy, neria. You are very much in the wrong place if that is your desire.

For the record, the decision to remove the forum was not mine (although I wholeheartedly agree with it personally), but the rationale that I saw is as follows:

The forum was, over the majority of its threads, used as an outlet for "legal" trolling and the posting of ooc attacks and opinions under the thin veil of an ic post. It required heavier moderation on a regular basis than any other swc forum. It was created on a probationary basis and was deemed a failure. It was also considered unnecessary because players can interact ic in the meeting Hall if they wish to get together, or in scenarios or irc channels, and general forum discussions of an ic nature can be held on faction forums. Any ic responses to ic affairs can and should be posted on the gns otherwise. A troll baiting forum is not desired on an official swc condoned basis.

Forum additions and removals are very rarely posted on the sim news. Doubt it really matters if this one is but I guess Erek would do it if he thought it that important.

I do not think it that important.

Trollbait as the area was, I kind of enjoyed the content as a whole, as I'm sure many a combiner did. That said, I figure it wasn't that bad of an addition all things considered.

I liked reading it from time to time.

Personally I found the forum a bit of a blackhole. I hated the place, but couldn't stop reading some of the absurd threads in there. (There were maybe one or two that I did not find rediculous or trollbaiting.) And from an RP standpoint, I did not feel that my character would go on some online message exchange to debate random topics with other sentients across the galaxy for fun...so it didn't make sense for me to even post there.

I agree; that's why I never posted either. My character doesn't strike me as someone who would spend any amount of time reading holonet forums, much less posting on them, unless something particularly important turned up. It was a bit odd to me to see government leaders and political figures essentially hanging around the reddit of star wars or something, swapping insults with teens. But those are just personal motives and up to everyone to RP their own character how they feel it most reasonable. It can still be extended to the Meeting Hall, but would simply require an actual location and the RP of one's character rather than making forum posts into the void.

“ It can still be extended to the Meeting Hall, but would simply require an actual location and the RP of one's character rather than making forum posts into the void.

- Loki
 ”

This. 100% this. I love this comment.

It's always nice to see elitist views win out. Well done. Maybe we can treat combat in the same way because I don't personally see my character being the type to hold a blaster so it must be true of everyone else.

Whilst the use of the meeting hall is a possibility it isn't a fitting replacement, I mean you could use the same argument of not being the type to socialize to justify not engaging there and really any epidemic of "trolling" would still have to be moderated there, so why don't we just get rid of that too before any heavy moderations take place there?

You may need to work on your reading comprehension as you appear to be confusing people's personal views with the stated actual reasons. You may also want to take note that if you do have a valid suggestion to make, your antagonistic tone will prevent it from being given consideration. If your goal is to attack others, you can do so in DM rather than in the question centre.

I'm not sure if my last post in there was one of the ones considered OOC attacks under "the thin veil of an ic post," because the post was pretty insulting and may have seemed trolly, but I'd like to point out that it was completely IC. When writing the post I was thinking the whole way through the way my character would say it, and even changed some things because the phrasing was sort of OOC. I never posted there because my character didn't care enough to post in 99% of the topics (and I also didn't want to fill the whole forum with insulting language, which is the way my character talks IC), but that last topic I considered relevant enough that my character would probably go out of his way to say something.

Just wanted to clear that up, since I see how it could have been mistaken for OOC trolling, but it WAS completely IC...my character just doesn't get along with people very well.

I don't know that anything of yours was; I was just speaking in very broad terms because there were discussions about the situation for many months, not just pertaining to recent material, where it was clear that OOC opinions were being expressed and IC language was being used to insult the players behind the characters. I wasn't really paying attention to any of the more recent discussion about the one or two ongoing threads at the end since I was at work all the time, but I never heard your name come up, in any case. Regardless, it was never just one or two people; it was an overall forum setup that effectively made this progression of events inevitable.

Well if it had been an admin internal discussion for 'many months' then a warning could have sufficed first. May have worked. Warnings are very useful tools. Kill hammer is all too used in this game. At least there was a solid explanation this time.