Matt, I find myself in disagreement with several people I like and admire (and at least one that I don't) who posted on this topic. To me, arguing that the board moderator should not delete troublesome posts is nonsense (liberal nonsense, at that).
I expressed a view on this topic in message #22570 on this board, namely ...
"In any case, someone has to rap the knuckles of those overzealous individuals who go too far. You do it by putting people in jail, but I think you'd like to nip more of the problems in the bud. To do that, someone has to be willing to help the transgressors see the error of their ways ... before you have to step in. One way to do that is to take excessive, repetitive, offensive material off the board before it infects others."
Virtually by definition, what is offensive to one person may not be so to another. That is a fact of life and you can't rule it out of existence. If there is a given in this scenario, it is that the rappee will not agree with the rapping. I'm truly sorry about that, but I prefer it to the kind of mayhem that ensues if the moderator doesn't exercise some level of control.
It is possible that some of these problems can be worked out with the moderator. If not, get used to it. It's better than the alternative.
Fred